After All

Chapter Thirty

            And there it was. The real truth had finally come out. His mother had been the reason we broke up. And Ryan hadn't loved me enough to fight her on it. He lied to me about what happened, twice. At least I could thank her for finally telling me the truth.

I felt like I was going to be sick. Pulling myself out of Ryan's grip, I sprinted out of the room and down the hall. The click-clack of my high heels echoed off the walls. I wanted to do nothing more than to continue running right outside, away from the hospital, away from everything. But I'd promised Ryan that I was done running from him. So I couldn't bolt the first time I was faced with something hard. Even though that was exactly what I'd just done.

There was a chair farther down the hall. I sank down onto it to analyze the situation. I was sitting alone in a hospital in New Jersey, ridiculously overdressed having not changed from the wedding. Ryan had omitted so many truths, I could no longer tell what was up or down. And I'd just left everything I'd brought with me, my luggage, purse, and any way of getting back home to Manhattan in the waiting room. I'd escaped with no exit strategy.

But if I really stopped to think for a moment, what had really changed? Did it matter the exact circumstances in which Ryan broke up with me, or who encouraged him to do it? He'd proven his love over and over again the past few days. He had been a young guy with an impossible situation to deal with. I didn't know that I could have done any better than he had. And if I wanted to be with him again, then I couldn't just ignore the problems, hoping they'd go away. We'd have to deal with them together.

I pushed myself up from the chair and turned to walk back to the waiting room, when I saw Ryan walking towards me. His face had aged dramatically in the past hour. He looked so sad and desperate, my heart lurched with desire to wipe all that pain away.

I ran the few feet separating us, into his arms, into the place I felt the safest in the whole world. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I whispered over and over again, low and mournful. "I'm sorry I ran."

"No, I'm sorry," Ryan said into my neck, his voice muffled by my hair. "Please don't listen to anything my mother said. It was only a half-truth at best. You have to believe me."

"I do, Ryan. We can talk about it later, after Jack is out of surgery. I had a momentary lapse of judgement, but I'm here with you. I'm not going anywhere, I promise.

"Thank you," he said, his fingers dancing up and down my spine. "You ground me and make me feel stronger. I need you here more than anything."

"But how am I supposed to go back in there with your mom?" My stomach churned with the thought of having to wait in such a small room with her.

Anger flashed across Ryan's face. "Forget her. You belong there with me. I'm not letting her ruin anything else between us."

"But Ryan, she's your mother. She has more of a right to be there than I do."

"Mother is only a title unless you do something to earn it. I'll get into that later, but trust me. Having you with me is the most important thing. I promise I won't let her say or do anything to you again."

"Okay, let's go."

On our way back inside, it was I who now needed to gather strength from Ryan's hand in mine. I practically crushed every bone from the wrist down when we walked into the waiting room.

His mother was still sitting in the front row of seats, though Mr. Parker now sat beside her. He gave me a small smile with a subtle wink. Mrs. Parker might hate me, but I doubted her husband felt the same. He had always been so kind to me. I shuddered to think it had all been an act.

Ryan and I strode right past them to the back of the room. We sat down in seats as far away from his parents as possible. We gave a wave of acknowledgement to Brianna and Dean, who were snacking on chips and gummy bears from the vending machine.

We all sat quietly, lost in our own thoughts while we waited. Ryan's thumb rubbed circles on the top of my hand. We murmured quietly to each other. I had asked Ryan to tell me more about Jack, what his favorite toys were, favorite hobbies, and he was happy to oblige. He was absolutely obsessed with Matchbook cars and took the red one everywhere he went. He hated to sit and watch TV, preferring to run around outside as much as possible. His coordination was still developing, so tag was a better game to play than baseball most days. Ryan and I then took a walk down the hall together, stopping to grab cups of coffee in Styrofoam cups from the cafeteria. Once settled back in the waiting room, my head kept bobbing forward. The lack of sleep and ping-ponging emotions of the day finally caught up to me. I tried my hardest to stay awake, for Ryan, but the effort was looking more and more futile.

I had just drifted into sleep from awake when Dr. Cooper came into the room. I shook the drowsiness out of my head as Ryan pulled me to the front of the room. We stood with the Parkers, Brianna and Dean acting as buffers.

"The surgery went well," Dr. Cooper began and we all let out a collective sigh of relief. "We were able to remove the appendix before it burst. We'll be giving him some IV antibiotics, but he should be able to go home on Tuesday."

"Thank you so much," Ryan spoke, as Brianna was too busy wiping happy tears from her eyes. "Can we see him?"

"In just a few minutes," Dr. Cooper assured us. "They're waking him out of anesthesia now. Though he needs his rest, so only a few minutes, and just the parents."

Once the doctor left, we all took turns hugging each other. The warmth and affection I had for Brianna when I embraced her was surprising, but welcome. Seeing the relationship she had with Ryan soothed any jealousy I might have held. They had just been two kids who'd made a mistake, but grown and matured with the child they'd been given. If Ryan and I stayed together, I knew she and I would grow to be friends.

His parents left quickly after, promising to return in the morning. Ryan was curt in his goodbye, and I busied myself searching for a chap stick in my purse to avoid talking to them. The room felt lighter once they left.

Dean and I hung back in the waiting room while Ryan and Brianna went in to see Jack. He brought me more black coffee, which despite the bitterness without creamer to offset it, I downed in only three gulps. He was a few years older than me and worked as an accountant. He looked the part too, with a plaid shirt buttoned all the way up to the peak of the collar, thick, brown-framed glasses, and his blond hair askew. But his outgoing, friendly nature calmed me. It couldn't be easy to date a twenty-four year old with a kid, I knew that, but he was fiercely in love with Brianna. Ryan was right, there would definitely be a wedding in their near future.

I sent a stream of texts to Cassie while I waited. I hadn't talked to her at all since leaving the wedding. She still thought I was down in North Carolina. I wasn't sure when I'd be getting back into the city now, and I didn't want her to worry. Telling my best friend that my boyfriend had a son was not exactly something I wanted to do with a text, but I didn't have a choice. I wasn't quite sure if it was late at night or early morning, but knew regardless she would still be asleep. I'd just have to deal with the backlash later.

I sent a quick text to Rebecca and Keith as well. I let them know everything was fine with Jack, and wished them well on their honeymoon in Fiji. And then I waited some more.

When Ryan finally walked back into the room, the worry and tension in his shoulders was gone, though he looked infinitely more tired. He pulled me into him, kissing my forehead. "Brianna's gonna stay with him for right now. I wanted to as well, but the nurses said it's really best if he gets some sleep. He'll be out of it for a few hours still. Brianna pulled the mom card and reminded me that since she carried him for nine months, she gets to stay. She suggested we get changed and maybe a little sleep. We'll trade off with her in a few hours. Let's go home, Lily."