One String Attached

99.

.James.

I wasn't sure where Riley had been all night but she had returned home early this morning, probably around 7 a.m.
She didn't stay for long before she decided to get Autumn and go out with her for a little while before she eventually got back again at 9. 

She had been so in and out with me that I hadn't had the chance to even say hello to her. Something tells me that even if I did try talking to her, she wouldn't mind me.
I understand I did wrong, but is the best way around this really to be spending the entire night away, leaving me alone with three kids without saying a word to me? 

I think about it for a moment and then I realise just how hypocritical that idea was, considering I did the exact same thing to her except she was pregnant. That's even worse than the situation she'd left me in. 

It was when I was drying the dishes while Ash and Aaliyah were playing outside that she decided to sit down in the kitchen, breastfeeding our last born.
She'd been told to gradually stop breastfeeding at this point but I could understand why she still continued to do so, considering it was getting a lot easier to breastfeed than before. 

I set the plate aside while I look at Riley before shaking my head lightly. "Where were you all night?"

"I told you," she responds hastily, looking over at me without actually looking at me. She wasn't making eye-contact at all. "I was out with Grace." 

I roll my eyes, knowing she was lying. I spoke to Grace equally as much as Nathan spoke to Ri.
I had checked in with Grace midway through the night to make sure Riley was okay and I heard a thing or two which did not align with the excuse Riley had just given me.
Even if she had been out with Grace, she wouldn't have stayed with her up until 7 in the morning. 

"Grace told me you left her at midnight," I say in the same monotonous tone I had honed this past week.

"Yes, and?" 

I set the cloths aside and cross my arms, looking down at her. I was trying to cooperate and make this work but with her responses, it was getting increasingly difficult to do so.
"Dammit, Riley, I'm just asking as someone who cares about you to make sure you were okay."

"Why would you care if I was okay or not? You're the one who's stopped me from being okay, James. You don't get to ask me where I was all night when you did the exact same thing to me and I never even questioned it because of how much I trusted you. If you don't trust me then fine. I get it. Maybe we aren't supposed to work together. Maybe we should just call it quits." 

I look at her with a fixed gaze and after only three seconds, she looks away and down at Autumn with regret. I chew my inner lip and pinch the bridge of my nose.
 "You don't mean that," I mumble. 

She shrugs but doesn't say anything in regards to what had just been said by her, confirming that she truly didn't mean it. She could convince herself that she meant it all she wanted to, but it wouldn't have made it any more false than it was. 

"I do trust you," I whisper. "It's the world that I don't trust." 

"What, are you saying that from experience?" 

"Yes," I bite back. "And not from my own experience but yours, Ri. I know what the world can be like because of everything that's happened with you. Just because I did something I'm not proud of doesn't mean I'm about to forget everything." 

"Why not? You might as well since you seemed to have forgotten about me and your children when you chose to entertain yourself and some other woman's pleasures," she says. 

I stare at her in disbelief, not knowing where to go from here. I was trying to get through to her.
I was trying to accept what I had done and I was trying to move forwards with this. But I couldn't possibly do that with the comments she was constantly throwing at me from left, right and centre.