Ties

Chapter Fifty-Four

"Fuck!" I scream out into my car.

My palms smack over the cold leather of the steering wheel, and I grip it tighter than humanly possible, letting my knuckles blanch to a bright white. Shaking it like a lunatic, another yell of frustration rips from my chest.

I think I've earned that. I think anyone could agree that this is some of the craziest of the craze. And fuck, why would everything just go perfectly? Seems like that would just be too much to ask for, right?

Maybe happy endings only exist in fairytales?

I glance up to the rearview, glimpsing the pure and raw devastation lined on Chaz's handsome face. One of my favorite faces. I can't help but feel the guilt that someone related to me put him in an impossible situation. Should we be responsible for the shit they did? Doomed to never get our chance? To repeat the same shitty cycle of not being happy because it's too much or too hard? We literally have no control!

Looking at my phone—thirty seconds already down. I quickly sift through the list of pros and cons, and when I say quickly, I mean it—the clock is ticking here—there's a lot on both sides. The same thing keeps circling back into my mind. He loves me; I love him; he loves Blaze. And I'll be fucking honest here, even though it's crazy, whacked-out, and not something I'd likely bring up during a random dinner conversation, worst-case scenario—he's Blaze's biological father.

It's not like he and Peyton had a relationship, not like he really knew her, or ever knew we were related.

Shit, is it really the worst case?

Tough? Yeah, can't even begin to wrap my head around how I'd tell Blaze. Messed up? Sure, it's a walking, talking, botched-up version of Maury meets Snapped meets I don't even know what.

We can't change the past. No matter what—it happened. But maybe, just maybe, if there are enough pros, we can get a better grip, control the future, at least a bit.

Fifteen more seconds pass by—I blink a few times at my reflection, quickly wiping the smudges of mascara dipped below my eyes. My face is red and blotchy from the cold, the emotions, the what the fuckery. I steal another look at this man, shit he's totally different from the one I met only what, six months ago. Should I hold him accountable for everything that's fucked up? Something that happened fifteen years ago? Or can we get through it—together?

Can love, even when it's messy as fuck, conquer all?

Because the way I see it, I'm doing the predictable thing right now, running away as fast as I can. And what would be said for him, if that's what he did with all this new knowledge?

Chaz is facing a crazy situation, a life-altering one, that he had no clue about. I mean, yeah, he knew that they maybe had a one time—okay; I don't wanna think about it. But there wasn't any mal-intent, at least not on his part. Would it be frowned upon if he walked away? What if he said nope, I'm not doing this, I can't handle it, it's too much?