“Can we get McDonalds Mommy? I’m hungry,” Brady’s voice broke me from my many thoughts as we drove back to my apartment.

“Sure Monkey. Tiny, do you mind pulling through the drive thru?”

“No problem Kiddo,” he smiled as he continued driving. He’s trying to make me feel like I don’t need to worry about what’s going on because he’s being way too nice and optimistic. I don’t understand why everyone is so damn optimistic. The fact is that everyone thinks I’m crazy and paranoid and if all this bullshit goes through they’re going to take Brady away from me. Justin is already distancing himself from me. If they think I’m crazy not just wait how crazy I’m going to be if they even try to take Brady.

Maybe I’ll just pack up the car and leave. It’ll be hard now that Tiny is with us all the time, but I can wait until he’s sleeping and sneak out with Brady. I don’t know where we’ll go. I don’t really care. I can’t let them take Brady, he is my life. We’ll go somewhere far away and I can strip again to get the money I need. Then we can start over. I’ll get a real job during the day while Brady is in school and then I’ll work at a club at night. I won’t have a babysitter but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

When we got back to the apartment the cops were just leaving. They told me there was nothing to worry about and everything looked fine. That doesn’t calm me down though my apartment was still unlocked. Why would somebody come in and not take anything or even trash the place? They probably think I made that up too.

I sat Brady down at the kitchen table and placed his Happy Meal in front of him before sitting down next to him with my own lunch sitting there. I’m not exactly in the mood for eating; I just really need to sort all this stuff out.

“Mommy, how come you’re not eating? Is your fries not good? Want one of mine?”

“No sweetie, thank you. Mine are perfect.”

“How come you’re sad? Want me to make you happy? I can tell you what I did with Trace and Rachael,” he offered before stuffing a French fry in his mouth.

“Yes, please tell me all about it.”

“OK, OK, first we practiced baseball and Trace said I was silly cause I got a homerun. But then he said that’s not a homerun cause you gotta hit the ball real far not just hit the home and run! Cause he said if that was all everyone would get a homerun all the time. And how would they get a home run when there’s not a home and they’re playing at the park? Sooooo then Rachael came out with milk and some real cookies! They were yummy and Trace said that she couldn’t have made them cause she don’t cook but Rachael said she DOES cook and maybe he would know that if he wasn’t so busy making clothes. I didn’t get that. Trace likes Rachael.”

“Brady,” I laughed, he’s such a little matchmaker.

“He does!” Brady giggled, “I know it!”

“How do you know it? Did Trace tell you?”

“No!” he giggled, “I know cause he smiles when she comes and he teases her like Justin teases you.”

I smiled as I finished chewing my burger, “Do you think Rachael likes him?”

“Yeah, uh huh cause she laughs sometimes when it’s not even funny.”

“Brady that doesn’t mean anything,” I laughed at his observations. He really always manages to make me feel better all the time.

“Yeah huh! AND you know what else? Her face gets red and she smiles real big just like you do when Justin comes over.”

If we leave without Justin Brady will really be heartbroken. I will too, but I think I’ll be able to deal with it, especially since I know it’s necessary. There’s no way possible that I can run away with Justin knowing.

“They’re going to get married,” Brady giggled.

“I think you’re rushing things a little there buddy,” I laughed as I went to the refrigerator to grab more ketchup.

“They are. Are you going to get married to Justin?”

“Do you need more ketchup?” I squirted some on his wrapper before he could answer, “Hurry and finish.”

“How come you’re not married? All the kids in school’s mommy’s are married.”

“That’s because all the other Mommy’s are old. Finish your food.”

This is just wonderful, now Brady is worried why his mother isn’t married. Next he’s going to ask who his father is and it’ll all come crashing down. We spent the rest of the day around the apartment. Even with Tiny here I’m not really comfortable with taking Brady outside especially since I know they’re not doing anything with Gabe. I really don’t understand how they can just believe everything he says.

Brady asked me at least a hundred times when Justin was coming over. As I was putting him in bed he asked me for the last time and I couldn’t take it anymore, “He’s not Brady, go to sleep.”

“How come he’s not?”

“He’s busy.”

