Lost Without You/A Jordan Knight FanFic✔️

03

NOW

"Please tell me you were kidding about staying in your truck." Lucy pauses, door ajar and one leg reaching for the ground as I drop her off after a great day of biking followed by a painful trip to the mall for "a few things" that assaulted my checking account.

"When is this kid picking you up?"

"His name is Ashton. And not for an hour. I need to shower and get ready."

"Perfect. I have about an hour's worth of work to do on my computer."

She gives me that pouty face again. "You're not fine if you sit in your stupid truck and pretend to work just to avoid Mom. And if you're not fine, then I'm not fine."

When you share a life-changing secret with your child, it opens you up to nonstop blackmail. The truth? I don't really know what Lucy thinks about our secret or if she even knows it's a secret and not just the truth, which it's not.

"Then I'll come inside and wait. Or wait out back. Is my firepit still there?"

"It is. Mom sits out there all the time."

This revelation gives me pause. Does she sit out back to enjoy the space I created for our family—when we still resembled a family? A badly damaged family, but still a family. Or does she feel him there? Does she replay that day in her mind like I do? We can't rewind. I would change the tragedy if I held some kind of otherworldly power, but I don't.

As often as I replay my knee-jerk reaction to limit that day's tragedy to one instead of two, I have never regretted my decision. I think I knew, at the very moment I made the decision, that my marriage was over.

We were perfect ... until we weren't.

"You're okay. Right?"

I blink slowly.

Lucy comes first ...

"Right," I lie.

Since the divorce, my communications with Alice have involved the occasional phone call when Lucy's sick and we need to cancel her day with me. Our face-to-face encounters comprise of school events and dance recitals where we keep a safe distance but occasionally find ourselves brought within feet of each other connected by Lucy for a photo or sometimes sitting next to each other at parent-teacher conferences.

I haven't been inside the house since the day I hauled away my last box of personal belongings, driving away from that damn perfectly painted white fence.

"What if your mom's not okay with me waiting inside?" God ... do I sound as insecure as I feel?

"It's fine. She's probably busy on her computer and won't pay much attention to you anyway." Lucy opens the front door.

I'd forgotten how our house always smelled of lavender—Alice's favorite scent for everything from candles to cleaning supplies and fabric softener.

"Hey, Mom. I'm going to jump in the shower before Ashton gets here."

I attempt to hide my heart sprinting out of control when Alice glances up from her computer at the kitchen table—that unruly hair (now a few shades lighter) in a messy bun, royal blue framed reading glasses sitting low on her nose. She uses the back of her hand to push them into place as her lips pull into a tight line that she tries to pass as a smile.

It seems like a lifetime ago—at the same time I remember it like yesterday. Her smile engulfed her face without any sort of control just from my walking into the room. There's nothing more magical than your mere existence bringing complete joy to another human. And there's nothing more soul crushing than that same existence inflicting an eternity of pain.