Chapter 8

She was sitting in the hard plastic chair, looking content and calm – definitely unlike the Brayden that I had come to know over the past few years. She had a motivation for being here – that I was absolutely certain of. She wasn't stupid enough to come here for the pure pleasure of being here, and she wasn't here for my sake. She was so unpredictable that I couldn't tell why she was here.

Seeing her now, with the knowledge of what she had been doing probably all those years, the behavior made sense now. When she was under the influence of drugs, she was crazy and uncontrollable, even violent. When she wasn't under the influence, she was like the old Bray, the Bray that I had met.

She looked like the old Bray right now. She had her blonde hair pulled back in a clip, her face made up lightly. She was dressed up like she was ready to go out, in her normal sequined top, dark washed jeans, and black leather open-toed heels. She didn't look like the Bray I had left – but she was full of surprises.

Whatever her motivation was, it wasn't the reason I wanted her to visit me. It wasn't because she cared about me.

“You behave yourself,” Officer Daniels mumbled in my ear as I prepared to sit down in the chair. “She looks like she brings trouble, and I don't like trouble.”

Apparently, it was pretty obvious to her that this wasn't a visitor I had planned on seeing. She exited the room and stood outside watching us through the window, just like the officer had when Joey and JC had visited.

Brayden didn't pick up the phone to talk to me right away. Instead, she sat there for a couple of minutes, staring at me uncomfortably. Occasionally she would divert her eyes away from mine, like she had something to say but it had to be carefully thought over first.

I watched her the whole time though, not bothering to look away. I had so many things to say to her. I'd had all the time in the world to think of what I would say to her if I saw her again, and now that I had the chance, I didn't feel like half the stuff I'd thought of was anything I could say to her.

Finally, she picked up the phone carefully, so I did the same.

“You're probably wondering why I'm here,” she said cautiously.

“I know exactly why you're here,” I lied. “You're here because you lit the match, you started the fire, and now you can't help but return to the scene to watch me burn.”

“I'm here because I thought maybe you would like a visitor,” she said. “If you want me to go, I can walk out the door.”

“Who do you think you're kidding? You're not here for me, Bray. But I can't figure out if you came here to throw it in my face that you were cheating on me, that now you have Bailey and I'll never see her again, or whether it's something else.”

“I'm here because I thought we needed to talk,” she said.

“I don't think we do. I think you said all you needed to say by letting me end up here. I have nothing to say.”

“Then maybe I came here because I needed to talk.”

“Then talk,” I said.

She paused for several seconds. She was breathing as if she was trying to gather up the courage to say what she needed to say, or as if she was about to cry. I couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with her; Brayden didn't cry, ever. I don't remember her even crying when our daughter was born, despite the pain and emotion. I didn't think she was capable of tears.

“I'm sorry,” she finally said. “I didn't mean for any of this to happen.”

“Then make it right.”

“What can I do to make it right? Confess? Do you really think that if I confess, they'll drop all the charges against you? Do you think they'll let you walk right out of here and say 'We're sorry for the inconvenience'?”

They wouldn't, and even I wasn't stupid enough to believe that.

“Bailey will be no better off with two parents in jail.”

“That's a sick fucking excuse, Brayden,” I said.

“Be that as it may, you know I'm right, Lance.”

It was a sick excuse, but she was right. I wasn't here because I was a drug addict, but I was here because I was caught with them. Even if she sacrificed herself for me, no good could come from it. Bailey would have two parents in jail then. I couldn't blame Brayden for not giving herself up, because for once she was thinking of her daughter.

Suddenly, my emotions switched from mad to hurt.

“It took you a whole fucking week to come visit me,” I said.

“With the attitude that you have now, can you understand why? You're pissed at me. And I know why you're pissed at me, but...who wants to visit someone who has a grudge against them?”

“Why are you here anyway? You know I'm pissed at you, and you have Jason now. What reason do you have to come visit me?”

“I'm here to give you exactly what you want. I'm signing over my parental rights to Joey.”

At first I nearly dropped the phone; I wasn't sure I'd heard her right.

“You're doing what?” I asked.

“I'm signing over my parental rights to Joey and Kelly,” she said. “I can't do this, Lance. I'm not cut out to be a mom. I'm not sure that I ever was. You and Bailey have a connection that I don't seem to have with her. She loves you so much, and you love her – I don't think you've ever loved me like that. It's something that I can't compete with, and I shouldn't have to compete against my own daughter for your love. When your lawyer dropped the papers by and talked to me about signing over my parental rights, I knew he was right that it was the best thing to do for both you and Bailey.”

I'd realized over the past few days that maybe I had been so insistent that Bailey be taken away because I wanted to get back at Brayden. In my heart, I knew that Brayden was wrong. She had been a good mom once, and even though she had made a lot of mistakes lately, she was showing that somewhere she still had Bailey's best interests at heart.

