beautifully broken(47)

“Son, I am just going to say this because I love you. You’re not who she wants you’re the consolation prize, the compromise. You said it yourself that she loves Cal, everyday she’s going to wish you were him!”

It feels like someone has squeezed my insides when those words leave his mouth but before I have a chance to react Lauren has slapped my dad right across the face.

“How dare you! How dare you put your son against…against himself! Chris has a condition, this is a sickness but you’ve brainwashed him into believing that he’s two different people. The belief that Cal isn’t a part of him is doing more damage than anything I ever could,” she says then turns to my mom.

“I love your son. Every part of him. Being with him on a good day, a bad day, when he calls himself whoever is okay with me!”

“I think you understand that,” she says, looking at my mom hopefully, and she returns her a small smile. Then she looks at me.

“I hope that you and Cal can understand that one day,” she says to me with a sigh.

“I think it is time for me to leave,” Lauren says with a forced smile, rising from the table.

“Impulsive, violent, rash. Who does that remind you off?” my dad says smugly.

“You deserved that. How could you speak to your son that way?” my mom scolds him.

“I don’t know what the problem is. But you’re letting this turn you into someone I don’t like very much. Grow up William,” she says before standing from the table and following Lauren. For a moment my dad looks like he’s just realized what a jackass he’s been.

“If she leaves, I’m going with her. Wherever she goes,” I tell him, getting up from the table.

“Chris. I don’t want to hurt you but what I said is the truth. We both know it. You deserve better than that,” he says, genuinely. I walk closer to him and lean down in his face so that he understands that I mean every word that I’m about to say.

“I suggest you get on the good side of my wife and the mother of your grandchild. I’d really like my daughter to know the man I grew up with and loved. Until he comes back, stay away.”





Lauren



“I am so sorry for William’s behavior honey. He’s just afraid,” Mrs. Scott explains, holding Caylen while I frantically gather our things together. Our welcome has officially been worn out. Well, mine at least, I’m pretty sure that Caylen is welcome to stay as long as she likes.

“I’m sorry for that out there. I shouldn’t have hit him,” I say apologetically. Am I sorry for hitting William? No. I am sorry for disrespecting Gwen’s house.

“He deserved it,” she says with a sigh.

“He shouldn’t have said those things to you or Chris,” she says, sitting down on the bed.

“I –I just wish that he didn’t have so much malice in his heart for Cal,” she adds sullenly.

“Me too,” I add, taking a moment from tossing the clothes into my suitcase and sitting beside her.

“Do you hate Cal, Mrs. Scott?” I ask her genuinely. She’s so sweet she could very well hate him and just do a very good job at hiding it.

“Oh honey, no,” she says with a laugh. “To be quite honest with you, I don’t see them as being different at all.”

“I differentiated the two because it was easier for William to see Cal as the ‘bad part’ of Chris. I’ve never seen him that way,” she says, giving me a squeeze on the leg.

“The first time we officially met Cal as an adult, when I saw him, and he spoke to us, I didn’t see him as this other person. I saw my son, whatever he chooses to call himself. As a parent you don’t stop loving your children when they don’t follow the plan you have for them, or go a little off course,” she explains then sighs.

“Well you shouldn’t,” she adds.

“I hope I can be half the mom to Caylen you are to Chris, Mrs. Scott,” I tell her honestly. She pulls me into a hug with Caylen sandwiched between us, so we release quickly, but thinking back to the first day I arrived with Caylen in her kitchen wondering what it would be like to hug her, it’s everything I thought it would be. For a moment it seems like everything is going to be okay.

Like the world isn’t torn in two, like my husband isn’t.

“Everything will be okay sweetie,” she says, squeezing my hand.

“I really wish you’d consider staying,” she says pleadingly.

“I think it’s time,” I say with a tight smile.

“I guess it is,” she says with a sigh.

“It is,” Chris says, standing in the doorway. My heart jumps when I see him.