Nothing Like Us

chapter 29

She stands frozen, eyes shocked and wild with panic, completely silent for a very long stretch, but I just continue to stand quietly rocking Lyric back and forth, waiting.

"What are you doing here?" she whispers finally just as Betty returns with Lyric's bottle.

I readjust the baby in my arms and begin circling and patting her back gently with my hand "Guess I should've been here all along, don't you think Bobbi?"

"Justin, I..." she shakes her head trying to think.

"How could you do something like this to me?" I snap quietly.

"Maybe I should go." Betty offers, looking back and forth between the two of us as if she's watching an incredibly uncomfortable tennis match.

B addresses her but keeps her eyes locked on Lyric and I "No. Could you take her into her room please? Read to her before it's time for her bath maybe?"

Betty reaches forward to take her but I step back "Yeah, I don't think so. Absolutely not. This is only the second time I've held her and you're going to try and take her from me already bobbi?"

"Justin..." she runs a shaking hand through her hair "We need to talk and it's best for Lyric if..."

I'm nodding before she can finish, she's right. "Here." I hand her off to the nanny, kissing her little head.

We stand, staring each other down until a door closes softly down the hall.

"Tell me I'm wrong here B..." I yell in a whisper "What the fuck is happening?"

Her eyes drop to the floor in shame "I'm so, so sorry Justin. I don't know what to say."

"You're sorry?" I repeat "You don't know what to say? How about the truth? You tell me right now...is that my daughter in that room?" I already know the answer to that question but I have to hear it from her.

She nods slowly, still watching her feet.

"Answer me!" I snap.

Her eyes raise "Yes. I'm sorry."

I ball my fists at my sides in fury "Yeah you're gonna be sorry when I sue your fucking ass off for custody. I'll win too...so you might as well just let me take her now."

Tears are streaming down my face once again and I realize she isn't the only one who is shaking "Fuck Bobbi...why? Why would you do this to me? How?"

I drop down onto the couch without asking permission to sit and bury my face in my hands.

"Justin, listen..."she's crying now too.

"No..." I stop her "I'm not ready to hear it yet. Do you know how I feel right now? What it was like to have to show up here this way and find out I have a little girl?" I lift my head and search her eyes "I don't even know when her birthday is, I don't even know exactly how old she is...I know nothing! I had to ask the fucking nanny what her middle name is! I feel like at any second my heart is just going to shatter into a thousand little pieces, that's how bad this hurts. Nothing, not even you leaving, has ever hurt this badly...I didn't even know it was possible."

She walks towards me nervously and sits down beside me, but wisely keeps a little distance between us "What do you want to know?"

I fix her with a shocked glare "Really Bobbi? How about everything? I want to know everything! I want to not to have to ask because I was there...but it's too late for that. So I guess we'll start with a question I never thought I'd have to ask about my own daughter. When is her birthday?"