Picture Perfect

Chapter Thirty-Three - Tyler

Hi loves! Can you believe we've only got two more chapters and the epilogue after this? :O 

Love, Cam

♡

Chapter Thirty-Three

Tyler

I picked up the phone and pressed the contact name for Colin. There was about ten seconds where I was pretty sure he wouldn't answer, because if Colin didn't answer immediately it usually meant he'd put his phone down somewhere and had promptly forgotten where it was.

"Hey," Colin answered, surprising me. He looked flustered and his shirt was buttoned up wrong.

I snorted. "Dude, we were married. Do you think I don't know what you look like when you've been interrupted during sex?"

Colin blushed a mortified red. "Yes, well, I panicked and thought Saskie was in trouble or something. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to ask if you two had thought about our holiday plans yet," I said, checking my schedule. "Elliot and I are trying to plan a holiday, so we need to know your schedule."

"Gotcha," Colin said, and I could see that he was flicking through his phone to get to his calendar. "How about we take her for the entire holiday, then? And you guys can have the half-term?"

"Works for us, I'll double check with Sask but I think she'll like that," I nodded, and then smirked. "Made up, then?"

"Yes," Colin replied, looking undeniably happy. It didn't hurt like it used to. There was still an ache, but it was more like nostalgia for a time when I had made him that happy. I was seeing the gaps in our relationship more and more clearly by the day. We'd been in love. We hadn't been that compatible outside of love.

I deserved more. I knew that now. I deserved someone who could never, ever think about hurting me that badly. I didn't wish Colin a bad life, and I knew he could be a good dad despite being a bad partner to me, but I could see him now for what he was; a person that didn't care that much about me. He had loved me, sure, but in the way that you loved someone for what they could do for you, not in the way that you loved someone because you just loved them.

It had been a painful, horrible time, and I had so much to unlearn from it. But Colin and I separating would never have been the wrong decision. Saskie would be happier for it, in the long run. I was happier already, knowing that I was only surrounding myself with people that cherished me completely.

"Good," I said. "Right, I'll speak to you next time we have Saskie exchanges."

"Cool," Colin nodded. "See you later, Tyler."

"Bye," I said, and hung up, feeling an immense sense of relief. We would never be best friends. We would never be partners in crime again. But we could be pleasant, and civil, and care about each other's well-being, even if it was only for the sake of our child's happiness.

"Hey, Sask," I said, walking into the living room. "Just spoke to your dad, and-"

Elliot waved quickly at me to cut me off, and gestured to Saskie, who was asleep in his lap. We'd just returned from the hospital where they cut the cast off, and we'd come home to promptly stick her in a bath, because it turned out that if you put a leg in a cast and weren't able to wash it for several weeks, it was deeply unpleasant.

"She fell asleep a couple minutes ago," Elliot whispered to me, as I came to sit down with them. "What did Colin say?"

"Bless," I smiled, leaning against him. "He said they'll have Sask for the holiday, and we can take the half-term. I think that's fair."