Period of Adjustment

Chapter 6

Sometimes when you have a kid with someone, but you're dating someone else, it can really be difficult for that person. Rian's been acting pretty distant for the last month. I've been splitting mine and Clementine's time her between her for half the day and Brenton for the other half. There have been days where I would give Clementine to Brenton for the day or Rian doesn't spend time with us at all. Every other day she sleeps in the guest room, depending if Brenton falls asleep in our room or she's just in one of her moods. Either way, she's leaving tomorrow, and she's gonna leave in a bad mood unless we can somehow communicate about this.

"Hey." I shut the porch door. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." She lied.

She's been sitting on the porch for the passed two hours. She usually did that when she was going through one of her bipolar swings, and she was trying to distance herself from me and Clementine, or our relationship was on the rocks. We never really had a problem with our relationship, so she was usually having her moments.

"No, you're not. You've been out here for at least two hours everyday since you got back. You've been in a bad mood since you woke up your first day home. I told Clementine Brenton was spending the night, and you've been distancing yourself ever since. So come on. Spit it out. What's wrong?"

"I've been home for a month, and I haven't been spending as much time as I usually do when I'm home with you and Clementine. I'm gone for months on end because of being in the military, so I wanna spend as much time as I can with y'all before I have to leave again."

"Rian, you knew this day would come."

"I just didn't think it would be this soon. And I figured it would've been while I was gone. I'm leaving tomorrow, and I'm leaving in a bad mood because I didn't get to spend as much time with my girlfriend and her daughter."

"Kinda what happens when you date someone who has a kid with someone else. There's gonna be times when she has to spend time with her father instead of you and me, or me, her and Brenton have to spend time together as a family. I thought you understood that when we got together."

"I did, and I still do. But now that I'm actually seeing it, it hurts a lot."

"What do you want me to do, Rian? I can't change Brenton being in her life. She needs her father and me a lot more than she needs you. I can't just change who her father is because then she wouldn't be here."

"I know. That's what makes it harder?"

"Look, Brenton's out for a few hours, Connor's upstairs, Shayla's at work, and Clementine's in the living room. It's your last night home. How about the three of us go do something? Just you, me and Clementine."

"Okay. What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know. Wanna go ask Clementine?"

"I guess." We got up, and went into the house.

Clementine was sitting at her table with a coloring book and her horses. She wasn't even paying attention to the tv. For once, her cowboy hat was on the table instead of her head. We haven't really seen any similarities between her and Brenton. There was some stuff, but not a lot. Their eyes, their appetite, and their love of video games was pretty much it.

"Clementine," she looked up from her coloring book. "Rian and I wanna go out. You wanna come?"

"Where are we going?"