“Doing what? He’s always busy but he still comes over.” I don’t even know what to say to my son. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath but Brady wasn’t having the stalling, “Mommy! What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know Brady,” I answered honestly, “its time for bed.”

“But Mommy!” now he’s whining, “I wanna say goodnight to Justin too!”

“Well he’s not here Brady, so you can’t.” I stood up and pulled the blanket over him, “you need to stop worrying about him so much. He doesn’t need to be here every night. Justin doesn’t live here. It’s you and me and that’s it. Go to bed.”

“Do I get to go to school tomorrow?”

“Yes Brady, please go to sleep.” I can’t even take it anymore; he’s driving me nuts. I kissed his forehead quickly and turned off the light on my way out before he could ask me anything else.

Tiny was sitting on the couch and offered a sweet smile as I walked out, “I’m just going to go to bed so…”

He looked at his watch before answering, “I’m here until Justin tells me to leave.”

“Well do you know where he is?” Tiny shook his head, “So you’re just going to sit on my couch while I’m sleeping?”

“If it makes you uncomfortable I can wait outside.”

I took a deep breath and shook my head, “It’s cold outside.”

“Do you want to talk?” Tiny offered.

“No, I want to sleep,” I answered in a very bitchy tone that I can’t even stop. I have absolutely no reason to be a bitch to Tiny; he’s probably the nicest man I’ve ever met. I want to be a bitch to Justin but he’s out somewhere no one knows, probably pulling up some more dirt on me with Gabe.

I did slam the door, I didn’t mean to though. There’s really no need to be mad at Tiny, I just wish I knew what Justin was doing. He could have told me what was going on instead of just leaving and hardly even looking at me as he left. But I definitely should not take it out on Tiny, “I’m sorry I slammed the door,” I said softly after sticking my head out, “I’m not mad at you. Thanks for everything.”

“Don’t worry about me Kiddo, get some sleep.”

I smiled before walking back into my bedroom and changing into my pajamas. It is only eight o’clock and I know there’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to sleep but if I turn the lights off and lay in bed at least I can have some time to sort out my thoughts. That was the plan at least, except I can’t really think.

“Chloe?” I heard Justin’s voice but lay still, hoping maybe he’d think I was sleeping and go away. I wanted him to be here but now that he’s here I’m afraid what he’s going to say.

“I’m sleeping,” I answered quietly.

“Well wake up,” he said sternly as he turned the lights on. I sat up with my legs crossed and looked him over as if I could come up with some idea of where he’s been all day. He looks the same, maybe a little more annoyed. Justin sat down on the bed next to me and closed his eyes before speaking, “Is there anything you want to tell me?” I shook my head and he took a deep breath before continuing, “You don’t have anything you want to tell me Chloe?”

“No.”

“Were you at the Riverside Center of Behavioral Medicine?”

“I already told you I wasn’t, you’re going to believe Gabe over me? That’s great Justin, what happened to the whole trust thing?”

He took a deep breath and threw his head back, “Don’t give me that shit! What happened to the trust thing Chloe? You tell me. I’d say it’s pretty much shot to shit!” he shouted.

“Stop yelling, you’re going to wake Brady.”

Justin bit at his bottom lip and grabbed a piece of paper from his pocket and tossed it over at me. “Why can’t you just tell me you were there?”

I unfolded the paper to see it was my records from the center; it’s good to know they follow that whole privacy thing. I don’t know what to say so I lay back down in bed and turned my back towards him, “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“OK, fine. When do you want to talk about it Chloe? I would say the sooner we talk about it the better, especially since you have your fucking exboyfriend over here trying to take your kid away.”

I sat back up, Justin sure as hell got my attention with that one, “he’s trying to take my kid away?” I could only whisper.

“I mean, that’s what it sounded like to me. He’s trying to get to know him, to spend more time with Brady. It seems like that’s the goal of the whole thing. He’s trying to make it look like you can’t even take care of yourself. But you can’t tell me the truth, so how the hell am I supposed to help you when I have to go do my own detective work?”

“He can’t take him. I love him more than anything and I’d do anything for him,” I’m getting teary just thinking about it.

“I know, baby I know. No one doubts that. I’m not going to let anything happen to him but you really need to fill me in. This is serious now, I need to know what’s going on.”

