My son shared most of my likeness. He was too young for his features to be concrete, but I could tell he would have my warm eyes, my olive skin, and a rugged jawline the ladies would like.
One thing we didn’t have in common was sleep.
This guy could sleep all day and all night.
Most of the time, I was awake at three a.m.
When I thought of babies, I imagined these blobs of people shitting in diapers all day and crying nonstop. I never had an affinity for children and found them to be a nuisance. But I felt entirely differently toward my own son.
He was the coolest person in the world.
When he was awake, he stared at me with fascination. Sometimes, he would reach his hand out to grab me, to explore me. But a part of me believed he somehow knew exactly who I was. Sofia gave me a beautiful baby boy, and I felt so much gratitude the likes of which I’d never felt before. I’d only loved one person my whole life.
But I loved this guy even more.
I spent the next few days helping Sofia care for the baby so she could rest and recuperate. I also took advantage of the time to get to know my son. He was mostly just a doll wrapped in blankets, but our staring contests were intriguing nonetheless.
Sofia and I stopped having sex because the doctor said intercourse wasn’t an option for many weeks. But I still held her tightly throughout the night. I still kissed her as if I never wanted to stop. Knowing she was the mother of my child made me fall in love with her in a whole new way.
Sofia was trying to get some sleep, and Andrew wouldn’t stop crying. I attempted to feed him, but he wasn’t hungry. I changed his diaper, but it was already new. I eventually took him into the nursery and rocked him in the chair in the hope he would calm down and drift off to sleep.
He never closed his eyes, but he did stop crying.
Now he stared at me in the dark while Sofia slept in the other room.
I knew I had to leave soon. I’d probably stayed far too long as it was. Maddox would grow frustrated with me, and the last thing I needed was for him to appear on the doorstep to fetch me himself.
So I had to go.
But when I looked down at this beautiful boy, I didn’t want to leave. “I’m sorry, son. I have to leave…and I won’t be seeing you as much as I’d like. I’m just trying to protect you, and I’m not sure how to do that by staying here.”
He hung on to every word as if he could understand what I was saying.
“I love your mother very much, and I loved you the moment I felt you kick. But you and I live in different worlds. I don’t expect you to understand that. Even as a grown man, you may never understand.” The time I’d spent here for the last few weeks had brought me such joy. But once I was in Florence, that joy would turn into despair, the kind of despair that would swallow me whole.
I wanted to be a husband and a father, but I knew I never could be. Sofia would never be mine again, and I would just be a ghost that drifted in and out. I would have to stand by and watch Sofia love someone else. I would have to watch my son get more attached to his stepfather than he ever would to me. That didn’t sound so bad a few weeks ago, but now that I’d met this little boy, I knew it was insufferable.
I would live a life full of regret…every single day.
I would never be the father who went to all the football games and watched him try on his suit for prom. I would never be a good role model for him, a father who would be there at times and not at others. I was a liability to both him and Sofia. I could do nothing beneficial for either one of them.
Their lives would be better without me.
And every time I would see him, it would just hurt more…and more.
Could I do that?
Could I come over for a visit and shake Sofia’s husband’s hand?
Could I listen to my son call him dad?
Could I watch some stranger have everything that should be mine?
I was lost in my son’s eyes when my phone rang. I looked at the screen and saw the name I despised. I took the call and kept my voice low. If I ignored him, he would just appear at an even worse time. “I’ll leave tomorrow.” I wasn’t ready to go, but I didn’t want to argue for my freedom either. It was easier just to settle.
Maddox was quiet for a while before he responded. “Good. I need you here.”
“Bye.”
Before I could hang up, Maddox spoke. “Congratulations on your son. I hear he’s beautiful.”
I turned the speaker away from my mouth so he couldn’t hear me breathe hard. Icicles formed in my blood because I turned so cold. I still held my son in my arms and rocked him gently, but all the muscles in my body tightened because I wanted to chop off his head. “Come near my son, and I’ll kill you.”
