Don't Go - Kellie Lawless (best contemporary novels .TXT) 📗

Tyler. I looked up at him and tried everything in my power not to wail like a baby again. “I-I” I stopped and shook my head. He tilted his head and asked,” Cassandra?” His brows drew together and I thought, please love me. “I’m pregnant.” My voice shook like a gymnast on a thin tightrope praying to God that he wouldn’t fall. I couldn’t look at him. I was afraid of what I’d find in his eyes, what emotion would be glued on his face. Shock, regret, anger. That’s what I thought I’d see on that gorgeous face. He lifted up my chin and I opened my eyes cautiously and shocked myself. There was one emotion in his eyes: Love. “ Mine?” He asked, voice shaking. I nodded as his face got blurry. He pulled me tight against him and I felt the rush of tears scrambling down my cheeks and his landing in my hair. Tyler sniffled still crying and said,” I love you so much, Cassandra Daltry, don’t you know that?” I nodded and at that moment, I knew he would be there for me and our baby. I squeezed myself tighter against him hoping he knew that the feelings were mutual. I smiled up at him through my tears and thought, thanks. I could almost see the answer through his eyes. Your welcome.

Five years later:

I stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes because the dishwasher wasn’t working. I looked out the window and saw My five year old daughter and two year old son playing with Ty. Annie ran fast in the snow and Tyler ran almost twice as fast just to keep up. She was her father’s daughter. The typical tomboy combo included mud, football, and daring acts. Bryce, on the other hand, loved to play outside and get dirty along with his father and sister , but at night he would snuggle up between me and Ty along with Annie a few minutes later. I look at Annie laughing underneath her dad, who was laughing as well, and thought oh, baby. After Tyler and I told my mother and father that was with a child, they kicked me out. Tyler’s parents had kicked him out when he ran away when he was fifteen so we had nowhere to go. For a couple of days, we stayed at a shelter then Mrs. Kennan came and said,” What are you two smart kids doing here?” And with that we moved in her house. For nine months, Tyler and I were a rollercoaster of ups and downs. We’d go from slamming doors to snuggling in one another’s bed. When we fought, it was usually about the baby. Once he’d threatened to leave and almost did and would have… if my water hadn’t broken. When I delivered a beautiful baby girl, Mrs. Kennan was the first to hold her and she said,” Oh, Cassandra. She’s beautiful.” When she left, I suggested to Tyler that we name our baby Annie, after Mrs. Kennan. He agreed and our baby was then named Annie. After high school we were married straightaway and almost exactly after Annie turned two, I found out I was pregnant with Bryce. And now we were happily married with two children, a perfect fairytale. I walked out onto the porch and called,” Bryce, Annie, Ty! Come in! It’s getting cold!” Tyler scooped up both kids and they squealed with delight and met me on the porch. He let down the kids and then scrambled inside. I smiled. “ You looked like you were having about just as much fun as they were.”
He nodded.” They make everything fun.”
“And I don’t?” I feigned a look a hurt and shock and then he kissed me and said,” you defiantly make things fun.”
I walked inside hand in hand with Tyler and sat down next to the Christmas tree and fireplace with our children and I laid my head against Tyler’s shoulder and ran a hand over my protruding belly. I was eight months long with our third child and couldn’t have been more content with the world. I looked at our beautiful children, with bright red noses and cheeks, and glanced at the little miracle with my autumn blonde hair and her father’s blue eyes and thought, Thank you Annie.


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Omniscient

I shut off the ignition and drank in a gulp of frosty air. I honestly, didn’t know what I was doing here. I ducked and looked through my windshield, glittering with droplets of rain. My eyes drifted upward and landed on the third floor, room number twenty three, the tiny apartment I’ve been in so many times. A florescent light lit through the night like a saint, igniting my hope like a wildfire in a drought. What am I doing?! I pondered. I’m twenty eight years old not sixteen for god’s

