Pieces of Him (9 page)

He looks me up and down, probably trying to figure me out. Probably wondering why this strange girl is taking a sudden interest in his life and offering her help. “Thanks, but this is temporary,” he finally says.

I tilt my head and narrow my eyes in confusion. “What’s temporary?”

“This,” he says jutting his chin in the direction of the baby. “He won’t be with me much longer.”

I feel like I’ve just walked into the middle of a private discussion, and I’ve missed all of the pertinent information. “What do you mean? Why won’t he be with you?”

“I'm looking into adoption for him.”

Okay. This is my cue to leave. To step away from the jerk of a man standing in front of me and forget what I’ve heard, but I can’t. It’s like driving by a car wreck. I NEED to know. “Why?”

He shrugs his shoulders at me. Shrugs, like this is some simple decision about a minor inconvenience, and I swear I want to punch him in the face right now. Knock some fucking sense into his super hot head. What is the matter with him?

“Because I didn’t sign up to be a single dad.”

“I see.” Nodding my head trying, but most likely failing, to hide the disgust I’m feeling right now.

“You think I’m a terrible person.”

“Yes.” I answer honestly because … well, because he’s been brutally and inappropriately honest with me thus far. I figure he won’t even flinch at my candor.

His jaw clenches and he juts out his chin. “Thanks for not sugarcoating it,” he spits out. Is he angry with me? He’s a frickin apartment destroyer, deadbeat dad psycho, and he has the nerve to get angry with
me
?

“He’s your son.” I remind him of a fact he’s already aware of, placing my hand on my hips and glaring at him.

“I know that.”

“That girl I saw, she wanted him, right?” I don’t know why I’m asking; I just feel like I need to reason with him. I get the sense that maybe his fear of being a single dad to an infant is behind his decision. He said,
I didn’t sign up to be a single dad.
He never said he didn’t want to be a dad, he didn’t say he didn’t love his son or that he thought he would be better off without him. Maybe he just needs someone to put this into perspective for him.

“Yeah, but she’s gone.” His irritation with me is clear. I don’t give a fuck.

“Yeah, she’s gone. She died for him. She died so that you could have him. It was a gift. The most precious fucking gift you could ever receive and you’re throwing it away because you don’t feel like being a single dad?”

“I didn’t ask for this,” he says through clenched teeth.

“He didn’t either,” I half yell pointing my finger at the sleeping baby. “But he’s here now.”

“I don’t have time for this shit,” he says blowing me off as he picks up the carrier. “Thanks for stopping by, but like I said before, I have to go.”

“Yeah. Maybe you
should
give him away,” I mumble as I turn and walk toward my door.”

“What did you say?” he calls after me. I turn and take two steps toward him again.

“I said, maybe you should give him away. A kid should have a parent who loves him, not someone who can’t be bothered to love him, someone who’ll just tolerate him. That beautiful baby deserves more than that.” I deliver my parting blow, walk into my apartment, close the door behind me, and burst into tears. It may seem stupid, but I cry for that girl who I saw happily entering that dickhead’s apartment last week.

I cry because she was probably so excited to be a mother, to have her baby and start her family and that promise was taken away from her.

I cry because she’ll never get to see him grow. Instead, she had to leave him with a father who can’t even appreciate what a miracle he is.

I cry for that little baby because I know exactly what it’s like to have a parent who is just so fucking,
FUCKING
selfish.

I cry for myself as much as I cry for them, and I hope that precious little boy will get a better outcome than I did.

Max~

All this stress must finally be catching up with me. Something is obviously wrong with me. What kind of fucked-up person shares all that kind of shit with a poor, unsuspecting woman who was just trying to be nice? Me. That’s who! In my defense, all that shit just came falling out of my mouth. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I secure the car seat into its base and get in the car. Pulling out of the parking lot, I head over to the crematorium for the small service planned for Keri. I think that maybe this is the reason why I lost it on Emelia. She caught me just as I was getting ready to leave so I could attend this thing. And this … this is the last thing I want to be doing right now. Before now, I could just be in denial about the whole situation. I could tell myself that Keri wasn’t really gone, but this kind of makes it real. This gives it a finality that not even I can deny. I guess her death is just a hard truth for me to accept. It’s not like I ever loved her, and I probably never would have ... not really. Not in the way she would have wanted, and I couldn’t tell you why, couldn’t put my finger on it. She was smart, beautiful, and was good in bed, but she didn’t excite me. Well, obviously, she excited me enough, but I mean the everyday kind of way. She was comfortable in her little apartment that she had to share and comfortable with her job that would never give her financial security. The only thing I ever saw her work hard for was Xander, and at times, me. I think that if she had showed that amount of passion for the other areas of her life then maybe I would have been able to see her differently. It doesn’t mean I didn’t care for her in my own way; maybe I did even love her a little in the only way I could. But I knew from the start she would never be the one. Not that I ever put much thought or effort into finding the one. That doesn’t interest me at all, especially now in the middle of the shit storm I’m in.

