𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 || baxter radic

64.

◈ 𝒎𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆'𝒔 𝒑𝒐𝒗 ◈

I never thought that I would ever see Bax again. I thought I was going to have to raise Max on my own. I feared letting anyone in his life. No partner of mine would ever compare to the man who was his father. No one would ever fill that hole left for him. But that didn't mean I couldn't create a family. Someday someone would step in as dad, but they'd never truly be dad. Max would always be a Radic because I'd never let him be any part of me.

It hurt to raise him on my own. Well, not fully on my own because my friends would always be there for me. But being a single parent hurt knowing Bax was out there probably enjoying his life. A life I would never get to live now. I didn't blame him for it. I made this bed for myself, and I had to lay in it. Unfortunately, that's how life has decided to pan out for me.

Max was a perfect copy of Bax and my brother in one. It was like taking the two people who completed me and shoving them into one person. Everything about the features on Max's face replicated the ones in Bax's. Every time I looked at our son, I was reminded of the man I lost. At first I hated him, our son. I couldn't look at him because it hurt. But over time, looking at him made me feel like I had a piece of Bax back. Almost like he was still here with me. Even though I knew he wouldn't ever be back again.

When it came to my brother, his personality was all Max. That and his birthmark—a port-wine stain that looked like the map of the world dotting across his ride side. At first I thought it was all part of my imagination, but when Summer's mom brought back photos from New York, my brain confirmed it all. Somehow my son, had given me back a part of someone I had lost. Maybe somehow my brother was in there and I had given him a second shot at life. At least that's all I could hope.

The torturous screams make it even more believable. Almost like my son is reliving the night of the crash over and over. It's blood curdling screams on repeat all day, every day. I don't know how he has any vocal cords left. I've tried everything to soothe him—consulted doctors, done testing, taken him to different places hoping it would soothe him. Nothing works. Not even the sound of the water.

I try not to leave him now. The cries are less intense when I'm around. But Summer and her mom have offered to watch him for the night so I could go on a much needed date night with my boyfriend. He asked me to join him on a double date with his best friend, who just so happened to be going on a date with Bax's sister. I almost turn the offer down when I find out Wren will be accompanying us, but I need an escape for the night. The pounding hasn't stopped in my head for weeks and I'm mentally not doing very well.

When Wren arrives, I don't expect to see her brother sat in the car she's arrived in. I never expected to see Bax again. She must have tricked him into coming. I wouldn't put it past her. It's not like she knew I had his kid, but she'd still try and make him suffer by letting him see me with another man.

Thankfully, when Wren arrives Summer's finishing up giving Max a bath so his cries are nonexistent. I leave before she does, hoping it forces her out of my house quicker, it doesn't but it was enough to hope.

As much as I tried to ignore Bax I couldn't help myself. My boyfriend though, he had to make it very known that I was his. He's very much still jealous that my kid has his father's last name instead of my own. He'll never understand what I went through and why I want nothing to do with anything that is my past.

While waiting for Wren to remake her appearance I see my mother walk to the door with Max and my entire cover is blown. Not that I was trying to hide Max from anyone, it was just easier to avoid it. I never thought of how I was going to tell Bax, because I never thought I would see him again. This was a crack I didn't want to be split open, but now I didn't have that option.

Bax approaches my car with such an angry sadness that I feel my actual heart shatter when he speaks. Even with his one simple word my guts start to spin and all I want to do is projectile vomit all over the car. The easiest thing I can think of to do is escape, so that's exactly what I do. Except, I feel too ill now to enjoy my night.

I drop my boyfriend off at the restaurant and go to the only place I can seem to find peace. The one place that brings me back to where this all started. The one place I'm sure Bax will end up at some point before he returns to wherever he came from.

I feel like I'm sitting there for hours in the dark listening to the waves crash against the shore, but I'm sure it hasn't been that long. My stomach has settled, and my arms have become my pillow, but I can't pull myself to leave. I can't leave until I know he's not coming. Even if that means sitting here until the sun rises, I need to do it for my own sanity.

I hear footsteps scuffing across the ground before I hear subtle branches and leaves crunching and cracking below someone's feet. So I take a stab in dark when the person is backlight by the moon. It's Bax, I know it is before he even speaks.

My heart starts to race and I'm not quite sure what to expect. All sorts of emotions are running rampant through my mind and I'm not sure how to handle a single one of them. I've been doing a lot better with controlling my emotions, but this was a circumstance I hadn't prepared myself for. I felt like I just opened a can of worms that I had no control of.

He speaks with the same saddened anger, sucker punches waiting to be thrown off the tip of his tongue. I'm not mad when he throws them, but my guards are up for the rebuttal. But then he throws a spanner in the works. A question I don't see coming. One that involves a future of us. It makes my pulse hammer in my head worse than it does when Max's scream pop vessels in my head.

"Seeing you with someone else was something I never thought I'd ever have to see. I thought that once I sent that message that I'm be free from you, able to live without this burden of worry. But every time I showed up at a pro event I worried you'd be there with someone else on your arm. That pain eventually fled, but it took time. But today, watching some other man hold you how I held you, it brought all those months of worry back up. Something I had been dreading baring witness to was standing right before me. I officially lost you to someone else." His voice breaks and any closeness I had wanted disappears. He steps so far away I nearly lose him in the dark.

"Of course, I knew that breaking up with you meant that I would lose you one day." His voice carries off into the distance so I follow it. I can't let it leave because if I do, I know I won't get it back. Not with all the pain I've pushed upon him—all the lies, all the secrets.

"I just never thought I'd actually have to see it with my own eyes, you know? I feared it happening but I never thought you'd ever let me see it. I was in Queensland, you were here. You'd have to go out of your way to make me feel more pain. But then today, you come up to me like I haven't pained you, like you haven't pained me. You act like everything is okay. It is so far from okay I don't even know how you can act like it's all good." I hear what sounds like a sniffle but I don't question it, I just let it float off into the night like it's unheard.

"Then this child that's mine appears and my entire life gets flipped upside down and your actions make me even more confused." He runs his hands through his dirty blonde hair. It makes me miss the past. Makes me miss when things were so much easier. Even though at the time they felt like the hardest moments of my life.

"I blacked out when I saw you. Not actually blacked out, but I didn't know what to do. I just became a shell of myself because at least I couldn't get hurt if you threw harm my way." I reach out for his shoulder but he shrugs me off immediately. "I didn't expect you to be there Bax."

"I don't know what to say anymore Maybelle." He turns to me, I nearly stumble into him not expecting him to stop, but he braces for my impact before I can bump him. "I really just want to be alone right now."

"Do you think it's smart to be alone right now?" Somehow my eyes find his in the dark. The light of the moon glimmering off the wetness when he moves into just the right angle to catch it.

"It's better than falling back into trap that you always have set waiting for me."