Etching Our Way (Broken Tracks Series Book 1) Page 21

  If he could hear my heart beating, I’d be embarrassed. It’s racing at the speed of light as I watch him walk out of my studio and to his car. I don’t even know what the hell that was. All I know is that I was right in what I said, all that matters now are Clayton and Izzie.

  I scrub a dainty hand down my face and sit on a stool, staring at the spot his car has vacated. I never thought I’d see him again, never mind have him directly in my life.

  Yeah, so he’s not in my life completely, but his kids are.

  Thinking about Clayton and Izzie makes me think about their mom, from what I’ve gathered so far, she doesn't seem to be around.

  Are they married? Divorced? Were they even together to begin with? They had to have been to have two kids together, right?

  I huff out a long breath and walk into my office, picking up my cellphone and calling a cab before I start overthinking things. He was here to see his kids’ painting, not you, Harm.

  So why did it seem like he wanted to say more than he did?

  I shake my head, picking up my purse and locking up as my cab pulls up, climbing into the back and giving him Mom’s address.

  We get there and I hand the driver a few bills, telling him to keep the change, I don’t want to wait around for him to find some.

  Mom’s brewing up a storm in the kitchen and the smell is so strong and inviting that I can almost taste it on my tongue.

  “Mmm, smells amazing.” I moan and she turns around, smiling at me.

  “It was your daddy’s favorite.”

  “I remember,” I reply. “Anything I can help with?” I sit down at the table without waiting for an answer because I know she will only shoo me away.

  “No, no. Everything’s under control, you sit and relax.” She starts humming and I get lost in the tune.

  “Harmony?” she calls, standing in front of me now. “Are you okay? I called you three times.”

  I sit up straighter. “Yeah, just tired.”

  She raises her brows at me and sits down, folding a dish towel in front of her. “Come on, talk to me.”

  I sigh, looking around the brightly colored kitchen, feeling like I’m having déjà vu from the first night I arrived. “Gerry called, he’s coming to see his parents and wants to meet with me.”

  “He asked you to meet up with him?” she gasps.

  I snort. “He did, he said he wants to apologize in person.”

  “Little too late,” she scoffs.

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  She walks over to the kitchen counter, picking up a manila envelope. “Maybe this will make you feel better?”

  I take it out of her outstretched hand tentatively, opening it carefully and staring at the document in my hands. Divorced at twenty-nine years old. I laugh and place it on the tabletop. “I guess I should feel more relieved than I do.”

  “Of course you should, you’re a free woman now.”

  “A single, twenty-nine-year-old divorcee that still lives with her mom. Nothing more attractive than that.” We both chuckle at my comment. “I suppose I should find somewhere to live.”

  “One step at a time,” she replies, smoothing a hand over my hair. “You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need.”

  I nod. “I know, Mom. I just…” I shake my head. “You’re right, one step at a time.”

  I lean back in my chair, not bringing up the second thing that is on my mind because I don’t even know what to think about Tristan turning up and acting the way he did, never mind talk about it.

  The rapid knocking on the door and Izzie’s squeal echo through the entryway before she comes barreling in, straight into my legs and screaming. I chuckle at the shocked look on her face at seeing me standing there and bend down, picking her up and spinning her around in a circle.

  I’ve been waiting here since I finally got ahold of my mom when I left the studio, demanding that she bring them home right away.

  To say that it was weird them not being in the house is an understatement. They’ve never stayed out before and the house was too quiet and too empty without them in it.

  I smatter Izzie’s face with kisses, squeezing her against me as she laughs and starts to peel away, but I don’t let her, pulling her closer. Her sweet laughter brings a huge smile to my face but when Clay walks in, it falters.

  His eyes shine with sadness and his shoulders are slumped down, almost like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  I set Izzie down on the floor and chuckle as she runs off, shouting that she’ll be back down in a minute.

  “Clay?” I ask, crouching down and opening my arms to him. He hesitates, looking deeply into my eyes. My heart breaks from the broken, sad look in his as he takes a stuttering breath before he walks past me, his feet dragging on the floor. I turn, watching him as he walks up the stairs and down the hallway, closing his door with a soft click.

  I keep my gaze fixed on the stairs, making sure that neither of the kids are here before I spin around to face Mom.

  “How dare you,” I grind out between clenched teeth as I watch her face pale. “You took them there when I told you not to.”

  “Tristan—” I hold my hand up to Edward, silencing him before turning toward him.

  “This has nothing to do with you.” I set my gaze on his, not moving until he understands me, but he doesn’t shrink back like he normally would, instead he pulls his shoulders back.

  “Yes, it does. You’re like a son to me and those two kids are the closest thing I’ll ever get to grandchildren. What you did was selfish and unfair.”

  I reel back, my brows rising before I storm toward him. “Unfair? You want to talk about unfair?”

  “Tristan… stop.”

  My head whips back to my mom. “I’m their father. Not you, not him.” I point between them before slamming the palm of my hand on my chest. “Me! I decide what’s best for them.”

  “I know,” she says softly, trying her hardest to tame the beast inside of me. “Take a breath.”