Now, that Emelia chick … she was a fucking spitfire. She’d known me all of five minutes before she was giving me grief for shit she had no clue about. She had no problem getting in my face and telling me exactly what she thought of me. I underestimated her, that’s for sure. At first glance, she seemed timid, unsure of herself, afraid even, but once she got angry, it was like a whole different girl. Her looks only help to sweeten the deal. Yeah, I noticed, I’m a guy. What do you expect? She was wearing just a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but she could have been wearing a trash bag for all I’d care. She was, by far, one of the prettiest women I’d ever seen. Her lips caught my attention first. The gloss on them made them appear pink, full, and completely fuckable. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue, like the color of the sky just before a storm rolls in. The kind of eyes you could get lost in, be hypnotized by them. The way her wavy brown hair fell wildly over her shoulder made me want to reach out and grab it. She was definitely sweet from head to toe, but I can’t let myself go there. First off because I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with the kid. I know I told her I was putting him up for adoption, but I was still pissed from my lack of sleep last night. Second, after the run-in we just had, I’m sure she hates my guts. Whatever, you shouldn’t shit where you sleep anyway, and she’s a little too close to home for comfort.

I pull into the almost empty parking lot of the crematorium taking the spot closest to the front door and shutting off the ignition. I angle out of the car and make quick work of getting Xander and heading inside. The owner greets me at the door, fills me in on how the service will work, and then leads me to the room where Keri is. Jack and Rachel are there, as well as some of Keri’s co-workers and her roommates. It hits me that this is the first time I’ll see her since the moment they kicked me out of her delivery room. It then hits me that this is the last time I’ll ever see her, and more importantly, it hits me that this is the last time Xander will ever be in his mother’s presence. There’s something stifling about that fact, the thought of it almost unbearable. He’ll never know what it’s like to be held in her arms, to be loved by her the way only a mother can love a child.

I’m given a wide berth as I place the carrier down and unbuckle it, slowly picking Xander up and holding him against my chest. All eyes are on me, I can feel them, but I don’t care as I walk up to the open casket. It takes me a second to find the courage to do it, but I finally look down at her. I feel an overwhelming amount of pain in my chest as I take her in, a desperation that I can’t tamp down. A desire to watch her beautiful eyes flutter with signs of life fills me, a need to see her open her mouth to tell me about what’s going on in her world. It kills me. Fucking. Kills. Me that she can’t do that, that she’s never going to be able to do that. I hate it that she’s gone, that all that’s left of her is this cold, pale, lifeless body that doesn’t even come close to the stunning girl she really was.

I breathe through the stinging in my eyes and through the mixture of sadness and anger that I feel. I graze her cheek with the back of my hand, and at the coldness of it, I lose my battle with control. I feel the tear fall, not caring if it makes me appear as any less of a man. This shit is brutal, and I’ve held myself together as long as I possibly could.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” I tell her in a cracked whisper. I hold Xander close, looking down at him and then back at her. “This is him, this is Xander. You did good, baby. You did so good. He’s doing great.”

I wait for something; I don’t know what it is … a sign maybe, something to let me know she can hear me, but it never comes. Even still, I have to believe she knows. I have to believe she can see her boy and take peace in that. That need to make sure she’ll be at peace is overpowering, and at that moment, I’d do or say anything to make sure she gets it. Emelia’s words from earlier come back to me.

She died for him. She died so that you could have him. It was a gift; it was the most precious fucking gift you could ever receive.

“I’ll take care of him, Keri,” I tell her softly. “I swear to you. You didn’t die for nothing. I’ll take care of him. I’ll make sure he knows how much you loved him.” My voice cracks as a new batch of tears come. “I’ll tell him all about you, baby.”

Strong hands grab my shoulder as Rachel comes up next to me and carefully extracts Xander from my arms. The moment she does, I grip the edges of the casket and fight against giving it a shove of defiance. My very own way of antagonizing death, of saying fuck off. Instead, I take a deep breath and gently shrug my shoulders letting Jack know to release me. The air in here is suffocating, and the minute his hands are off me, I turn, avoiding the eyes on me, and walk out of there. I make it outside and walk to my car resting my hands on the hood and trying to regain my composure. I never thought I’d have that kind of reaction to seeing Keri like that. Then again, I’ve never seen anyone like that, but that’s not it. This was the mother of my son.

She died so that you could have him. It was a gift; it was the most precious fucking gift you could ever receive.

I get it now. I get what Emelia was trying to tell me, and as much as I want to deny the immensity of all that’s happened, I can’t do that anymore. Keri sacrificed herself for Xander. She gave up her own life so he could have his, and she gave that to me. She gave me a son, whether I wanted him or not. Whether I was ready for him or not, he’s here now. He’s here, and I have to give him the life she wanted for him. That’s my responsibility. It’s the only way to give her back what she gave me. It’s fucked up and pisses me off, but I don’t have a choice. Xander stays with me. Come hell or high water, he stays with me.