Barely There

Chapter 22 - Confrontations and Questions

She blinked her blurry vision away as her brain unscrambled the cathartic letters. Gripping the phone in her hands, she let the silent tears roll down the slope of her cheeks. She pulled up her head, catching a glimpse of the red fruit that had fallen on the floor. With determination, confusion, and the bitter truth running through her veins, she stood up, phone still in hand. 

Her sweaty palms grasped at the silver knob, turning it wildly left and right. The door opened after what seemed like a million attempts, the patches of moisture still stuck to the metal.

Her legs sprinted, her aching body begging for a break. Ignoring Caleb's questions, shoving aside the old woman complaining in the hallway, and practically throwing herself down the flight of stairs, she let the emotions carry her. She couldn't feel the ache anymore. Instead, she felt the thumping of her heart and head and blood. She heard the thumping clearer than the muffled voice of Caleb's concern. The car zoomed out of the parking lot, winding around the traffic and beating around the storm. She felt the phone in her pocket vividly as she drove, feeling the coldness of the metal through the thick wool of her tan pants. 

The cars around her blurred in streaks of red and yellow and she felt herself pull apart, felt the molecules in her body break as the realization seeped deeper into her cold blood. The world flew around her until she saw the house in the distance. Hitting the curb in a frantic array, she flung herself out of the car. 

The cold rain battered against her skin, yet the nerves in her body only felt the phone in her pocket. As her tears blended with the rain, she approached the door and knocked frantically, the sob lodged within throat. 

The wood pulled away from her as a ghostly arm grabbed at the side of the door. Her red, puffy eyes trailed the length of the arm to his concern-ridden face. Grayson let out a puff of air, his eyes still stuck on her damp cheeks. 

"Leda! Are you okay?"

"Are you pulling some kind of sick joke?"

Grayson's frown deepened, his eyes scanning her for hints of the reason behind her state. He treaded the path carefully as he analyzed the best response to her fragility.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about Leda."

"YOU'VE BEEN TEXTING MY OLD PHONE FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS!"

She jammed the phone into his hand, her movements aggressive and careless. Contrastingly, his finger softly traced the edge of the phone letting his skin dip into the small crack on the black screen. 

"Is this yours?"

"I think you know the answer to that."

"Leda."

"DON'T. Don't tell me I should be acting calm right now. I just found out that I have a child I don't know about and you're the father? And this whole time you couldn't give me a simple heads up?"

His soft curls draped over his frown as he quickly snapped his head upwards from the phone, his patience retreating like salty waves moving back into the ocean. Yet, his voice was steady. The calm to her storm.

"Don't blame me for this. What was I supposed to say? Hi, nice to meet you. Oh, by the way, you lost two years of memories with me and you're the mother to my child?"

She felt something snap within her, something larger than any of her bones. The effect of it was instant.

"YES! ANYTHING WOULD BE BETTER THAN GOING FOUR FUCKING YEARS NOT KNOWING YOU OR CLEMENTINE EVEN EXISTED!"

They both moved away from each other in unison. He shifted backwards one step farther before moving to his original spot warily. 

"Did you read the texts?"