AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She pats my hand with her other one. “And we understood that as well. We knew it would hurt to see us, and we accepted that you needed to find your own way to cope. Don’t get me wrong, we missed you so much, Mia, but we knew you would come around in your own time.”
Tears prick my eyes. I have no idea if what she said is the truth, but I want to think it is. Until Tessa showed up pregnant, that is. Once that happened, there was no way I could be around them because I knew Mac, Trent, and Tessa would be around as a family, and that I couldn’t handle.
“I knew once Tessa showed up pregnant that we had seen the last of you,” Maryann continues. “It broke my heart, but I knew that being around Trent, and then Tessa, was something no woman would be able to handle. Especially with a love like you and Mac had.”
“It hurt so much to know that Tessa had not only taken something that was always meant to be mine, but she also took away my dream of having a baby with Mac. Trent was just an innocent baby, and I’m so ashamed to admit I feared I would look at him and see Mac and Tessa and resent him. I know that makes me a bad person.”
“That does not make you a bad person,” Maryann says vehemently. “It makes you a real person.” She’s quiet for a minute before she asks, “You know that I got pregnant when I was sixteen and gave the baby up for adoption, right?”
Yes, I knew. Mac doesn’t talk about his older sibling much, but he has mentioned it a few times. I don’t know many details, but I can tell it’s a painful subject for him.
At my nod, she continues.
“What you may not know is why I gave him up for adoption.” I look at her with a puzzled expression. I had assumed it was because she was so young and couldn’t care for a baby on her own. Mac’s grandparents didn’t have Maryann until they were in their mid-forties, so they were getting on in their years. Their health wasn’t the best and wouldn’t be able to handle much when it came to caring for a newborn.
“This all happened before Sam and I started dating. I was a rebellious child, if you can imagine that.” She chuckles, and I laugh with her. “I blamed it on my parents. They were so much older than the other parents were and never wanted to join in on the fun and games the other kids and parents were doing. So, I decided to have fun on my own. When I was sixteen and in tenth grade, there was this bad boy that intrigued me. He was a senior and very popular. He noticed my appreciation of him, and we started dating. Two weeks after we started dating, he started pressuring me into sleeping with him. I wasn’t ready.”
Oh, shit. Please do not tell me this is going where I think it is.
“I kept putting him off, but he became more persistent. One night, about a month after we started seeing each other, we were at a friend’s house for a party. We were in the basement where all the other kids were. He said he needed to show me something and pulled me into a room. Leaving out all the gruesome details, it was there that he raped me.”
“Oh, Maryann, I’m so sorry.” I wrap my arm around her waist in comfort. To think that someone would hurt this beautiful and sweet woman makes me want to hunt down the bastard and cut off his dick.
Maryann’s quiet for a few minutes, but I hear her sniffling. The pain I know she must be feeling is unbearable to think about. The night of my attempted rape seems dull in comparison to what happened to Maryann. At least I had the drugs to help dull the pain. She had to withstand being raped sober, and by someone she thought she could trust.
“I found out a month later that I was pregnant. By then Josephwas in jail for rape. The thought never crossed my mind to have an abortion. I knew I couldn’t knowingly kill an innocent baby, but I also knew I couldn’t look that child in the face every day for the rest of my life and not feel the pain I did that night. I closed myself off so I wouldn’t form a bond with the baby. When I finally delivered, I gave him up for adoption.”
“I understand, Maryann. That would be hard for anyone to endure, especially with you being so young,” I tell her quietly.
“My point, Mia, dear, is that we all find ourselves in situations we’re not proud of. I couldn’t stand the thought of looking at my own baby because I would see Joseph in him. I now know that it would have been hard at first, but I would have gotten over it and loved my first son just as much as I love Mac.”
“Have you ever thought about looking him up?” I ask, wondering how Mac would feel about it.
I feel the swing move slightly as Maryann adjusts her position before the swing starts swaying. “Hmm… I thought about it years ago. Sam’s supportive either way. However, I didn’t want to uproot him and everything he knew. I think it’s best to just leave it like it is. The adoption agency I chose is about five hours away in Cincinnati.”
I understand her reasoning. Even though it must be hard to know you have a child out there somewhere, you wouldn’t want to destroy his sense of security. For all she knows, the child’s adoptive parents could have never told him he was adopted. Finding out you were adopted, even as an adult, could be damaging to the person and their family.
We lapse into silence for a while before we both decide to go back inside. We walk in to find Mac, Trent, and Sam sitting on the couch watching a baseball game. I walk over to Mac and peck his cheek, telling him I’m going to get in the shower.
“Okay, baby,” he says distractedly, obviously watching a big play on the screen.
A smile tugs at my lips, and I shake my head. Leaving the guys to watch the game and Maryann in the kitchen, I walk to the spareroom and gather my clothes. To keep up appearances and to help keep Trent more comfortable, I’m still sleeping in the spare room. However, each night I either go to Mac’s bed, or he comes to mine. We always wake up in our respective beds in the morning though.
After getting out of the shower and dressing, I grab my dirty clothes to take them back to my room. I’m a little chilly from the shower, so I go through my bag in the closet to find a hoodie.
Not finding one, I throw my shit back in my bag and go to Mac’s room to borrow one of his. Walking in his closet, I rifle through his clothes that are hanging up and pull a black hoodie from a hanger. After pulling it on over my head, something on the floor catches my eye. It’s a box with two of the flaps open. I squat down and pull open the other two flaps. My hand goes to my mouth and tears gather in my eyes at what I see.
Gingerly, with shaky hands, I reach inside and pull out a glass jar with a purple lid. I hold the jar up to my face, but I already know what is written on the front.
The wordsAll the reasons I love Miaare written in Mac’s manly handwriting. Inside the jar is a bunch of small different color slips of paper. Each piece of paper only holds a few words each.
When we were in high school, I, being the typical girl, would write Mac love notes. Mac had told me he wasn’t the type of guy who wrote love notes, something I already knew, but it didn’t stop me from continuing to write them to him. One day when I went to my locker, I was surprised to find a folded up piece of paper. When I opened it, I immediately recognized Mac’s handwriting. On it, it simply read,I love you.From that day forward, I received little slips of paper in my locker once a day, each one with a reason why he loved me.
I unscrew the lid, and with tears leaking out of my eyes, I pull one little paper out.
Her eyes.
I smile at the words and pull out another slip of paper.
