Pushing Forward (Sequel to An Unlikely Duo)

Chapter 23: Confrontation

When my brain finally registered that it was Andrew sitting there in my living room talking to my mother, my first instinct was to take a step back.

"Kayla-" he stood up.

"Don't. Mom. What is he doing here?" I couldn't bring myself to fully enter the house.

"Kayla we need to talk" my mom's voice was soothing as usual, but I could see the uneasiness in her eyes.

"Clearly. Mom what is he doing here. I don't want him here, and I can't figure out why your foot isn't kicking him out the door right now. Charlotte is getting the mail, and she's going to be back any second. How are we supposed to explain this, him, to her?" I was fumbling for my words. This was too much to handle, let alone handle when it was sprung on me out of the blue.

"Charlotte thinks my cousin is in town. We'll worry about explaining this to her later. For now I need you to hear me out" my mom explained.

Sure enough when Charlotte walked in my mom introduced her to her "cousin" before sending her outside to play with her friends next door.

"Alright. Kayla will you please sit down and close the door" my mom patted the couch next to her. Andrew was still sitting in the armchair. He was just watching this all transpire, the chaos he caused by barging back into our lives.

I slowly swung the door shut before crossing the room and sitting down on the end of the couch farthest from his chair.

"What is going on?" I asked for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"You remember when your father, Andrew, left..." my mom started and I saw her grin slightly when I let out an involuntary snort. She remembered that time much better than I did, "well a few years later he called me. He wanted a second chance at being a father to you and Charlotte again. You were fifteen at that point and I knew you wanted nothing to do with any of it again so I said no. After plenty of arguing about it over a few months I finally agreed that if he left you alone and didn't try to force his way back into your life then we could discuss Charlotte"

"What? You were bargaining with my little sister? What were you going to do? Give him partial custody?" I started to get off the couch, but my mom grabbed my wrist effectively silencing me.

"Let me finish. I told him he lost that opportunity when he left. I told him the only way he would ever have a part in either of your lives is if one of you requested it" she finished.

"Well I definitely didn't request that he randomly show up on our doorstep ten years too late, so what is he doing here?" I was holding onto my composure by a thread.

"You didn't ask to see him, but Charlotte did" those words made my breathe catch in my throat. Charlotte asked to see the father that abandoned her when she was an infant. Why? When? How? That whole idea had never crossed my mind. I know she was only eleven, but I still felt almost... betrayed.

"Well Charlotte doesn't know what kind of a person he is, and you know why? Because he didn't stick around long enough for her to find out. We're the ones who are supposed to protect her from that" I wish I could say I forgot he was in the room, but I was acutely aware of his every movement.

"I know you want to protect her from all this Kayla, but she is eleven, and it is her decision" my mom was trying to keep it together, I could tell, but this wasn't any easier for her than it was for me.

"Kayla this could be a great opportunity for us-" Andrew started.

"Oh no. There is no us, and there will never be another us. You destroyed that ten years ago. I do not need you in my life. I do not want you in my life. I have no idea what you've been up to the past ten years, but I suggest you get back to that and stop dredging up the mess you made" I stared right at him, and I could practically feel the coldness in my own eyes.

"Kayla please. I've changed. I'm remarried, I have a son who's going to Wright Elementary and things are different-" I cut him off again, which I think was my right given the circumstances.

"Woah. Wright Elementary? That's less than two hours away. You're married again? You have a child and a wife? You've lived two hours away all this time and left us completely on our own? Do you know how hard this has been on mom? Financially? Raising two kids on her own? What kind of a person does that? I mean maybe a small part of me would be tolerable of all of this if you were off in some third world country finding yourself by helping the less fortunate or something, but you were living an identical life two hours away?" I was standing and shouting at this point.

"Time changes everything Kayla. I wasn't ready back then. I'm ready now" he spoke calmly. He just sat there with his hands clasped in his lap as I was standing and seething.

"You weren't ready? I was eleven. It took you eleven years and two children to realize you weren't ready? I'm about to enter the real world in a year, and trust me I am nowhere near ready for that, but does that mean I'm just going to quit and stay in college for the rest of my life? Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? Are any of us ever really ready? Of course not, but that doesn't mean you walk away and leave your mess for someone else to clean up" I ran my hands over my face trying to come to grips with this whole situation. I was the mess. He walked away from us for a shiny new life, and for ten years he barely even glanced back.

I was twenty one years old, but I suddenly felt like that eleven year old girl again. That girl who picked the ring up off the counter and knew deep down, despite her age, that everything was about to change.

That's the thing about change: you know it's coming, but you never see which direction it's going to throw you. That change threw me down three flights of stairs into a concrete wall. I wasn't about to let that happen again. Not to me, and not to Charlotte.

"Kayla I know there's no way to change what I did, but I'd like to change what happens next. While I'm getting to know Charlotte, I hope that you and I can find our way back, and maybe one day you can forgive me" the look of hope in his eyes didn't even shake my wall.

"Let's make one thing clear. You can try and fix things with Charlotte, but you will not fix things with me. You don't know me anymore. You missed half of my life, and you will miss the rest of it too, and that is your fault. You missed my prom, my graduation, my first day of college. My best friend is getting married soon, and it got me to thinking how when I get married there won't be anyone to walk me down the aisle, and you know why? Because my father chose to leave me. It was a choice. Well now it's my choice. I don't need you in my life, and I definitely don't want you in it" I calmly stood up before walking out the front door.

I slowly walked down the street to this small rundown park where I always played as a kid. I sat down on one of the creaky old swings. I pushed off and slowly swung back and forth. Back and forth.

Before I could stop it, my shoulders were shaking as the sobs came, but not a single sound escaped.