Page 46 of Boxer Next Door

But why go through the divorce at all? Yeah, I might have started worrying he was dead when I didn’t get any calls or contact within the first year. But Mike and I had been together for years. We trusted each other. That was what hurt me the most, because he’d sprung a divorce on me out of nowhere, and it had messed me up. It must have been hard for him to watch it, if he really hadn't meant it, but why not say something then?

He should have told me.

Yeah, maybe he couldn’t give me details, but he should have trusted his wife of more than a decade instead of telling our young child. He might have done it to give Bryson hope for when he was gone, and I was sort of glad about that. I wouldn’t have wanted my boy to suffer more than he already did. But why tell me nothing at all if he was going to tell Bryson something?

“Did he not trust me?” I thought out loud to myself. “I can't think of anything else… and knowing all this, can I ever trust him again?”

The answer to that wasn’t simple. I believed what he was saying, but the shit I went through during the divorce and his disappearance afterward was hell for me, and not something I could easily forget. What if something similar came up again? If he decided he wanted to leave, and then told me nothing, just disappeared into nothingness? I couldn’t do that.

And as long as I stayed indecisive like this, I probably shouldn’t be contacting either of them.

I took a week to myself, I even called work and told them I wouldn’t be coming in for a while. All so I could spend enough time thinking everything over. I couldn’t afford to pick the wrong choice, considering it would be the decider for four futures. I didn’t want to be wrong.

It was the weekend again, and Bryson had been picked up to stay over with his friend again. I’d barely paid him much attention when he was back home from school during the week, and I felt a little guilty. I made a call to Martha to keep my son with Jason over for the weekend and just send him to school on Monday since I’d already sent him off with a bag of clothes and his things. She was glad to. It was only when I put the phone down when I thought something, and I wondered why it hadn't occurred to me before?

Mike said something to him, so why not ask Bryson about this?

So I called right back and asked to speak to him.

“Of course, Lydia,” Martha said. “You can talk to him anytime. And, when you’re no longer busy, let me know, and I’ll drive him back immediately, okay?”

I smiled, though it was strained and she couldn’t see it. “Thank you, Martha.”

A minute later, Bryson was on the phone.

“What is it, Mom?” he asked, sounding curious.

I sucked in a sharp breath, then let it out slowly. “Um, Bryson. I’m calling because I wanted to ask you… some things about your dad. If he ever told you anything, like would he be coming back, or…?”

I was floundering for something to ask. I wasn’t sure what to say, and I didn’t want to give anything away just yet. Bryson didn’t seem to think anything was wrong, though, his voice as chirpy as always when he answered.

“Sure, Mom. He told me everything when he went away.”

My breath caught in my throat in surprise, even though I’d been expecting it.

“What did Daddy tell you, honey?” I asked, my voice breaking a little on the words.

Bryson hummed. “He told me that he had to go away for work. That no matter how long it took, I had to believe he would come back. He told me he’d be working underground for the government for a few years, and I had to be a brave boy and wait for him.”

I was stunned, yet again. It had been years ago, yet Bryson said it with such confidence, like he never once doubted his dad. Something I’d done constantly. I started to doubt myself. I wanted to be happy with Ken, but Mike… he was Bryson’s father, and he never left us. I just didn’t trust him enough.

Could I… give us another chance?

Before I made a huge mistake, I called Annara. I knew she was anxious, because we hadn't talked for a whole week. She didn’t even know what was going on, and I explained it all to her. She was quiet for a minute, then she was shouting at me over the phone.

“Lydia, are you fucking mental? You do not go back to a man that left you the way that bastard did, no matter how justified his reasons! Fuck him, all right? He has no right to ask you for a second chance after he shattered your heart the way he did! Besides, don’t you have someone you love? A man that is damned fine, I might add? If you leave him, I fucking swear, Lydia, I will take him from you and never speak to you again!”

I was surprised at first, her loud voice causing me to pull the phone from my ear a little. But I heard everything she said clearly, and after a moment of sitting there and blinking in befuddlement, I laughed.

“Honey, you’re a genius,” I told her after her rant was over. “I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking, you’re right! Ken’s been there for me, Ken makes me happy. Mike deserves to be with his son, but he has no right to my heart anymore because I’ve already given it to someone else.”

She hummed pleasantly. “There you go, honey. Now, don’t you feel great that you talked to me before doing something so stupid?”

I laughed. I didn’t even care that she was still insulting me. “He’s been so good to us, Annara,” I admitted. “To me and Bryson. He made me and my little boy smile. And everything is so much better with him than it ever was with Mike. I’ve been thinking of the wrong shit this entire time! There’s something I need to do, okay? Expect a really big present this Christmas!”

I didn’t wait for her goodbye before cutting the call. Immediately, I called Ken's number, biting my nails, waiting as the phone rang.

It rang until it cut off. Ken wasn’t picking up.