Without Him

Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

A few seconds later, the doorbell rang. "Hey" I greeted, standing to the side to let him in as I opened the door.

"Hi" He looked around my apartment as he came in. For some odd reason, I was nervous about what he might have been thinking about it. It felt like he was judging me.

"Make yourself comfortable. Would you like anything to drink?" I said while heading towards the living room.

"No thanks" He replied as he sat on the black leather couch. Mia started crying before I could say anything else. Guess, her nap-time had come to an end. Max quickly turned his head towards the hallway where Mia's cries could be heard from. I excused myself and headed to her room.

I quietly opened the door to prevent from disturbing her more. Mia was throwing one of her 'hunger' fits, as would Mum called them. She was kicking and throwing small punches.

"Hey baby" I smiled down at her, hoping to calm her a bit before taking her outside to Max. Her cries silenced as she saw me but she was still slightly weeping. "Its okay" I carried her and started to slowly rock her before I left her nursery.

Max stood up from the couch as he saw me enter the living room. His eyes were instantly fixated on Mia. He had never seen Mia before, not even the pictures I sent his mum. I had asked Mrs. Wilde to keep any information or picture I gave her of Mia between us only. I decided to do such thing because I thought he had no interest about his daughter, at the moment I wasn't completely sure about it anymore. When his mother had found out about our breakup, she had called me to tell me to give Max some time. She explained that he was the type of person who ran away as soon as things started to get complicated. But after a few months of 'giving him time', I gave up. Even after Max and I came apart, his mother and I still kept a close relationship. I trusted her with anything I told her not to share with him. My decision was the reason why Max had no knowledge about Mia until today.

He looked sort of shocked but happy maybe? I couldn't point out what he was exactly feeling since he was masking his emotions again. I wish he'd stop doing that. It would make this encounter less nerve-wracking. I wanted to know what he was thinking; what was going through his mind at the moment. I stood in front of him before sitting on the couch. I had given Mia her pacifier to keep her from crying again until I could prepare her bottle. Max sat next to me, still staring at Mia.

Not knowing what to say, I asked "Do you want to hold her?" My words had taken him out of his fixation. "I have to prepare her bottle. She's hungry."

"Uh... S-Sure" Now I knew that what I had seen earlier was nervousness. I was pretty sure Max had no experience whatsoever when it came to toddlers. He didn't have any relative that was as small as Mia or even a bit older. He also didn't have any siblings and his family members' children were way older than Mia. I placed Mia in his arms, she looked way tinier with him than she really was. I had never expected this. A part of me was happy that Mia was getting paternal attention but the other half was afraid that due to my feelings towards him, this encounter would end up getting my hopes up only to have Max run away again. I couldn't let myself or Mia get too attached to him. I didn't know for how long he was going to play this game and I needed to be cautious. I wouldn't allow myself to end up as hurt as I ended up the first time.

Mia and Max seemed to be having a staring contest. He stared at her. She stared at him. It was cute and touching at the same time.

"Hey there, baby girl" I heard him whispered as Mia reached out to hold one of his fingers in her small fist. Tears started to fill my eyes but I held them back. I wished things had gone differently between us. It hurt to see him interact with her because I knew that tomorrow morning he wouldn't be here with us. Not even the day after or next week. It was always going to be just Mia and me.

I left him in the living room with her as I went to the kitchen and prepared her bottle. When I came back, I found Mia smiling at Max.

"You're laughing now, huh?" He grinned, I didn't want to interrupt their moment but if she didn't get her bottle soon Mia would start to get grumpy and upset. I sat back in the couch, next to him.

"Do you want to feed her or..?"

"Yeah, sure"

"She's going to try to hold the bottle on her own but don't let it go anyways" I said as I handed him the bottle and started feeding Mia. She kept staring between Max and I the whole time which made me wonder what she was thinking.

Mia feel asleep after drinking her bottle. Max was staring at her again while still holding her as he said "She's beautiful" and turned to look at me.

I only nodded back. I didn't know what to say, words weren't coming into my mind. His actions today were messing with my head. He had me all flustered.

After setting Mia into her crib, Max and I left her nursery. The atmosphere between us suddenly felt awkward and tense. During his time with Mia, I tried to let them interact without my presence. Sometimes, I could hear Max talking to her while Mia replied by giggling or letting out an excited shriek. It was pleasant to know they got along. Mia got easily upset quite often whenever she found herself on a stranger's arms. It had happened a lot when Livie - my best friend - tried to hold her. After several attempts, Livie had given up on ever trying to hold Mia again.

"Ella?" Max's words interrupted my train of thought. I turned around to face him. "Why did you tell my mother to keep Mia's pictures a secret from me?"

Why was he asking this now?

"I..." I sighed "After the night I left, I had convinced myself that you didn't want anything to do with any of us. Between those days, your mother called me to tell me to give you time. And I did. I was hoping that maybe your reaction to the pregnancy had been due to shock or something. I thought of so many excuses at the time but after a while I noticed that no matter how much time I gave you, you weren't coming back. That's when I realized that you no longer belonged to me anymore. And we didn't belong to you. I thought you didn't care so there was no use on trying to build a father-daughter relationship." My words left him speechless. His demeanor changed completely, it was like he was but wasn't there at the same time. After a couple of seconds, Max brought himself back together. My words had probably hit him hard, but they were nothing but the truth.

As we reached the door, Max grabbed my hand and started to rub his thumb over it as he said, "Thank you for tonight. I appreciated it. I really did, Ella." His blue eyes were dazing me, burning holes through me. How could he still affect me?

"You're welcome" I replied softly, it was hard enough for me to keep myself compose under his stare. I took my hand out of his and opened the door for him.

"Goodnight" He whispered as he leaned in to place a kiss on my cheek.

"Goodnight Max"

I didn't noticed I had been holding my breath until I exhaled and leaned against the door as soon as I closed it. I needed a moment to collect my thoughts. He got what he wanted, hopefully he would now disappear again (even though that wasn't what I wanted) before he and I ended up messing myself up. He made me reckless and I couldn't lose control over this. Over Mia. Over myself. And over our future.