Still, I was wary of her true intentions.

“How do I know this isn't one of your little games?” I asked.

“I haven't been the best person the past few years. I know that. I want you to trust me again, but I know you can't do that. I'm asking for you to trust me this one last time. Blind faith.”

I remembered what Abby had said a few days ago, about not knowing but trusting blindly. Even though I wasn't with Brayden anymore, I couldn't act like a child and cut off all ties with her. I had to think about the sake of Bailey; she needed both a dad and a mom. We had to learn to get along for the sake of our child, especially now.

“I can't trust you,” I said. I watched her expression fall. “But I will put my blind faith into trusting you this one time. For the sake of Bailey, if nothing else.”

“I am sorry, you know,” she said.

“You have yet to prove that.”

This new side of Brayden that I was seeing was a little hard to believe, even with blind faith. It was going to be hard.

“I'm trying, Lance. I'm apologizing, and I'm being honest. I'm giving you what you really want – Bailey.”

“I want that. But that's not what I really want, Bray,” I said quietly.

“What do you want then, Lance?”

What I wanted was different from what I knew I needed, but I had to admit it.

“I want to give it another try,” I said. “I want to work out our problems and make it work for us, and for Bailey. She needs both of us right now. I miss you, Bray.”

“Jason and I are getting married.”

That time, I did drop the phone. I barely got my senses back in time to grip it before it dropped onto the table in front of me.

“We're running off to Vegas. I moved on a long time ago, Lance. I didn't have the common sense to end it the right way. After Vegas we're going to California. From there, I don't know. I just know I'm not coming back to New York for a long time.”

It was all I could do to keep from smashing the glass between us – or possibly breaking down. My emotions had been so crazy; everybody kept playing around with them like they were a jack-in-the-box: up and down, all the time. I didn't know what bothered me more – the fact that I finally realized I had lost her, or the fact that I'd lost her to her fake male model boyfriend.

“I was such a damn fool.”

“Lance--”

“I don't know how I couldn't see any of this,” I said. “I gave you everything you ever wanted. I gave you a place to live when you had nowhere to go. I got your modeling career back. I thought I had given you a great life.”

“You tried,” she said. “The problem is that I couldn't ever give you what you wanted in return.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I was never good enough,” she said with a slight scoff. “It was always about the image to you. You wanted me to be this great mother, like Kelly and your own mother. You didn't want to marry me until I was perfect. Aren't I right, Lance?”

Her face had changed – I saw a tinge of that new Bray coming through.

“See, with Jason, there's no expectations,” she said.

“Yeah, no shit,” I said with a snide laugh. “As long as you stay high as a kite, you're perfect for him.”

She pursed her lips.

“I have somewhere to be.”

“I'm sure you do, wedding planning and all,” I said. “I hope you'll be so happy together. Sorry I can't be there to make a more personal toast.”

“I'm taking the car,” she said. “Everything else is yours, but you owe me. Your lawyer knows where to find all your important papers if he needs them, and I'm dropping the keys to the house and the other car with Joey. Jason has all of Bailey's stuff packed up--”

“He'd better not lay one finger on my daughter,” I said.

She stopped and didn't say a word. For a minute during her visit, I thought things would go great and be civil, and now I realized that from now on, nothing could be civil between us again.

“Did you ever love me?” I asked.

“Who says I ever stopped?” she responded.

Despite the fact that she had all but outright said she still loved me, the mood in the room stayed tense. I knew no matter how she felt about me, she wasn't staying.

“I'll be out of your life. All I came here for was to apologize, tell you about Bailey, and say goodbye. I'm leaving tonight after I drop her off at Joey's. We're driving all the way to Vegas. I'll be all the way across the country. I can't fuck up your life much more than I have now. You won't miss me for long.”

She lowered her head for a moment, and when she lifted it back up I saw tears in her eyes, despite the nasty attitude she had radiated moments earlier. I guess she was capable of them.

“I have to go,” she said, looking away from me, fighting the tears. “I have a long drive ahead of me. I am sorry, Lance.”

She snatched a purse up off the floor and stood up quickly. She pushed her chair back towards the table and it made a horrible nails-on-chalkboard sound against the linoleum floor, and she rushed out the door as quickly and unexpectedly as she had come.

Watching her walk out that door hurt like hell. It would have been less painful to get stabbed by one of the other inmates. It felt a little like that, actually. I did something I didn't normally do – I got so pissed that I punched the glass that had been separating us.

“Alright, you got it off your chest,” Officer Daniels said, grabbing one of my arms. I hadn't even heard her come back through the door. “You need to calm yourself down, you hear? I don't want to have to cuff you.”

She watched me take a few breaths to calm myself down, and I went back and forth looking in her eyes and watching the door Brayden had walked out of.

“You good now?”

“I'm good now,” I said.

The hardest part wasn't convincing her, it was convincing myself.