Page 127 of That Girl
I study Prez and for the first time, I see Connor when I look at him. Curly, blond hair; same eye color. So different from both Candace and me.
“No. I’m his father. She said—”
“You never had questions?” Prez asks me, leaning back on the porch railing.
Temper flaring, I shout, “He’s mine!”
I was there with him in NICU when Candace passed away and every day after until he was allowed to leave the hospital. I was there for every single one of Connor’s firsts. I’m the one who stayed up all night with him when he cried. I’m the one who changed his diapers. I read him stories, kissed his scraped knees, worried over him every time he got sick. I know his favorite song, his favorite color, his favorite superhero, his favorite book. I know he hates green peas but loves broccoli. Connor ismyson.
I swallowed my pride and my hatred and took money from my father so I could pay for Candace’s funeral and burial; pay for Connor’s hospital bills and heart specialists. I used Dad’s money to buy a home for us to live in and a nanny to help me so I could finish school and go to college. The money, just like his threat, was just another way for my father to keep me under his foot. To control me.
I made a deal with the devil who forced me to leave my home, my friends, the woman I loved. I had no choice. Dad owned me. The consequences of what would happen if I didn’t do what he said…Fuck! I gave up my life so Aurora and Connor could have theirs.
“Then why would Rory get a DNA test done?” Prez’s question snaps me back to reality.
Aurora has a lot of explaining to do.
“You said you read some texts between her and Shelby. They could be talking about someone else.” I’m grasping at straws.
“Shelby confirmed it when I confronted her this morning. Dammit, JD, it makes no sense. But you have to see it. The possibility that it’s true is right in front of us.”
I take a menacing step forward and grab his shirt front. “If you think that I will give up my son, you’re sorely mistaken. You try and take him from me, and you’ll regret it.”
Prez grabs at my wrists. “And if Connor is my biological child, there is nothing on this earth you will be able to do to keep me away from him or out of his life.”
He pushes me away with a sharp shove and I slump down on my haunches when my back hits the frame of the door. I have no more fight left in me. I feel betrayed. Betrayed by a father who never loved me and betrayed by the only woman I have ever loved.
Prez sits down next to me, knees raised. “JD, what really happened? You told me about Candace showing up out of the blue, but I agree with Rory. You’re not telling us the whole story. You need to tell us what really happened the day you left.”
“I was going to tell Aurora everything tonight,” I whisper. “She said she had something important to tell me too.”
Was she going to tell me that Connor isn’t my son after all? Why would she go behind my back and do something like this? She’s never hinted that she had questions or concerns about Connor’s parentage. Why didn’t she come to me and talk to me? If she would have voiced her suspicions, I would have gotten the damn DNA test done myself. If Connor is Prez’s, I would have gone to him. I wouldn’t have kept my best friend from his child. But now, I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me and I’m free-falling with no safe place to land.
Prez puts his arm around me, and I tense. “We’ll figure things out, man. But first, we need to find out the truth. I promise you, JD, if Connor is mine, I won’t take him from you. I wouldn’t do that to him. Uproot him like that. I will always put his happiness first. He loves you. You’re the only father he has known. But I may be his father too. If I am, I want to be there for him.”
Prez’s words shock the hell out of me, and I stare at my childhood friend like it’s the first time I’m seeing him.
The front door slowly opens, and Shelby sticks her head out. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but has Rory called or texted either of you?”
I stand up, wiping my face of the tears I didn’t realize were there. Prez and I check our phones and I notice that it’s been over an hour since she left.
“She hasn’t called me yet. She was supposed to, though.”
Shelby whispers so that Connor can’t hear her. “I’ve been trying get in touch with her. I just spoke with Austin, and he and Trevor are wondering where she is. She was supposed to meet them at the center over forty-five minutes ago.”
I tap her number and press call. It goes straight to voice mail. “Sunshine, I need you to call me as soon as you get this.” I shoot a worried look at Prez. “It shouldn’t take her more than ten or fifteen minutes to drive from here to the center.”
“Let me call Dustin and see if he’s heard from her,” Prez suggests. I motion for him to come inside. Our conversation will need to be placed on hold.
Connor is sitting on the sofa with a pile of books in front of him. “Daddy, want to play us?”
I walk over and sit down, settling him in my lap. Prez looks at him as he brings his phone up to his ear, and my arm subconsciously tightens its hold around Connor’s tiny waist.
“I would love to. What are you guys playing?”
“Library.”
That explains the pile of books.