  I do as she says, closing my eyes before they spring back open when I hear footsteps, I spin around, seeing a sad Clay as he stares at me from the top of the stairs, the sadness overtaking him.

  “He’s not doing too well,” Mom whispers. “He had a bad dream last night.”

  My heart sinks as he turns around and walks away. “He had a nightmare?” I ask, feeling like I made a terrible mistake letting them stay at her house. I should have been there when he woke up, I always have been and I always should be.

  “Yeah, you should have seen him, Tris. He was sobbing so bad that I thought he wouldn’t be able to breathe.”

  “You should have called me,” I fume, turning to face her before stepping toward the stairs, wanting to go up to him. Had she called me, she wouldn’t have been able to take them to her studio.

  “Tris.” She takes hold of my arm, stopping me in my tracks. I spin around, raising my brows at her and silently telling her to get her hand off me and to say what she wants to say quickly. “This has to stop.”

  “What?”

  She looks behind her, her gaze catching Edward’s. “This isn’t good for them. You need help.” I open my mouth to tell her that I’m doing fine but she cuts me off before I do, letting go of my arm. “You have to stop this before it turns into us.”

  I frown at her, hating that she’s hit the nail on the head. “You don’t know what it’s like,” I grind out.

  “Then tell me, tell me what it’s like to have to do this on your own.”

  I shake my head, gritting my teeth. “It’s none of your business.”

  “The hell it isn’t!” She takes a step toward me, her face the same mask of anger mine was only moments ago. “Those are my grandbabies, Tris. I won’t see them go through what you did, I made that mistake once, I won’t let history repeat itself!”

  With that said, she spins around, her heels clicking against the marble floor as she walks out of the house, Edward on her tail.


  “Daddy! I want to show you something!”

  “Coming!” I shout back to Izzie, my gaze not moving from the front door.

  She’s right. However much I hate admitting it to myself, she is right. I can’t watch Clay go through what I did. I know how it feels and it’s time that I put a stop to it, once and for all.

  I spend the next hour playing tea parties with Izzie and her array of teddy bears, leaving Clay in his room. I know he won’t talk to me about anything that’s bothering him until he’s good and ready.

  Tucking Izzie in, I kiss her forehead and tell her I love her before walking out of her room, leaving the door open slightly.

  I stop outside of Clay’s room, seeing the light shining from underneath the door. “Clay?” I ask, knocking gently on the door. “Can I come in?”

  It’s several seconds before his muffled voice tells me that I can and I place my hand on the doorknob, turning it and pushing the door open slowly.

  My eyes scan his whole room, searching for him and when I see his tent in the corner and a light coming from inside, I know that he’s in there. I walk over to it, kneeling down and pulling back his makeshift door, crawling inside the small space.

  He holds his flashlight in one hand, shining it down on his book so I tilt my head to see what he’s reading. The Silver Chair.

  “Already on the sixth book?” I ask, my voice low.

  He shakes his head. “No, the fourth.” I frown at him, not understanding what he’s saying. “I’m reading them in the original publication order, so this is the fourth.” A smirk lifts up the side of my face at his answer. “This one is about Eustace.”

  “What happened to the Pevensie children?”

  He huffs and puts his bookmark on the page he was reading, closing the book and setting it down. “They grew up,” he says simply.

  I nod my head in reply, not really knowing what he means. Clay is a bookworm in all sense of the word. You buy him a book and he’ll read it cover to cover, several times over, soaking in every word as he transports himself out of his own head.

  “I think we need to talk, Clay,” I tell him, shuffling uncomfortably. “Nana said you had a bad dream again.”

  He looks down at his legs, picking some invisible lint off his pajama bottoms. “I dreamed about Mom again.” His voice cracks and I hear his sniffle ring loud in the small, confined space. “Why did she leave me, Dad?”

  My stomach bottoms out at his words and the utter devastation and confusion marring his face.

  “I… I…” I stammer, my voice now a croak from the emotion bubbling up inside me. “She just… she’s…” I don’t know what to say or what to do.

  How do I explain it to a child in a way that he’ll understand, because I still don’t fully understand what happened, no matter how many times I research it. And I have, I’ve researched it so much, even contacting the best OBGYNs in the country, looking for answers that nobody could give me.

  “Come here,” I say, opening my arms and holding him tight when he moves forward. “I love you, Clay. I love you enough for a thousand people. Don’t ever think I won’t be there for you, I am, always.” He nods his head against my chest and I brush the hair off his face, connecting my eyes to his. “Things are going to change from now on, I promise.”

  “Really?” he asks, hope filling his voice.

  “Really,” I answer him, planting a kiss on the top of his head. “What do you say we go and make a giant tent in my room and have a sleepover?”

  “A giant tent?” he asks, chuckling.

  “Sure!” I say, shuffling out of his small tent and holding the makeshift door open for him as he grabs his book and follows me out. “We have the ten-man tent in the garage, I’ll go and get it and we can set it up in my room.”

  “Can I come camping, too?” a small voice asks from behind me.

