Love, Scars, & Shooting Stars

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Peeking undetected through the open front window of the second-floor apartment, Julie watched in awe as a smile slowly broke through the clouds of her son's troubled expression, feeling both grateful and envious at the same time. Eavesdropping on the conversation below, she had witnessed a virtual miracle, as Cameron managed to accomplish in only moments what she herself had been unable to do in an entire day. She'd been trying since that morning to get Finn to open up to her, to talk about what he was feeling, and had received little more than shrugs and nondescript mumbles in response.

Cameron's success was a perfect example of why she had finally decided to tell Finn about Garrett. Sometimes a boy needs a man's perspective on things, and hard as she tried to do everything she could for her son, Julie would never be able to give him that. She sank down onto the couch as the hoop-shots resumed outside, wishing for one brief moment that Cameron was Finn's father before reality came rushing back. Ideal as that would be, Cameron wasn't Finn's father. For better or worse, Garrett was—or he was finally ready to be, at least—and since there was no changing that fact, they would just have to find a way to make the best of it.

As she listened to the sounds of laughter and harmless razzing that floated in through the open window, one thing became painfully clear to Julie: Her son had missed his father's presence far more than she had allowed herself to see. She had convinced herself that if she simply tried hard enough, she could be both a mother and a father to him, but she'd been wrong. All this time, there'd been a hole in her son's life that could only be filled by one person, and that person wasn't her, it was Garrett. And regardless of the past, Garrett was here now, and he was finally ready to be a part of his son's life. What right did Julie have to deny that, to either one of them?