LITMIR.BIZ

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let’s get you something to eat.”

      After fixing Jamel’s dinner and then settling him down for bed, I spent the next few hours alternating between jumping up to look out the window at every sound, and checking the phone to make sure it was working.

      Every noise made me think it was Taylor returning home.

      He didn’t.

      And I thought I would go out of my mind with worry. By the time two a.m. rolled around, I was ready to start calling hospitals. I envisioned the worst.

      From the day we moved in together, we’d never spent a night apart. Until now. I wanted to kick myself. Why couldn’t I have simply told him what he needed to hear? Why did I let him walk out believing that there was any man more important to me than him?

      I stretched out across the bed, right on top of the comforter, too exhausted to pull it back. Staring up at the ceiling, I knew the answer, and it terrified me.

      At some point sleep snatched me, buffeting me around on clouds of confusion, indecision, and guilt.

      In a fitful sleep, I kept coming back to a fork after a long walk down an empty road. One direction was filled with light, and sounds of laughter. In the other direction the path appeared to be filtered, as if I were seeing it through a thin mist, making it difficult for me to see anything except the figure of Quinn, who held his hand out to me. He promised me he’d love me always, for real this time. We could be a family. He needed his son.

      I started to walk toward him. Then I heard Taylor’s voice. “Don’t go, Maxine. I need you, too. I love you. We are a family. Max!”

      I looked toward Quinn, then Taylor.

      “Max. Maxine.”

      My eyes flew open. For a moment the room was out of focus. When it cleared, Taylor was standing above me. It was morning. I sat up.

      “Ty. Baby. I was worried. I’m sorry.” I reached for him.

      “I need to get ready for work.” His tone was flat, emotionless.

      He turned away and walked toward the closet. I got out of bed and followed him.

      “Ty.” I touched his back and felt him flinch beneath my fingertips as if my touch offended him. My stomach dipped and then settled, even as my heart raced with dread. “Where were you all night?”

      “Around. Driving. Sitting. Thinking.”

      The words, thrown at me like darts, pierced the first layer of my spirit.

      He took out his navy blue suit, and a stark white shirt. He’s always looked good in that outfit, I thought abstractly, trying to grab hold of something, anything familiar, to settle the shifting beneath my feet and between Taylor and me.

      “We need to talk, Ty.”

      “Yeah. Just not now. I’m tired and I’m late.” He turned away, left the room, and slammed the bathroom door behind him.

      For several moments I stared at the closed door, shut in my face, locking me out. Uncertainty and fear built steadily like a campfire within me, the flames fed by the winds of doubt.

      Taylor never closed me out. Until now. Talking, sharing, had been the cornerstone of our relationship, of who we were, what kept it healthy, growing, alive. Without that cornerstone, it was only a matter of time before our foundation began to crumble, and everything with it.

      Since the beginning, I instinctively knew I could count on Taylor, his ability to anchor me, weather the storm—the assurance that no matter what we were in this relationship together, kept me grounded, secure. Now I faced a Taylor I did not know. This new reality danced without rhythm in my head.

      Disoriented from our confrontation and groggy from a lack of a decent night’s sleep, I made my way down the hall to wake Jamel for school.

      “Where’s Daddy?” Jamel mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

      My chest heaved. “He’s getting dressed for work, Sweetie. Come on. You need to get ready for school.”

      “I’m hungry.”

      “What else is new?” I teased, relishing the one thing that was familiar. It seemed as if my life was spinning out of sync, and the only thing holding me together was Jamel.

      While I was preparing Jamel’s bowl of Frosted Flakes, Taylor walked into the kitchen.

      “Daddy!”

      Jamel sprinted from his seat at the table and jumped into Taylor’s arms.

      “Hey, Buddy.” He squeezed Jamel to him.

      “You was gone,” Jamel whined.

      “I had some things to do, Buddy.”

      “I’m eating Frosted Flakes.”

      Taylor grinned, carried Jamel back to the table and deposited him in his seat.

      “Make sure you eat it all so you can get big.”

      “Like you.” He grinned and shoved a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

      Watching the two of them, so easy and comfortable with each other, my soul filled with so many emotions. How could I jeopardize this? Taylor, sensing my stare, looked up.

      Sunlight streamed in through the kitchen window, resting, it seemed, on his wide shoulders. I saw his eyes then, looking dark and distant, the shadows of a sleepless night ringing them like poorly applied mascara.

      My heart thumped in my chest.

      “I’m late,” was all he said to me before turning away and walking toward the front door.

      “Taylor, wait.”

      I followed him, but it seemed he wasn’t going to stop, as if he’d already dismissed me.

      He put his hand on the door, stopped, and then turned toward me. For a moment he looked down, as if the words he was ready to speak had fallen and he was searching for them, needing to gather them up to make sense.

      When he looked up at me, I knew I’d never felt such terror, such bottomless fear, that whatever was to come next would change our relationship forever.

      He blew out a breath. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking Max, all night. I never deluded myself into believing that I could ever replace Quinn, be Quinn in your life, in your heart, in your body. What I believe I brought to this relationship was something real, not that make-believe bull that you had happening with him.

      “I love you, and Jamel—just like he’s my own son. But he’s not, and the first time that reality scared me was last night. It shook me, Max, that you’d take yourself up to New York, work out whatever you think you need to work out with this man, and then he’d come for his son. The boy I raised.”

      I saw his throat working up and down, as if he were trying to keep that knot of hurt from planting itself permanently there.

      My eyes were burning, and I swore that my heart was being squeezed out of my chest. I wanted to run to him, wrap him in my arms, and make the past forty-eight hours disappear, make everything go back to the way it was. But I couldn’t—just as Taylor told me when we’d first met.

      “So.” He blew out a long breath, raised his chin for a moment, and gazed up at the ceiling as if he could no longer bear to look at me. “I decided that maybe it’s best if you do go to New York, Max. Settle this thing once and for all, so that you can move on with your life.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. “If there’s one thing I’ve never done, it’s stand in the of what you wanted, and apparently going to New York to be with Quinn is it. No matter what that decision will do to us. You think about it, Maxine. Really think about it. I don’t want you to go. I can’t be any clearer than that. But the ball is in your court.”

      By the time I finally shook off the impact of his declaration, I heard his car pull out of the driveway.

      He

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