The Truths That We Hide

𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬

I trust you. I trust you. I trust you.

That's what Bree said when she let him go get her son. The words kept going on and on in his head like there was no end of it. He realized only when he was driving to the kindergarten what her words truly meant for both of them.

Their relationship was the farthest away from the trust when they were younger and he was glad that it had changed.

A brown-haired woman was already waiting for him when he reached his destination. He realized that it was the very same woman who he saw the last and only time he was there to pick up Quentin.

The difference was that Bree had been there with him and did all the talking. Now he was all alone. He asked for Quentin Lawrence and the woman smiled.

"Normally I wouldn't let strangers take the kids but since Bree called and said you're a friend, I can make an exception for you. This is the first time that someone else than her and Brett came here," she said and introduced herself as Savannah.

Chris felt proud that he was able to come to get Quentin. That meant that she truly thought he was trustworthy enough to get her son. It also meant that he was more than a stranger to Bree which, for some reason, made him happier than it should.

He pushed the thought away and listened as the woman, who he now knew to be Savannah, continued talking.

"I know it means a lot that they trusted you enough with Quentin. You know how protective they are of him." Chris believed that everyone knew that after spending more than five minutes with those three. It wasn't a bad thing but he definitely could see what she meant.

"Between you and me, I feel like Bree's that kind of woman who is scared to meet new people. I may be wrong but I have come to know her well enough for two years and it hadn't changed at all," she smiled sadly before talking again.

"And Brett, he's like - um, super protective over those two. You must have seen him." Did he saw wrong or was she blushing while talking about Brett? He wasn't exactly a love expert but even he could see that she liked Bree's brother.

They walked few minutes before they went to get poor Quentin who had been throwing up. He wasn't different than other kids who he had been with. Even though they had met only once, he didn't put up a fight when he came to pick him up instead of his mother.

It might be because he was sick and wanted to go home to sleep as fast as possible but Chris wanted to think that it was because he liked him.

He was surprised when Bree gave him her keys to both her car and home. Never in million years the thoughts she would trust him enough to give something like that.

But he understood why she did it. Her son was sick and she was desperate to have someone to take care of him when she had some important business that she couldn't cancel.

Fortunately, Quentin didn't throw up in the back seat when he was driving him to home. He wondered if he should check if he could keep any food in the stomach but decided against it.

Instead, he put the young boy to rest in the bed and a bucket next to the bed so that Quentin wouldn't have to rush to the bathroom in case he felt like throwing up again, which he did many times.

Even though he barely knew the kid, he didn't want him to be in any pain. After that, he thought about Bree and immediately knew that her worry would be much bigger than his.

Somehow he knew that she was one of those overprotective mothers who didn't want their child to experience anything bad.

He had nothing to do when the boy finally fell asleep. He sat there for a few minutes to make sure that he wouldn't wake up in the middle of the dream or need something. For some reason, he felt protective when it came to the little boy. Something made him want to make sure that nothing bad happened to him.

He didn't understand it. Why was he feeling like this towards a boy he had met only once before and whose mother was the woman who he had the worst relationship a few years back?

The sooner Bree would come back, the sooner he would leave and forget the whole family for the rest of his life. Both of them only made him feel things that he didn't want to feel.

After sitting in Quentin's room doing nothing for another ten minutes, he went to the living room and decided that Bree wouldn't get mad if he watched some movie while waiting for her to come home. Great, now he sounded like he was living there too and was part of the family.

The truth was the total opposite. Nothing good would come out of it if the two of them started to get closer. He didn't even know if she was already married! He had seen her many times and even talked with her and her brother and child but nothing confirmed that there was a man in the picture.

He thought about the teenage Bree who got pregnant which wasn't a good enough reason for leaving if Chris had anything to say. What did her parents say about it? Did she move away because they didn't accept her being pregnant? Chris knew that happened to many teenagers and hoped that it wasn't what happened to Bree.

Where was Quentin's father? There must be a man who got her pregnant and realized that there was a possibility that he didn't want to be part of their family. The man had continued his life like nothing had happened as if he hadn't just changed Bree's life completely.

Chris was almost shaking with anger when he thought about someone doing that to Bree. It seemed that he wanted to protect another person in this little family too, especially when she had experienced something like this at such a young age.

Deep breaths, deep breaths, you don't know the whole story.

He was trying to calm himself down but it wasn't working so he stood up to look around the house. Bree wouldn't mind if Chris did that, would she?

Now he saw the pictures on the wall that he somehow didn't see when he first walked in with Quentin. There were dozens of pictures of Bree laughing and smiling, having a time of her life. She looked so, so happy in every photo that it alone made Chris smile.

There were more photos of Quentin, though. He was just a baby and he could see in each picture as he grew up to be the cutest four years old. After watching them for a while, he realized that there was the same man almost in every picture, looking like he belonged there.

The man was holding Bree in his arms with Quentin in front of the cake that had two candles. The man was kissing Bree on the beach. The man was sleeping in this very same living room, baby Quentin laying in his arms. The man was playing a piano that was nowhere to be seen in the house. The man was holding a newborn baby at the hospital with a wide smile.

Not only was the man in most of the pictures, but they also looked like a happy family. Chris felt like the biggest idiot for acting like that for no good reason. Bree obviously had a man in her life who was able to make her and her son happy. The man was Quentin's father and he didn't look like a man to abandon his family.

Only now he realized that Quentin didn't have Bree's last name so the man must be Lawrence just like Quentin. That was another sign that they were close enough to give him his father's last name. He frowned when there was no sign of the man from the pictures even though he had seen Bree and Quentin many times. Where was he?

He wanted to ask her but he knew that he shouldn't. If Bree wanted him to know, she would have told him the truth. He would respect her privacy. It wasn't any of his business where Quentin's father was.

Bree came home when he was in the middle of the movie he wasn't even watching. He cursed when he realized that he looked exactly like a husband who was waiting for his wife to come home after putting their child in the bed. Luckily Bree didn't notice the way he was acting and after they changed a few words, he left back home.

And for the entire ride, his mind kept going back to the red-haired woman who had droven him crazy, a boy who looked exactly like his mother and a man who had both of them in his life.