Perfect Doesn't Last Forever

Chapter Four

            “I’m glad you finally stayed with her for more than twenty-four hours and I can’t even tell you how relieved I am that you take this parenting thing seriously, but I don’t understand why you are telling me this.”

            “I just…” He pulled his seat closer to mine and gently took my hands in his, sending alarms off in me.  “I just… didn’t understand how hard it was before, and now that I do, I really want us to be able to work better together and be a family again.”

            So he just wanted to get into my pants again.  And he didn’t want to be taking care of Hayley on his own.  He wanted me to be with Hayley and he wanted to be with me.  He always said the word family, but it just meant that I was, once again, going to be the sole parent of Hayley and he would just swoop in and do the easy things.  “Damien, we are a family and we will be forever,” I told him, talking my hands out of his and placing them in the safety of my lap. 

            “That’s not what I mean.  I want Hayley to be able to live in one home with her mom and her dad together.  I don’t want her to have to split her time between the two of us.  I want Hayley to grow up with her parents by her side all the time.” 

            Where was all of this coming from?  He couldn’t even stand seeing me the past few months and now he wants to be some picture perfect family?  He wanted us to live together?  Was he insane?  And why was he even asking me this?  I broke off the engagement because I didn’t want to be stuck and in addition to my reasons earlier, now I had Noah.  Kind-hearted Noah, who I was very committed to, and if the past months were any indication to him, Damien and I clearly had a lot of problems.  He was resentful towards me and while I never really thought about it, I knew I had some resentment towards him.  There was anger pushed deep down in me for over two years, anger that I shut away with secrets that I could never bear to dredge up. 

            Damien must have seen my less than expected reaction to his proposal and now he was tightening up.  “What Brittany?  You aren’t done with your little experiment yet?  Hayley needs a family.”

            “Do you see what just happened here?” I asked him calmly, not wanting to set him of further.  “I didn’t say a single thing and you got angry.  How are we supposed to have a healthy relationship around our daughter, when you can’t even have a calm and civil conversation with me?”

            “Well you’re being selfish!  We have a daughter together.  She needs a stable household and she needs her parents together.”  He jumped out of his seat completely enraged and angrily threw his hands in the air.  “Don’t you hear those statistics?  Forget the fact that we are teen parents, kids born to adult parents who get divorced have a higher chance of committing crimes.  She needs stability and this thing we have going on isn’t stable.  What if she asks you why we aren’t together?  What are you going to say to her then?  Are you going to tell her that you are selfish and don’t care enough about your family?”

            “Are you kidding me right now?” I pushed my chair back and took a furious step towards him.  “Where the hell do you get off telling me that I’m selfish?  I sacrificed so much for Hayley and for you so that you could have a normal end to high school and go to college.  Between the two of us, I am the least bit selfish,” I said, pointing at him.  “You don’t get to tell me what I am.  And I never said anything about not being a family.  You were the one who was so angry at me that you served me with custody papers!” 

            “Look at you right now.  You graduated high school.  You’re in college and you only have your daughter every five days.  What have you sacrificed within the past few months?  Your family!”