  I turn around, seeing Izzie standing by his door, a teddy bear hanging from her hand.

  “Of course you can!” I say, taking Clay’s hand and walking over to her. “Izzie, you get blankets, Clay, you get pillows, and I’ll get the tent.”

  Alex & Sierra—Little do you know

  I watch the buildings whizz past as we make our way from the school into the city. Leaning back in my seat, I pull my cell out and click open the searching app, my fingers working on automatic before my brain can catch up.

  I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Harmony since I left her studio on Saturday night, and now, four days later, I still can’t get her off my mind.

  One question spins around and around in my head, why was she crying? There has to be a reason, and although she was staring at the painting of the willow tree, something tells me that it wasn’t about that.

  The sadness in her eyes coupled with the anger radiating from her said that much. Or I think it does. I can’t be so sure anymore, I used to be able to read her like an open book, but after ten years of not speaking to her, not knowing her, I couldn’t get a read on her properly. I itch to be able to find out what it was about.

  I’m typing the name of her studio into the search engine app on my cell before I know what I’m doing, scrolling down the page and clicking on the link to her website.

  The homepage is colorful and has one of her paintings as well as the name of her studio “Willow Arts” scrawled across it.

  In college, she always talked about opening her own studio, I knew it was her dream. Even though we haven’t had contact for a decade, it doesn’t make me any less proud of her. She achieved what she set out to do.

  I continue to scroll through the site, knowing that she must have done this herself, not that she’s done a bad job. It looks good—no—it looks great. The colors are Harmony to a T. She always wore bright colored clothes, either that or her coveralls that were covered in paint.

  I close my eyes as I remember how she would always have splatters of paint adorning her hands.

  The car jumps as Edward drives over a speedbump in the middle of the road, the movement bringing me out of my daydream.

  What am I doing? I shouldn’t be thinking about Harmony and our past. I should be concentrating on Clay and Izzie.

  After my talk with Clay on Saturday night, I’ve decided that how things have been over the past few years are going to change, and the only way I can do that is by cutting my hours down at work and being at home more.

  All I want is to focus on the kids, making sure they have a happy home life. That’s my main goal, to be sure that they have the childhood that I never did. Which also means letting them go to the art class that they love.

  I don’t know if Harmony and I can be friends again, but I’d like to try. That’s what we were first and foremost, really good friends, in fact, she was my best friend. I miss her; I have every day since I last saw her.

  I told her everything and anything: the good, the bad, and the ugly. She never judged me, never told me what I should and shouldn’t do. She was there to listen to me as I talked everything through with her, not pushing or pulling me in directions I didn’t want to go.

  She was the only person who did that. Everyone always wanted something from me, either because of who my father was, my family name, or what they knew I would be after college, who I would be.

  There’s been so many times over the last ten years that I wanted to call Harmony up and catch her up on all the goings on in my life. Like when Clay was born: she was the first person who came to mind that I wanted to tell, or when my dad had to hand over the company to me and I was freaking out, it was her I wanted to call. So many times I would pick my cell up, my mind working on automatic.

  And now that she’s back in my life, in all of our lives, I haven’t got a clue what to do or how to act.

  Edward pulls up outside the office building and I pocket my cell, clearing my throat before telling him that I’ll see him later.

  I head inside, Catiya meeting me in the lobby and riding the elevator up to my office with me as she reels off what’s on the
agenda for today.

  I nod at the right times and grunt in response, but my mind is elsewhere. Lately I haven’t been able to concentrate at work properly and it’s driving me insane because this is where I’m at my best. Running this company and coming up with innovative ideas on how we can grow. I need to get my head back in the game because I know that at the first sign of trouble, the board would vote me out. They’re waiting for the opportunity to do it after what happened with Pete last week, there’s no doubt about it.

  “Sir?”

  I whip my head toward Catiya, frowning at her raised brows and then turning when she tilts her head to the open elevator doors.

  I speed walk through them, past all of the people who immediately look down at seeing me enter my space, and into my office, Catiya following behind me and shutting the door.

  She starts reeling off anything that I need to know, ending with, “Clayton’s school has confirmed your appointment to meet with the dean.”

  I nod my head as I walk over to the wall of windows. It’s taken them weeks to get back to me, and now that I finally have an appointment, I’m determined to make sure Clay is receiving the education that he should be getting.

  I rest the palms of my hands on the windows, leaning my forehead on the cool glass and looking down at all of the people rushing along the sidewalks, going about their day-to-day lives.

  I need to get myself together, I need my brain to stop spinning with unwanted thoughts, I need to concentrate on my job and my kids.

  Finding out that it’s Harmony who has been teaching my kids for the last six—no, seven weeks now, and seeing her again after a decade completely threw me. I’ll admit, there’s still a small part of me that feels like she already knew, but seeing the looks on Clay’s and Izzie’s faces when I told them they could still go to art class was enough to tell me that I’m making the right decision.

  I need to put all of my feelings aside and do what’s best for the kids.

  I never thought that she’d move back here, not after all of the history that this place holds, yet here she is, and it looks like she’s staying for good.