Love Realized (11 page)

When she pulled back and looked up at him, his heart actually constricted in pain at the look on her face. “Why wasn’t I enough for him Jake? Why wasn’t I good enough?” she managed to choke out and then put her face back into his chest to sob some more.

He looked to Allie who stood there with tears rolling down her face, gritting her teeth. She was furious with her brother for sure. He motioned his head toward Gillian’s SUV and said, “You drive, Al. I’ll get her in the back.” With a nod of her head, she made her way to the driver’s side door. Jake bent forward and slipped his arm under Gillian’s knees and lifted, carrying her the rest of the way toward her car.

But when he tried to put her in the back of the car, she wouldn’t let go of him. Allie noticed and said, “Just get in with her, and put her on your lap.” So he did just that. He was slightly grateful that Allie suggested it because he didn’t want to let go of her just yet. Aside from all the shit that was going on at the moment, he couldn’t help but contain the feeling of rightness from having her in his arms.

He was struggling to put the seatbelt around the two of them as Allie put the vehicle in motion. As she backed it up and made the shift into drive, Jake looked out the window to the driveway and saw something that was one of the saddest things he had ever seen. There was Logan, on his knees in the middle of the driveway, with Sean and Jason standing just behind him, tears visible on his face as he watched the car drive away with his wife.

Jake looked down at Gillian in his arms and noticed that her sobbing had calmed down a bit. She may have actually passed out since her sobbing seemed awfully close to hyperventilating, but the noises she was making confirmed she was fine. He couldn’t believe that she thought she wasn’t enough. Logan was a moron, and a fool and any other stupid ass name he could come up with to describe a man who had something this perfect and didn’t cherish it.
Stupid ass, that’s a perfect description!

As he stared down at her, he knew she was asleep because of her breathing pattern. He gently wiped the tears from her cheeks and then wiped them on his shirt, which was plenty wet with her tears, and he was pretty sure there was definitely snot this time. He smiled thinking of her comment about that earlier. The fact that she could make someone smile when she was experiencing such turmoil showed you what a great person she was to be around. She was a necessity in Jake’s life, and he didn’t know what he would do without her. He decided, then and there, that he was going to make sure that she never thought she wasn’t enough ever again.

He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, whispering, “You would be much more than ‘just enough’ for me Gillian.” When he pulled back to look down at her some more, he didn’t notice Allie watching him in the rearview mirror.

She felt like she was floating. The music was playing as she felt herself gently swaying to it. His arms were resting comfortably around her waist while she had one of hers on his shoulder, and the other was playing with the hair at the base of his head. She knew he loved it when she played with his hair. She, too, loved playing with it—it was so soft and thick, and she was so glad when she convinced him that he didn’t need to get it cut short just for the wedding. To her it was perfect. The day was fantastic, and their first dance was turning out to be perfect as they swayed to their song in the middle of the empty dance floor, while he softly sang it to her. He didn’t sing it loud enough for everyone to hear, it was just for her. Suddenly the music stopped, and he stopped singing, too. She looked into his eyes, and he smiled.
Then someone nudged her shoulder. “Mom … Mom … Mommy.”

She turned her head to see who was interrupting her dance with her new husband and looked straight into the eyes of her youngest son, Dylan. “Your alarm was going off Mom, it’s time to get up, and I have to be at school early today so I got dressed already,” he said with a satisfied smile and way too much energy for this early in the day.

She looked him over and smiled back at him. “And what a fine job you did, buddy. Good thing you wear uniforms to school still, it kind of makes things easy, doesn’t it?”

He gave her a little laugh then asked, “Can I have cereal for breakfast today, please?”

“Of course, you go feed yourself, and I'm going to jump in the shower. Are your brother and sister up yet?”

“Yes, I heard Jonathan yelling at Maddie, and that’s why I woke up,” he said as he left her bedroom.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed to sit up and glared at her alarm clock.
It was a damn dream … A wonderful memory. Stupid music playing alarm clock.
She was going to have to pick another radio station, or better yet, take a hammer to it. Hearing that song playing definitely threw her into that dream. She sighed.
It felt sooo damn real.
She really felt like she was back on her wedding day, in her dress, dancing with Logan to their song. Their life was still new and fresh and nothing like it was now. Oh sure, things were complicated for them considering they were already the proud parents of a bouncing baby boy by the time that day rolled around. ‘Just Married’ wasn’t the only banner they flew. The judgmental attitudes of the adults around them were always fun and barely tolerated, but hey, they were kids and didn’t know anything. Sometimes it bothered her that the focus was always on her getting pregnant, instead of focusing on the way they handled it and they were doing just fine.

The most commonly offered title for her and Logan was ‘teenage parents.’ ‘Unwed parents was the one most often heard around the religious folks. And her personal favorite to hate was the ‘Got-Married-Because-They-Had-a-Child’ title, which was the one whispered behind their backs, so fortunately she didn’t have to hear it that often, but she knew it was there. They were all wonderful titles to be listed under, and she battled to make sure that she didn’t fall into any of those stupid stereotyped categories again. That was, until two months ago, when her world fell apart.
Welcome to a new statistic, Gillian Baxter.
Sometimes she felt like she should wear a silk sash across her chest like beauty pageant contestants wore, only hers would say something like, ‘Divorced Previous Teenage Mother … duh.’ Because, of course, that was what everyone expected from girls who got pregnant in high school.

She stood up, stretched, and tried to shake off the dream and her apparent bad mood. She was about to head to the shower when she heard her daughter and all her attitude yelling for her, “MOOOOM! Jonathan says if I'm not in the car in five minutes he’s leaving without me!”

Looking toward that damn traitorous alarm clock she saw that it was still plenty early enough and she wasn’t sure why he was placing that demand on her, but no big deal, she had to drive Dylan anyways. “I can drive you to school today if your brother needs to go. Just tell him I will.”

