A Story To Tell | Book 2

.3.

:::KEIRA:::

He didn't want to believe me. But I bet he does, now.

I've been trying to prove to Bruce since the day that I found out that I was pregnant that Yasmin belonged to him. The fact that I had to wait so long for him to see just pissed me off, alone.

All I wanted him to do was help me take care of Yasmin. I'm just seventeen years old, plus I'm trying to graduate high school and head onto college to better myself for my daughter. Bruce acts like I don't have a life, too. He acts as if I'm wrong for popping up pregnant after a night of love making. He won't admit it, but Bruce made love to me and I know he did. And I know what Bruce's love making feels like. And it felt just like that night.

I'm not going to fake the funk and act as if Bruce still doesn't have my heart, because he does. I'm still in love with him. I try to keep this to myself because I heard about him getting married and all of that. I'm a very respectable female. But I can get crazy if you make me out to be crazy. And that's what Bruce was making me out to be.

It's like he forgot that we promised each other forever or something. As if all of this stuff he told me about us living together, getting married, having a baby, and being happy was all for play.

At times, I question myself about where we went so wrong. It's like, one minute, we're the happiest couple in high school, then one day, he ups and decides that he loves someone else. I guess the girl he got married to had taken him from me. We were all happy before then, though. And when she came along, he just came flat out and told me that someone else had his heart. And could I fault him for being honest with me? No...not really.

It's not my mission to ruin their little marriage or anything. It's my mission to make sure that the father of my daughter is in her life. I don't want her to grow up like me, wondering where my father is. I can't bring myself to leave my baby's father absent all because he wants to deny he'd taken part in the creation of her.

Bruce is living his life, being married, raising a baby that isn't even his... I want to live my life, too. But Yasmin is a part of OUR life. Rather Bruce likes it or not. He's her father and he just needs to accept that one. She's his responsibility, too.

But, I'm just being honest. If I didn't still love Bruce, I wouldn't be going this hard to get him to be in Yasmin's life. It wouldn't matter to me if he was in it or out of it if I still didn't love him. I just want him to raise her like he's raising his adoptive child and hopefully one day see that he's meant to be with me all along, I guess. I'm not going to press the issue because he's a married man and I do believe in karma, but I wasn't going to give him a reason to believe that I was trying to ruin his life.

So, when he told me to meet him at The Village playground, I was all for it. Part of me wanted to bring Yasmin along, but I didn't want to just up and spring things on him. He did ask me to slow down and let him process things. I should respect that. But I really wanted him to see how much Yasmin favored his baby pictures.

I pulled up into the parking lot of The Village in my purple 2002 Mitsubishi Eclipse, seeing his red Mazda parked furthest to the tree as if he were trying to hide. I shook my head as I parked my car next to his and cut the ignition.

Staring at his car, I started to reminisce how we drove our cars to a secluded area to race them just a couple of years ago. We had so much fun that day. I'd kicked his ass in my little worn down Mitsubishi. Racing was our thing. That's how we connected with each other, honestly. That's how we first met.

Back then, he was labeled "The New Boy" in town although he'd been here for a few months then. All of our friends used to bunch up together and bet on racing and do tricks in their trucks and cars. I stood out from my friends simply because I was the most quietest out of my girls. And he challenged me to race him in my car because he thought it was nice. I didn't back away from battles or nothing, so I took him on his offer. I had to sneak out of the house that night to race with him. And I won, kicking his ass. That same night, we were in the backseat of his car getting acquainted. Ever since then, I was Bruce's girl.