Daughter ✯ Kellic

Chapter Fifteen

The irony of the Monday that followed was almost insane.

I was back at work, watching a group of children for a few hours, but naptime had just rolled around. That was my break, my chance to sit down and draw for around an hour and relax without the sound of heathens running around the room screaming their heads off. One of the ladies I worked with that primarily ran the desk out front, Erina, quietly pushed the door open and entered with a short woman following behind her.

The woman was holding a baby-- one that I couldn't help but immediately recognize, my pencil dropping down to greet the sketch book below it and leave what looked like a bullet hole of graphite on the surface of my page. I was gaping, I knew it, but I couldn't keep myself from doing so. In a whispered tone, Erina introduced me as the one person who came to work every day, the one children seemed to always appreciate.

The woman reached out a hand for me to shake and introduced herself as Katelynne. She explained to me that she needed to leave her daughter somewhere regularly, introducing me to Copeland without knowing that I've already met the baby. Copeland's eyes were wide and curious, I just knew she recognized me and I immediately began praying that she didn't say my name or anything in front of her mother. It didn't matter anyway, according to what Katelynne said next.

"Oh, my god. You're Victor." She took a deep breath as I gave a curt nod in reply. "I-- you know Kellin." I nodded again.

"Copeland, too," I reply quietly. "It's so strange to meet you. Well, after everything that happened." She chuckled slightly and let Copeland down to explore on the carpet.

"Yeah, I think I have some explaining to do. Can we sit?" She pointed to the chairs made for toddlers a few feet away, and I nodded, leading the way over to them. "Let me start at the beginning. I did want a child with Kellin, but I couldn't tell him that. My father nearly killed me when I found out I was pregnant. He forced me to leave Copeland and move away. I didn't want Kellin to know because I had no idea how he would respond."

She takes a deep breath and wipes away a stray hair on her forehead. "Now that I'm old enough to actually take care of Copeland on my own accord, I wasn't going to get full custody-- that was never my intention. I just thought I would be more likely to win if I fought for it instead of split. I'm too terrified to tell Kellin, Victor. He hates me now, I don't know what I could ever do to make this up to him." She paused and looked me straight in the eyes. "The worst part is that I'm engaged to someone else now, so I can't go back."

I never expected to hear anything of that sort, and thus I was left speechless for a moment, wondering if she was simply lying to me. Then a tear slipped down her cheek and she brushed it away with a hint of guilt and embarrassment, which confirmed to me that this wasn't some sort of act. "You still love him though, don't you?" I questioned. She nodded without a word. "Then you need to just tell him. Neither of you are the bad guy here, you both just made mistakes. You were so young, it would be hard not to."

"I just-- God, he's never going to believe me." She shook her head and sighed, twiddling her fingers in her lap and avoiding my gaze. "Would he listen to you? You two are a thing now, right?" I bit my lip and tried not to let a bitter chuckle escape. "Oh, I see. So, you don't have anything to say to him then, do you?" I contemplated apologizing for everything, but it absolutely did not feel like he would ever forgive me.

"I think we both hurt him. Maybe I do have something to say."

• • •

Katelynne was much kinder than I expected, letting me spend time with Copeland again and seeing how well I got along with the baby. I explained how everything with Kellin and I first started, leaving out why our relationship eventually ended. Actually, there was a lot that I left out. I refused to ruin Kellin's image because I cared too much about him.

She filled me in on a bunch of the things that happened while she and Kellin were separated, including how her father completely cut her off from anyone Kellin knew. He wasn't happy about Copeland in any way-- much like Kellin's own father. It seemed strange to me considering teenage pregnancies aren't all that uncommon. She was nice enough to forgive me for anything that was deemed my fault, and even congratulated me for ditching Jaime a second time, even if it only should have occurred once.

I tried calling Kellin a few times to figure out where he was and to see if we could speak to him together, but he had since disconnected himself from my phone plan, and thus his number had changed. With a sigh, I was about ready to give up. I didn't have contact with anyone who knew his whereabouts, and neither I nor Katelynne had a clue where he was hiding. I would have contacted his parents, but I was too afraid to bother with that.

It left Katelynne and me with nowhere to look, instead just crashing back at my place with Copeland for a few minutes before Katelynne headed back to her own apartment. Mike came wandering out just as we arrived, immediately questioning us and wondering why in the hell we had Copeland again. He was scared for a minute that we kidnapped her before he came to his senses and realized that we wouldn't be so cruel. I explained everything, and by the end he had an idea.

"Let me talk to Tony. He knows some of Kellin's friends and he could subtly get some information," he replied with a smile. "I hope you're doing the right thing."