The room began to spin, causing me to sit on the couch before falling over. Just the thought of her remaining innocent for six years, while I went out in search of that feeling again with other women, made me sick to my stomach. She’d truly only given herself to me. And I couldn’t help but feel as though I’d let her down in some way, regardless if it had been unintentional.
“You didn’t seem to mind fucking me without a condom, either. So don’t you dare point your hypocritical finger at me and call me a slut.” Her voice was loud, anger and offense burning hot in her words.
I sat on the couch, my head turned toward her, needing to see her eyes. “Then explain her last name. Why isn’t it Jacobs…or Taylor?”
“I told my dad that I couldn’t get ahold of her father. I knew who he was, but he moved shortly after I got pregnant, and I didn’t know how to find him. He told me to put his name down on the birth certificate anyway. That way, if he ever showed up, it would be less of a fight to get him to contribute. I didn’t want to list your name, because I didn’t want you to get in trouble. I’d told the school that we were never intimate, and I worried what would happen if they found out. I was trying to protect you.”
“So what name did you use?” I don’t think I blinked the entire time she spoke.
“I just made one up. I told the nurses that I knew his name but none of his information. And that I couldn’t get ahold of him to find out his birthplace or any of the stuff I needed. They said to just put down what I knew.”
Numbly, I stood up and stalked toward her. “So your family doesn’t know?”
She shook her head slowly. “My dad has no idea. He found out about you after he came to get me, and didn’t have anything nice to say. He didn’t get it. He thought you were some pervert preying on a child, so I couldn’t tell him the baby was yours. He asked me when he found out, but I told him no. Sarah, on the other hand, she knows. We had to share a room since we’re almost the same age, and so we talked a lot. I told her all about you, about what we had, and how it all ended. She’s the one that told me to make up a name. So I did.”
“Your lies have no bounds, do they?”
Her eyes widened, burning bright with shock and indignation. “I did it to protect you!”
“You did it to protect yourself!” My outburst stunned me, realizing that protecting her had been my number one goal all those years ago. All I wanted was for her to be safe, and she’d done just that. But the resentment took hold, overpowering logic in my mind, and wouldn’t let me fully process it all.
“Are you kidding me? What did I possibly have to lose by naming you the father? Nothing! The school and my dad already viewed me as a victim. Knowing you had sex with me and impregnated me would only justify that claim.”
Back when she was my student, I’d always had a fear that I would be seen as the monster. That no one would understand how I felt about her. I wasn’t some middle-aged man, looking for a teenager fresh out of puberty. In fact, I wasn’t looking for anyone. I’d just started my career, happy to be doing what I loved—teaching. I’d never even dated a girl more than two years younger than me before meeting Bree. Hell, I was young myself. I was only twenty-four. Yet I knew, no matter how old I was, how old Aubrey was, and regardless of our relationship, I’d be deemed the bad guy. Having the school view me in such a manner was one thing, but to be seen as a pervert by her father bothered me. I had my own opinions of the man after learning how he’d skipped out on her when she was younger, and it only recently got better when she told me how he came after her, and the life he’d given her since…but I didn’t like knowing that he’d condemned me before knowing anything about me.
“Did you think of me at all? Did you wonder for even one second how having a kid would affect me? How having a child—with you of all people—and not knowing about her…how that would’ve affected me?”
“Every damn day,” she said, nearly breathless. “But there was nothing I could’ve done about it. Think about it for a second, Axel. You thought I ratted you out to the school. I thought you didn’t come back for me because you’d gotten what you wanted. I thought you turned your back on me, and you thought I stabbed you in yours. You disappeared, and so did I. How in the world do you expect things to be different when you put all of that against us?”
She had a point, and I had to concede. “Fine. I get it. Once again, circumstances ripped us apart. It’s never going to end, Bree. I fell in love with a seventeen-year-old student, and because of that, everything fell to pieces. We were doomed from the beginning. But that doesn’t take away the fact that I have a daughter. We may never be together, we may never get our shit straight when it comes to us…but I have a kid. And you won’t take that away from me again.”
“This is what I meant by needing time to figure it all out, Axel.” She fought with a strong, sturdy tone. “You’re her teacher now. What will happen to your job? You fought with me last week when I suggested requesting a transfer. That’s no longer an option anymore. You can’t be her teacher, regardless of our relationship. And my dad is still recovering. How in the hell am I supposed to spring this on him? The moment Sarah saw you here last week, she knew. She knew immediately who you were. We talked about it, and she even agrees with me. We have to take this serious and tread lightly. You want to just jump in and play the daddy. That can’t happen, Axel.”
“Like hell it can’t! She’s my kid! I’m sure once the school finds out, they won’t think twice about it. They will have sympathy for me, and not hold it against me. And your dad? Like I give a shit how he reacts to it. He already thinks I’m a criminal. Let him think worse of me. But I can tell you one thing he won’t call me—a dead-beat dad.” I backed away, feeling my face burn with frustration, animosity, pain, and complete, unadulterated fury. “You want time? Fine. I’ll give you time. You have one week to figure it out. I don’t care what you tell him, how you explain your lies to him, but I will be listed as her father on her birth certificate. And she will know I’m more than Mr. Taylor. She will know exactly who I am to her.”
Aubrey’s mouth opened and closed without a single word escaping. I didn’t care to watch it anymore. Instead, I turned to leave, storming out of her door and to my truck on the road. As I looked in the rearview mirror, I noticed the blanket covering the table I’d picked up for her that morning. The same table I couldn’t wait to give her. So I got back out, yanked the blanket away, and with the force of my anger, I pulled it from the bed of the truck, throwing it in her front yard. Two of the legs snapped off as it landed on the grass. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care if she used it for firewood. I vowed that’d be the last thing I ever gave her.
It began with my heart, and ended with a table.
Both started out whole and sturdy, but left in broken pieces by the end.
I couldn’t seem to calm down after leaving Aubrey’s house. My hands shook, my feet bounced, and my head throbbed. My chest burned, feeling as if a brick wall had fallen on me, yet my heart pounded away inside, threatening to break my ribs. I didn’t want a drink, but I couldn’t stop thinking about one. I couldn’t stop thinking about how just one drink would ease this pain inside, would numb this ache that threatened to swallow me whole. But I knew better. I’d come so far, accomplished so much, and knew that one drink wouldn’t be enough. With what I’d just been through, I wouldn’t be able to stop at the first. And now I had a daughter to think about. I had a real life to look forward to. And I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.
As I drove around, attempting to lose some of the adrenaline that coursed through me, I ended up finding myself at my sister’s house. I didn’t even call her, not mindful of where I was headed until I found myself parked in her driveway. I sat in my truck, parked in front of her house, contemplating everything. She came outside and stood with her arms folded, throwing daggers at me with her stare.