“Whoa…chill. It’s all good.”
I spoke through gritted teeth. “Don’t threaten my son again.”
“Threaten? I believe I gave you a compliment.”
“Fuck you. You know what you did.”
“Hades, let’s both take a deep breath and calm down. You’re probably just sleep deprived and a little on edge.”
When I looked at Andrew, he was still calm. The same fascination was still written in his eyes.
“I probably wouldn’t care so much about your son if you were here. Just something to think about.” He hung up.
I set my phone on the table beside me and stared into the darkness. The lights were off, but I could feel the red tint creep into my vision. Both of my hands tightened into fists, and I felt the blood lust pump in my heart.
As if Andrew could feel everything I felt, he opened his mouth and began to wail.
I waited until the next morning before I told Sofia I had to go. It seemed like she’d been dreading this moment since I’d arrived because she hadn’t mentioned it once. Over the course of the last two weeks, we’d fallen right into our old relationship, and it felt like we were husband and wife once again. I knew she didn’t want that to end. God knew I didn’t want it to end either.
But now it was time to close the curtain and walk away…for good.
Andrew had breakfast and then was put down for his early afternoon nap. He preferred to sleep with us at night, but during the day, he was fine with the crib, probably because the sun was still out.
I walked into the bedroom and grabbed my bag from the closet.
The instant Sofia noticed my movements, she visibly clenched, like a schoolboy about to be slugged in the stomach. And she refused to look at the bag. She even refused to look at me. Pretending the moment didn’t exist was easier than allowing it to be real.
I didn’t want it to be real either.
I put the strap over my shoulder and waited for her to turn toward me. I would give her the time she needed to tame her watery tears and rip off the bandage that would tear her skin. I pitied her heart, but I pitied mine so much more. She would get everything…and I would get nothing.
With her arms crossed over her chest and her gaze out the window, she let the minutes trickle by as she composed her response. She probably rehearsed every argument she wanted to make, but then realized there was no fight she could win. Our relationship couldn’t work, and now that we had a son, it worked even less.
She finally turned to me once she had enough courage. Her green eyes were slightly glossy, and she pressed her lips together tightly as if she wanted to stop them from trembling. Her body was still recovering from the miraculous thing she did, giving birth to another person, so she wore baggy clothes to hide what she saw as her flaws.
They weren’t flaws to me.
She walked toward me with her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes on the ground. She stopped in front of me, her long dark hair pulled over one shoulder and her plump lips begging for comfort.
How could I say goodbye to the love of my life?
I kept a stoic expression, and my emotions were hidden in a cage. I was about to do the hardest thing I’d ever have to do. She would hate me, and I hoped she would because it would make all of this a lot easier.
“I’m not ready for you to go yet…” She’d just had a baby, so she was exhausted. Her makeup was absent, and she didn’t have time to do her hair. Her glow was gone because Andrew took it with him. But she was still the most stunning thing I’d ever seen. Listening to her ask me to stay was practically poetic.
“I don’t want to leave either.”
She moved closer into me and cupped my face. There was so much love in her eyes, love that had been absent for most of our relationship. Now it shone bright, like the North Star in a sea of clouds. She pressed her forehead to mine and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes for a moment before she kissed me.
I never wanted that kiss to end.
My arms wrapped around her, and I pulled her close. This should have been the beginning for us, not the end. This should have been a time for us to fall further in love as we bonded with the child we’d made together. But now it was going to be the hardest moment of my life.
She pulled away and let her hands trail down my chest. “When will you be back?”
I held her gaze and felt my pulse quicken in both wrists. It was impossible to look this woman in the eye and not say what she wanted to hear. It was nearly impossible for me not to get on my knees and give her whatever she wanted. “I’m not coming back…”
Her eyes slowly changed as she processed what I said, morphing from sadness to confusion. They shifted back and forth quickly so she could take in my expression as much as possible, to absorb any detail she may have missed. Her fingertips were suddenly light against my chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I saw the fire before the spark. I saw the inferno before the rage. “It means what it means. I’m not coming back.”