“Eww! No way, I can’t have my mom drop me off at school.” Madison was the epitome of female teenage drama and said that with complete and utter disgust in her voice.
You love your daughter … You love her, it’s just a phase … You will be the best of friends someday
. She chanted this to herself so not to snap at her daughter because that just brought on a whole other set of problems.

“Well then, it looks like you now only have four minutes ‘til you need to be in your brother’s car, or you will be walking to school.” Gillian’s reply to Madison’s complaint elicited a grunt and a foot stomp before she went back upstairs. Well, if she was here when she got out, then she would know what her wonderful, moody daughter’s decision was.

Stepping into the shower, she let the hot water pound down onto her strained muscles. She had just finished four twelve-hour shifts in a row, and her body was certainly feeling the effects of it. Thankful that today was her day off, she finished her shower and reluctantly got out so she could get the kids to school. She had just finished wrapping the towel around her body when she heard his voice calling her.

“Gillian?” Logan said in a questioning tone. “You in here?” Gillian looked up as he rounded the corner into what
was
their bedroom and saw her. His eyes widened momentarily in surprise before he spoke, “Oops, sorry, babe.” He didn’t make a move to leave or cover his eyes. She watched as a gentle smile graced his face, and his eyes showed emotion she didn’t want to have to handle today. So, since sarcasm was a good friend of hers, she would go with that instead.

“You know, this isn’t yours to look at anymore, so stop staring,” she said while gesturing to her towel-clad body, and then proceeded to bend forward and wrap her hair up in another towel.

He was still staring when she stood back up and shrugged one shoulder as he said, “Believe me when I say that I
do
know that, it’s just that old habits die hard, Gillian.” Didn’t she know it? Sometimes it was a constant battle in her head that she and Logan weren’t a couple anymore. They were still married, of course, but legalities were being worked on. It was exhausting sometimes, trying to remember things were different, but she knew that it would get easier. Just seeing him in their room felt so normal, as did her initial reaction to seeing him. She had to resist the urge to walk up to him, wrap her arms around him and just hold him. She really missed his hugs. They say it takes twenty-one days to form a new habit, or get over an old one, but she was past that and still struggling.
Maybe it was twenty-one days per year you were together? Who the hell knows
.

She resisted the cloud of funk threatening to take over whenever she dwelled on the status of her marriage, and realized that there was no reason for him to be here at this time of day … in her room … while she was wearing only a towel. Making sure the towel was secure around her body, she cocked her head to the side as she asked him, “What are you doing here? It’s not your day to take them—I'm off today.”

“Maddie called me. She said you were making her walk to school, and she didn’t like walking to school in her cheer uniform,” he said and finished with another shrug like it made perfect sense to him.

Oh no, she did not!
Gillian felt her anger hit like a punch to the gut as she sucked in a startled breath of air. “She told you that?” Her voice was high and full of disbelief. Logan, who has known her for at least half her life, picked up on her tone and realized that something was amiss.

“Uh-oh … I knew that didn’t sound like you, but hey, who am I to pass up a chance to see my girl?” Gillian wasn’t sure if he was talking about her or their daughter. The look on his face made it seem like it was Gillian, but she wasn’t going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole! Gillian grabbed her robe off the hook next to where she was standing and swung it over her shoulders, tying it tightly around her body, before she dropped the towel. Oh, she was fully aware of the fact that Logan most likely caught an eye full of something, or everything, but she couldn’t resist. Not only did it feel normal to do that in front of him, but also it was just too damn tempting to remind him of what he couldn’t have anymore. Plus, like he said, old habits die hard.

“Did you get a good look?” she asked as she strode past him and out of the bedroom to find their daughter.

“Oh, it was good. Definitely not long enough, though, so could you do that again, but in slow motion?” he asked as he followed after her.

“You wish,” she shot back at him over her shoulder.

“You’re right, I do.” She heard him say before she yelled up the stairs.

“Madison Marie Baxter!” she yelled in her best Mom-means-business-voice. “Do you want to tell me why you told your father that I was making you walk to school today?”

Her beautiful daughter came trotting down the stairs in her cheer uniform with a big smile on her face, eyes only for her father. “Hi Daddy!” she said as she kissed him on his cheek and walked past both of them, ignoring Gillian and her question entirely. As soon as the teenage drama queen had passed, Logan looked to Gillian and raised his eyebrows in question.

She grumbled under her breath at her husband, “This is how she has been toward me for the past few months, and it’s worse than she used to be with me.”

“Madison!” Logan’s stern use of her actual first name, and not her nickname, had her halting her stride and turning around to face them. “Your mother asked you a question; do you want tell me why you completely ignored her?”

“I didn’t hear Mom say anything, Daddy,” Madison said in a sickly sweet voice. Damn, that kid was a piece of work all right. She was actually trying to play her father right in front of her. If it wasn’t her own daughter doing it, she might actually be impressed, or even amused by it.

“Now I find that hard to believe. I was standing right next to her when she called you, and there is no way you didn’t hear her.” Madison must not have had a response to that, so she remained silent and tried to look all sweet and delicate.

Undeterred, he continued, “Do you also want to tell me why you told me that your mother was making you walk to school today, because I get the feeling, based on your mother’s response, that this information is incorrect?” Gillian could see her daughter’s body stiffen when she realized that she had been caught trying to pull a fast one on her father.

She had obviously intended to leave before Gillian got out of shower, or figured that her father wouldn’t come in the house to seek her mother out. Madison apparently assumed that because her parents were divorcing, they didn’t speak to each other. It was clear that this was a play from the my-parents-are-getting-divorced-let’s-pit-them-against-one-other playbook; thankfully, Logan wasn’t an idiot and didn’t fall for it.