Photo credit: Vania M., Voorhees, NJsake. He’s over me, I reasoned. He’s most likely got a girlfriend, I’m done with him. But… then why am I here? I out of the car and slammed the door behind me, then tightened my coat around my abdomen. For early May, It was freezing out. Usually the wind breathed humid breeze, the flowers blossoming in wake of hope for a early summer; But lately, rain tapped a endless rhythm against the window pane, keeping me awake for hours on end. Kept me repeating, playing over and over all the mistakes I made ; the phone calls I didn’t answer, the Innumerable amount of tears, melting into the pillow reminding me of every wonderful, beautiful thing that I was letting slip through my fingers. I pressed the button that dialed up to his room, and I imaged the call, zipping though the line and then him twisting is body listening for a moment then answering. “Hi.” He said.
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting his angelic voice race through my veins. “Hello,” I whispered, not quite on board with what I was doing just yet. “Is this James Cooper? “
“Yes it is, who this is?”
“It’s an old friend.” Gripping the phone tighter, I prayed that he would let me up. Let me see him and all that I let go of.
“Ok. Come on up.”
As the door buzzed, I sighed a breath I didn’t know I was concealing. In a matter of minutes, (which seemed like hours) I was at his door. I never noticed until now, but I realized that in all times I’ve been here, not once have I knocked on the wooden door. I had always depended on that he would be outside waiting for me, hoping that I’d stay for the night this time. I attentively knocked on his door and waited for what seemed like days, until unbolted his door and revealed himself. Oh glory, he was stunning. His hair was the color of a wheat field in an Indian summer; his eyes were deeper, more intense than they used to be. His face read the emotion of shock. There was a profound silence until I shattered it. “Hey.” I said, extending my hand. “I’m an old friend of yours.” I apparently broke the ice, because he started to laugh.
“Ah, good old Adrienne.” He shook his golden brown hair and said,” Come on inside.”

“This is good, Coop.” I chewed his famous salads that I taught him how to make when I first came to his accommodations.
“ I learned from the best.”
I blushed from this praise. He always made me feel like I was special, something different, a one in a million in a crowd of a billion faces. Maybe he was just saying this to say something, I thought, my heart sinking faster than the Titanic. Maybe he still hates me. I cleared my throat and said,” So how’s your job going?”
“Well I published a couple books this month.” He took another bite of salad.
“That’s good.” Immediately, I felt like a small child who didn’t know what to say to a number of huge words that I could not comprehend.
“So, um, how’s work for you?”
I nodded. “It’s good. Life’s good.”
We ate in a pregnant silence until my head had filtered enough of my thoughts and words. I suddenly was ornery about everything that he hadn’t done. My anger bubbled up inside of me, until I popped. “Why didn’t you try harder?” I asked so quietly he had to lean in to hear them. “Why didn’t you come after me?” I asked, louder this time. “I spent every waking moment wishing you were by my side. I couldn’t go back, you know that I can’t.” My voice escalated on every word. “You gave up! You gave up on us!”
“Me?” he finally shouted. “I gave up on us? No, Adrienne, you gave up on me!”
“You know where I live! Couldn’t you have driven over there and find that I missed you more than I could miss anything, Coop?! I loved you!”
He didn’t say a thing, just stared at me with those doe eyes. So I rambled on.” I waited for you for a year Coop. I looked out my window every day, hoping, praying, that your stupid rusty old truck would be outside.” I sighed a shaky breath then whispered,” Do you even know what I’ve been through these last two years, Coop? Can you even fathom the pain I’ve felt when we weren’t together?” I darted my eyes across his face, trying to find the path that led to the fountain of emotion but then I realized…he wasn’t feeling anything at all. “I’m sorry.” I said getting up from my chair almost upsetting the table in my haste to get out of there. “I shouldn’t have come.” I reached for my purse and coat then looked at him one more time, not meeting his eyes, “I’m sorry.” I murmured, then twisted the knob and opened the door. Before I could make it half way out the door, I was startled by a heated touch (more like a grab) on my wrist. I looked back, feeling me put on my armor, ready for the hurtful words that he would dagger directly into my heart. “I know,” he started slowly, as if not sure what to say next.” That when you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you always have to put jelly on the bottom and peanut butter on the top. I know that your favorite color is blue even though you tell everyone its red. I know that every morning at exactly 4:15, you get up to make a pot of hazelnut coffee, just so you can smell it in the morning, even though you’ve never drank a single cup. I know that every time it rains, you sit in your bed and look at pictures of your childhood with a troubled expression, because you are unhappy that you never had a real youth to look back on. I know …” Coop paused for a moment then looked right into my eyes and whispered softly,” I know that you’re always the first to leave when someone starts to care because you won’t be the one left behind.” He lifted his thumb and carefully cleared the tears that I didn’t even know that had fallen. “I may not know what you’ve been through these last two years, but I know that I can’t believe that I ever let you go.” He wanted to kiss me I could tell but maybe he knew that I wanted to take this slow. “Forgive me?” he whispered, those words almost a lost in the breeze. I smiled and let him carry me back inside the apartment. Maybe tonight I’d stay for the night, maybe, just maybe, I’d stay even longer.

Everyone believes in a prince charming. Even at a