Her hands slid the rest of the way until she no longer touched me. Like her fingertips had been burned, she stepped back. Her eyes smoldered in anger, and there was practically smoke rising from the surface of her eyes. “Hades.” That was all she had to say to explain how she felt, to ask the questions she couldn’t provide answers for on her own.
“I can’t keep seeing you. It’s too fucking hard.” I took a deep breath before I continued. “Every time I go back, I’ll have to start over. I can’t keep torturing myself over and over again. I wish there were another way, but there’s not.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “And our son? Your son?”
I shook my head slightly. “I can’t see him either.” That hurt more than losing Sofia. My boy would never know me. I would never know him.
Her eyes became so ferocious so fast. “So, you’re just going to abandon your son?”
“Having me as a father will do him more harm than good. I’m a liability.”
“That sounds like a shitty excuse to me.”
If only she knew the whole story. “I can only come down once in a while, so he’ll hardly see me anyway. And one day, you’ll be married to some other guy, so I’ll have to come and see your happy life and know I’m no longer a part of it. I’ll have to watch my son look up to some other man as a father because I was never around. I can’t do that to myself… I can’t.”
There was no sympathy coming from her. “It shouldn’t matter what happens with me, if I do get remarried or not. Nothing should ever get in the way of being with your son. If you really never want to see me again, Ash can always pick him up. We have options.”
It was still too much. “I can’t do it, Sofia.”
Her entire face began to flush. She’d never looked like that before, like a red-hot volcano about to destroy everything around her. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m never going to move on if I have to watch you have your own family, if I have to watch my son love some other guy. It would be torture.”
“Coward.” She said the word slowly, like she was feeling it on her tongue for the first time. “Fucking coward. I don’t like this either, but I would never turn my back on my boy.”
“Because you get to keep him.” My temper flared. “You get to start over with a new life. You can work at the hotel and raise a family without looking over your shoulder. You have no idea how shitty my life is, all the bullshit I have to put up with. Don’t call me a fucking coward. You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed for you. I’m doing this for both of you. All I ever do is cause you harm. And I can’t do that to my son.”
Tears billowed over the edge of her lashes and dripped down her cheeks. “So, what? That’s it?” She spoke through her tears, her voice cracking. “We’re just never going to talk again? I’m never going to see you again?”
“You can always call me if you need anything…but that’s it.”
She turned her head slightly as if I’d slapped her. “I don’t need anything from you, Hades. The only thing Andrew and I want is you.”
My heart thudded in pain, but I kept up my expression.
She watched me as if she expected me to change my mind, to come to my senses and realize how harsh this decision was.
But there was no other choice. The best thing for both of them was to have nothing to do with me. And the best thing for my sanity was to never see them again. It was depressing as fuck, but there was no other way. Right now, I looked like a coward, an asshole. But that still wouldn’t change my decision.
I wanted to kiss her one last time before I left, but that wasn’t an option. I’d killed her affection the moment I’d abandoned her. Her opinion of me would always be low. When people asked about me, she would say I was a coward who deserted our son. I ruined the most beautiful thing in my life, but I was done trying; I was done fighting. This wasn’t meant to be.
It was time to shut the door forever. “Bye, Sofia.” I gave her a chance to say something back before I turned away and walked out of the house. If she wanted to scream and yell at me, now was her chance. But when I was out of the house…it was really over.
Her eyes shone with wetness, and her face was puffy from all the tears. The white parts of her eyes were now red. She trembled slightly with devastation. It was the moment of truth, but she didn’t know what to say. She refused to say goodbye to me. She couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t keep my emotions in check much longer. I’d done a good job pretending to be heartless, but I wouldn’t last more than a few seconds. When I was about to cave, I turned my back on her…and walked away.