Chenford Story ✔️

36

Lucy's POV

Selling my boat and buying two plane tickets to LA felt so wrong and so right at the same time.

I longed to see Tim and Juniper and Angela and everyone again. Tamara and I had managed to consolidate our lives into two small suitcases and a carry on each. All our clothes, documents, books, technology, everything that we couldn't bring ourselves to sell.

This was either the best or worst decision of my life. Either I would be found innocent or guilty. Tim told me they found a recording. I wasn't sure what it showed, or how likely that it would keep me out of jail.

Even if I was found not guilty, I had confessed to the crime. I would most likely be kicked out of the LAPD. I didn't confess to a crime. That was illegal no matter if it was self defence or not. Yeah I was definitely getting fired no matter the consequences.

Tim's POV

I stood at the airport. Slowly rocking the stroller back and forth along the ground. Just waiting. Waiting to see Lucy again.
Just waiting.

One flight worth of people, two, three.
Apparently Lucy's flight was delayed. God I hated all that waiting. Juniper was waking up slowly. She had been napping for the last few hours. All the drive to the airport and all the time we had been here. For a 10 month old, I wasn't complaining.

Juniper looked so much like Lucy, only with my blue eyes. She had Lucy's dark hair and nose. The perfect combination of us. And she was the most easy going baby possible.
Rarely crying, smiling, advanced for her age.

Lucy walked out then. God she looked..... Perfect. Different in many ways, her hair was shorter, she looked older, and more tired. But in most ways she still looked like my Lucy. I just stood. I didn't know whether to hug, kiss or just say hi.

I wasn't really educated on what to do when seeing your technically ex-girlfriend (who was blackmailed into leaving you and who also is the mother of your child again) for the first time in a year and a half.

So I just stood. Probably with a massive grin plastered on my face. Lucy was home.

Another girl stood next to her. She seemed nice, young, probably around 20. With long dark hair, somewhat like Lucy's. I gathered that it was Lucy's roommate, Tamara.

"Um. Hi"

It was awkward, seeing Lucy again. She was almost completely focused on Juniper. Her baby who she hadn't seen in months.
It was understandable, when Juniper came to live with me, she was small and practically a newborn. Now she was a proper baby, one who could play to a certain extent. Lucy probably felt at least a little guilty not being there for her growing up. Juniper was practically a different person to when Lucy left her with me.

However Lucy hadn't changed at all, except for looking sadder and less well kept. Her clothes were baggier, mostly because she had just gotten off a ten hour flight but still. She seemed.... Different. As if being away for so long had somehow aged her.

Lucy's POV

I felt terrible. Looking at Juniper. My daughter. Who I had just abandoned.

I left her with her father. A man she had never met before and who didn't even know she existed until I literally put her in Tim's doorstep. I-i was a terrible person.
It was awful. I was awful.

The entire car ride back to Tim's house was spent looking silently out the window. The house was different than I remembered. More... Homely.

The baby things played a large role in that. A mat in the floor, dirty dishes in the sink. No signs of a girlfriend or wife. That was good.

I hadn't dated or even so much as looked at anyone since left. It seemed so wrong. Like I was cheating on Tim even through we weren't together anymore. And maybe I knew it was temporary, somewhere very deep down.

I just stood in the entrance of the house, looking at the furniture. The beiges I remembered were now soft and pastel shades which were less resemblance of an ikea showroom.

I wasn't sure when in the last year and a half this had happened. Tim was moving on with him life while I was still stuck at the same point I left.

I wasn't even sure what our relationship was anymore, we hadn't technically broken up but we were broken up, right? We hadn't really talked about it, or about anything really. Why was that my biggest worry? Why did I even care what Tim and I were right now? I was probably going to jail! Why was that what I cared about?!

I walked through the house, up the stairs and down the hallway towards the guest bedroom. It was quaint. Bland was a better word. The bed was in the middle, a dresser to the left under the window and a single nightstand next to the bed.

I put my single bag next to the bed and lay down facing away from the door.

I was a completely terrible person. Leaving Tim and Juniper. I deserved to go to jail. I fell asleep after an hour, the thoughts still clouding my mind.

Tim's POV

I walked into Lucy's room. I would have offered her mine but she automatically came to this one and I didn't want to disturb her.

"Luce?"
I didn't get a reply. Did I even get the right to call her that anymore. Luce was a nickname, from when we were close. Now... We were like strangers again.
It was crazy how much a year and a half had changed her. How much it had changed all of us.

Angela was coming over later with Wesley to discuss the legal side of Lucy coming back. I just hoped that the evidence would be enough. Lucy didn't even know about the video. She was blissfully unaware and I wanted to keep it that way, I couldn't add more trauma to her already broken life.

"Lucy?"
Still no reply.
I walked round to the other side of the bed so Lucy was now facing me. She was asleep.
Her face was stained with tears, dried while rolling down her cheeks. She looked so gorgeous, sad, confused all at once.

I wasn't sure what this meant for our relationship. I wanted Lucy to be my girlfriend again, maybe even my wife eventually but I didn't know if she wanted that anymore.

Over the course of a month I had gone from practically hating Lucy for leaving to loving her again. Everything was so confusing.

I pressed a soft kiss to her forehead before heading back downstairs to play with Juniper. Hopefully our daughter would remember any of this, to her, Lucy would have always been there.

God I just hoped she didn't have to go to jail.