Where We Belong

Chapter 26

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Ashley's POV—

"Jaxon's down," my mom says as she returns to the living room from putting Jaxon to bed.

"Thanks mom," I tell her as I let out a sigh of exhaustion. She moves her chair closer to mine as she joins me, Zach, and Kyle at the dining table again.

"Should we get going?" Kyle then asks, directing the question to my mom. Who just looks at me for a moment.

"I think I'm going to hang here for a bit, if that's ok with you," she asks me, to which I just nod my head. "Yeah, I'll head out soon. You guys should go though."

After some convincing, my brother and Kyle reluctantly leave my house. Kyle's the only one between the two of them who has a car, so they leave together. Kyle'll most likely drive Zach back to my mom's house before he'll drive himself home.

My mom drove her own car tonight too, so that's how she'll get home.

"So. How you feeling?" my mom asks me once we're alone.

To say that my argument with Evan left me feeling exhausted would be an understatement.

It left me drained.

All I wanted was to just go to Caleb's and have Thanksgiving dinner with him and his family. Maybe eat too much and then force my brother to drive me home.

I wasn't planning on Evan being there and her seeing Jaxon. Nor was I planning to try to defend myself and the choices I made regarding the whole thing.

Yeah, I do think everything Evan's feeling is valid...but she's still the one who left and ghosted me. Who went and threw herself head first into drugs instead of listening to me for just a couple of minutes. No one told her to do any of those things.

She didn't find out until today because of her own actions.

And maybe I could have done more to try to tell her, but I also didn't want Jaxon to be around her while she was actively using. He needed—and still needs—stability, and that was far from it.

"Completely drained," I just tell my mom as I move from the table to the couch, unceremoniously flopping myself down onto it. "I wasn't planning on seeing Evan today—that's for sure."

"Yeah, I'm sorry it happened the way it did," my mom says as she joins me on the couch. "But now that Evan knows about Jaxon...now what?"

I have no idea.

I wasn't planning on Evan finding out any time soon, obviously speaking. When was I planning on Evan finding out? I have no idea.

Was I ever going to let her find out?

Based on previous decisions, maybe I was never going to tell her. I don't know.

What I do know is that I needed to do what was best for Jaxon so that he could have a stable and healthy environment. And I thought I was doing just that. At Evan's expense, though.

Not like her behavior and unstableness didn't contribute to my decision making.

I was—am—just a first time single mom just trying to take care of her son. Literally on my own for the first time in my life and I had a baby to take care of. I was just trying to do my best given the circumstances.

I'm not going to apologize for that.

"I don't know mom...I don't know what to do now," I admit to my mom with a sigh.

"Are you going to let her see Jaxon again?" my mom then asks me. "I talked to Caleb while we were in the kitchen giving you and Evan some space to talk...he said that she's roughly 6 months clean now and has been working on getting her mental health back on track—"