I licked my lips as I tried to figure out a way to tell him everything without sounding completely crazy, “I’ll tell you but you have to promise that you won’t get freaked out and leave.”

“Seriously? Why is that even a thought going through your mind?” he asked as he grabbed onto my hands and looked in my eyes, “Chloe, if I was scared of a little drama I would have been gone a long time ago. I’m not scared of anything, especially if it has to do with you and Brady. I love you guys and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. But you need to fill me in.”

Did he just say he loves us? Loves like you love your dog or your best friend or love like love, love? 

“Chloe,” he spoke my name again placing a hand on my lap. He’s doing a good job at making me feel comfortable and I must say this is a huge relief especially since I thought he was out making friends with Gabe.

“OK, the truth. Bear with me though, because I don’t… or I haven’t talked about it so… ok. So I was like in high school and I had a really hard time making friends. I was awkward and lanky and really shy. My mom was really worried about me. I like, had a lot of inner crisis’s or whatever. Anyway, I always kept to myself and had lots of issues from the whole never knowing my father thing. I always thought it was my fault because he stayed with my mom until I was born,” I’m going way off topic this is not a therapy session. “OK, so I had a lot of anxiety and I started worrying about everything. Like I’d walk down the hallway and kids would be laughing and I thought they were laughing at me. But I took it to another level and didn’t want to go to school or hid in the bathroom or something. I’d talk to my mom and tell her everything and she… well you know, it worried her. Then my grades started to drop and I bunked school a lot because I thought the kids were after me. I started getting into trouble like drinking and stuff. But the kids were bothering me, it wasn’t all my imagination. I made it worse than it really was, but I never made anything up. I couldn’t stand up for myself so I just stopped going. Then I met Gabe and at first it was great, I liked him because he liked me. I didn’t think I’d ever find someone that liked me. My mother really liked him because he was a good kid, he had good grades he came from a good family. But his family hated me because I was trash and a bad influence. We were teenagers so he didn’t really care what his parents thought. Then it got worse because people would talk about us and what a loser I was and how he was so much better than me. I just couldn’t deal with that, I thought everyone was always talking about me. I wouldn’t leave my room for like days at a time and my mother got really worried so she took me to the center. They admitted me and I stayed for three months.”

“What kind of things did you do while you were there?”

“Mostly psychotherapy, they gave me some medication. I wasn’t as bad as everyone there. People thought that aliens were coming to get them and they didn’t trust the doctors. I was never that bad. My case was pretty minor.”

Justin nodded his head and grabbed onto my hand, “And it worked?”

“Yeah,” I nodded my head, “well for the most part. But then I went back with Gabe and I got pregnant and then all that stuff happened. I didn’t make that shit up; he did everything I said he did. My mom knew, she saw him. That’s why we left. She didn’t want me to stay there and go back to my old ways. He used it as an excuse and thought he could do whatever he wanted and just call me crazy so he’d get away with it.”

“Is the disorder always there or does it go away completely?”

“It’s always there to some extent. It doesn’t go away but not like he’s trying to make it. It’s little things for me, like how I’m so nervous and I didn’t want Brady to go to school yesterday. Or like when we first met and how I didn’t want you to meet Brady and I didn’t want you spending time together. Or how I’m so scared you’re going to leave me.  It’s like normal things that everyone goes through but I take it to another level. But I never made up anything. Gabe came here and did what I said he did. I still have the disorder in the sense that I have a hard time trusting and I’m overprotective because I don’t want anything to happen to my son. But I don’t have the serious issues anymore, I don’t make up shit. Gabe was here, and he did everything. He’s full of shit and he’s using this to his advantage just like he always did. He knows Brady is his son, I don’t know why he was pretending he didn’t. I don’t want him near Brady Justin, I can’t have that happen.”

“It won’t happen,” he assured me and for some reason I actually believe him when he says that, “So Gabe was here?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, I believe you. Thanks for letting me in Chloe. See, it wasn’t that hard, right?” he smiled before kissing me gently. “We’ll take care of it tomorrow. I’ll talk to my lawyers and get everything figured out.” Justin pulled his shirt off before crawling under the blankets and reaching over to turn off the light. He wrapped his arm around me and whispered in my ear, “Try to sleep baby, you’re safe now.”