Page 10 of Loyal
She runs her hand through her hair. “I don’t know. We can talk about this later. I need to get to work before I’m late.”
“Sami,” I plead as she starts to walk away.
She shakes her head and calls over her shoulder. “Not now, Loyal. I can’t do this right now.”
I watch as she grabs her purse from right inside the door. Then she passes by me as she heads to her car.
Right before she slips inside, she pauses and looks over at me. “Have a good day.”
She gets in before I can respond and takes off, leaving me standing in her yard, confused as fuck.
What the fuck just happened, and how is it my fault?
My head hasn’t stopped hurting since this morning.
It doesn’t help that Billy has been blowing up my phone all day. He has been saying things about Loyal and how he doesn’t believe I can keep my daughter safe. I know what his goal is. He is trying to make me seem unfit. All of our communications in the parenting app are monitored.
I don’t engage. I send one single text to show I have read them so he can’t tell the court I was ignoring him.
Me: If you feel that way, I will see you in court. I will not continue to argue with you.
It’s the best way to handle it. If I continue to engage, it will get worse and I will look as bad as he does. By remaining calm and disengaging, I show maturity. This isn’t about me and him. It’s about our daughter.
That is all it is ever about for me. If we didn’t have her, I would never see him again. Not that I wish for that, but it’s the truth. She is the only thing tethering him to me, and when she turns eighteen, I plan to cut off all communication. I will showup at any events my daughter invites us both to, but I will keep a polite distance. I don’t want what he brings to the table anymore.
“Where is your head at today?” Gina asks as she rounds the nurses’ station.
“Big blow up with the ex and the fling on my lawn this morning. The whole neighborhood watched,” I tell her, rubbing my temples.
“Tell me,” she demands.
So I do. I give her the play-by-play of how my morning started off sweet and then turned into something else. When I finish, she looks at me like I’m the crazy one.
“You mean to tell me that gorgeous hunk of a man who has been laying it on you, very well, I might add, for a year stood up to your ex for you? I don’t see the problem.” She wiggles her eyebrows at me.
“Of course you don’t. You live for this shit. I don’t want all the drama. I want to live in peace, but Billy will never let me, and now I have to worry about Loyal stepping in and engaging. It’s exhausting.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Was Loyal disrespectful? I mean, I know he’s in that biker gang, so he is a little rough around the edges.”
My hackles rise at her accusation. I don’t know why, but I feel the need to defend him.
“Actually, no. He was protective, but he remained calm while Billy lost his shit,” I admit softly.
“So why are you angry with him?”
I look over at her and realize she’s right. I have no right to be angry at him. He only wanted to help, and yet I was a jerk to him.
I sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m angry at myself. I put myself in this situation. I don’t see an end to it until Farrah graduates.”
“You are divorced, not dead. You shouldn’t let your ex or your daughter dictate your life. You have to keep living.”
I groan, burying my face. “I yelled at him and told him that we should reconsider what we are doing.”
“You tried to break up with him? Jesus. What did he say?”
“I didn’t give him a chance to respond,” I tell her. “I left. He sent me one message telling me that he didn’t mean any harm and he would be there if I wanted to talk, but it’s been silent the rest of the day.”
She hums. “Maybe he is giving you space.”
