Feels Like Falling - Kristy Woodson Harvey Page 0,86

was on the porch—sans Brooke.

He stood up quickly. “Gray, what’s wrong?”

I don’t know what it was about seeing June with Andrew, but it made me finally feel all of those things I’d been pushing away all this time. I wanted to do what was right for my son. I wanted to be that unselfish mother who realized that her son needed his father. But it struck me how little time I had left with him, how quickly he was going to be bringing girls home to meet me.

I shook my head.

Greg pulled me close to him and my head hit his shoulder. He rubbed my back and whispered, “What is it? You’re scaring me.”

“I can’t do it, Greg,” I said. “I want to, but I just can’t.”

“Can’t do what?”

“I can’t be away from my son every other week. It’s too much. I know you want to see him too, but I can’t stand it. I don’t think I can live.” Suddenly I didn’t care about the company or the houses or the 401(k)s or any of that. I just wanted my son.

He pushed away from me. “But, Gray, we agreed on this. He needs a strong male influence. He needs his father too.”

I nodded. “I know, and I’m not backing out of that. I just have to be with him during your weeks. I want to pick him up from school. I want to have dinner with him. I want to tuck him into bed.”

“But Brooke—”

I felt my eyes widen. “But Brooke what? Carried him for nine months? Gave birth to him? Took him to the emergency room when that baseball split his eye open? Stayed up with him all night every time he had a fever?”

That got me, and I started crying again. Because what if he was sick, and I wasn’t there? My sister was right. I should have fought. I should have done everything I could to save my marriage, for my son.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Greg said. I could tell he was in that space where he would do absolutely anything to make the crying stop. “What do you need?”

If he was trying to dry the tears, it had worked. I hadn’t even consciously thought of it when, “I want you to move. Here,” flew out of my mouth.

But it was true. I wanted to stay here. I wanted to move full-time into the beautiful house that I had bought and planned and picked every last pansy for. I wanted to have coffee with Marcy every morning, not just the summer ones. I wanted to see Diana every day.

I could tell he was astonished, and I didn’t want to fight. I was too sad. It was too hard. So I said, “Don’t say anything now. Just think about it.” I paused. “Where’s Brooke?”

“Wine night or something.”

I walked past him through the front door, up the seagrass-carpeted stairs, and into my son’s bedroom at his dad’s summer rental. Moonlight streamed through a crack in the curtains, illuminating his peaceful, sleeping face. I thought my heart would absolutely burst at the sight of him. I leaned over and kissed his cheek, breathing in his little boy scent, pulling his covers up tight around him.

I closed the bedroom door behind me, and Greg said, “He’s amazing, isn’t he?”

I nodded and looked him straight in the eye. “He is perfect. Move here. Please. For him,” I said, as I walked down the steps. And I walked out the front door before he could protest.

Andrew was sitting on my front steps when I got home.

“Before you say anything,” he called, scrambling to his feet as I was stepping out of the car, “I’m really sorry. I wasn’t trying to ambush you, but I wanted them to meet you, and I knew you wouldn’t do it otherwise.”

I nodded, but I didn’t say anything. I looked out over the yard, into the windows across the street, lights blazing, lost in my thoughts. I remembered the day we bought this house, how I couldn’t believe it, how I had gotten this perfect life already. “I used to be scared I was going to die,” I said.

Neither of us spoke for a few beats. But then he responded, “Because everything was so good?”

He knew me really, really well. “Yeah. I felt like, here I was, barely thirty, and I already had everything: the money, the kid, the husband, the beach house, the perfect life.”

He nodded. “I get that. I do.” He reached over for my hand,