Falling into a Second Chance by Alie Garnett

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The next weekwas odd for Agatha. First, Violet did not come over after school; she just went home because her mom was home with baby Benji. Second, living with Poppy was a completely new experience. Someone was dependent on her at all times. No longer could she spend all night drawing if she wanted to. Agatha had to be able to get up in the morning when her baby wanted to eat.

Turning around her internal clock had been a challenge, though Chris helped by already being on the same internal clock as Poppy, reminding Agatha to go to bed at night and sometimes carrying her there. Then he’d wake her up as the sun came up. She had eventually stopped needing the timers she had set for herself. She had Chris, after all.

Chris started to come home at lunchtime and stay there, taking care of Poppy so she could work on her book. He didn’t know it was a book, but he let her draw just the same. She wanted to tell him, but then she would have to tell him everything.

When he knew everything, he would leave. And in her heart, she knew that she might be good enough to fuck, but not to date. That’s who she would always be. And once he realized it, as much as it hurt her, he would be gone.

She knew she would and did love him for all his faults and flaws, but he didn’t love her. This, whatever it was, was just a distraction for him. Until he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. She had no place in the future life he would live.

After spending most of the afternoon writing the words for her book, she slipped all the pages into a large file folder. It was done. She would review it a few more times, but it was exactly how she wanted it.

Humming a song she had last been listening to, she headed downstairs to see her baby and her baby’s dad. Agatha caught sight of them on the couch snuggled together, Chris reading Poppy a book. The baby was looking at it intently. In his baritone, Chris read the familiar words to her daughter.

Walking right to him, Agatha pulled the book from his hands and looked at it. “What the fuck? Where did you get this?”

Since he had found her that day in her studio, he hadn’t spent any time up there. Or so she thought. He’d let her have her space and to work alone. How had he found a book she kept in the far corner of that room? What else had he found?

Confusion crossed his face and he said, “I bought it the day I bought the crib.”

“Why?” She tossed the book across the room, as far from him as possible. It had a moose on the cover and was one that she had worked on as Poppy grew inside her. Drawing had been her distraction then, a distraction from thinking about him.

“What?” He shook his head as he watched the book land on the floor.

“Why did you buy it?” Agatha took her daughter away from him.

“It’s a book, Agatha. Can’t I read to her?” He crossed his now empty arms.

“Why did you buy it?” she asked again as her voice clogged with unshed tears. The time had finally come. Whatever this was, was over. He was going to be gone soon. Today.

“I do not have to explain myself to you,” he hissed.

Was he lying about buying the book? Had he found it up in her studio after all? Had he seen everything in her private corner, a place nobody belonged? A place she kept her deepest secrets. Did he know them all?

“Get out.” Fighting back the tears, she turned and walked toward the kitchen. It was snack time after all, and her daughter was hungry.

He got up from the chair and followed her. “Excuse me? You’re kicking me out because I read to her? News flash, Agatha, you’re supposed to read to your kids!”

“It’s not the damn book, it’s you. It’s me. Just get out now.” Agatha steeled herself against the pain as she turned to him, wishing he would just leave and get it over with.

“No, I am not leaving. I love you, Agatha. I want to spend my life with you.” He said the words she had longed to hear since she was seven years old. Except they weren’t true. He didn’t even know her.

Clenching her daughter to her, she glared at him. “Until when, Chris? Until your friends show up? Will I be good enough then? When your family knows about us? Why don’t you just leave now before anyone finds out about us. Save yourself the embarrassment of people thinking we’re a couple.”

Glaring down at her, his nose flared as he asked, “What are you even talking about?”

“You remember everyone, Chris! Everyone but me. Am I so forgettable? For ten years, your locker was beside mine. Ten years. Nine years later, you don’t even remember me!” she yelled as the baby started to cry. She knew she shouldn’t be yelling with Poppy in her arms, but she couldn’t control it anymore. “Remember, Chris? I’m good enough to fuck, but you would never date me. Seems to me that’s exactly what’s happening now.”

There, she’d said it, but there was no relief at getting it off her chest. All she felt was hollow, gutted by what she knew he was thinking now. That being here was a mistake. Just like always.

He ran his hands through his curly hair in frustration. “What?” Did he finally remember her? Or was she still a nobody? Both options tore at Agatha’s heart because she didn’t know which was worse.

“You always forget me. I’m Agatha Christie Lovely, every day. For fucking ever. Now get out of my house. I will not let you read my books to my kid. Ever.” Brokenhearted and furious, Agatha turned and ran out the back door with Poppy still in her arms. Whether he followed or not, she didn’t know. Since he didn’t catch her, she knew he hadn’t. There was no way she could outrun him, especially with Poppy in her arms.

Agatha was shaking so bad by the time she got to Sera’s house that she could barely open the door to the back porch. She couldn’t even make it into to the kitchen. Knocking didn’t gain her entrance either. Sitting in the corner of her mom’s back porch, Agatha cried as she tried to soothe the sobbing baby. She tried to tell her baby that it would be okay, that they would be okay. They didn’t need Daddy. They didn’t need anyone.