January 1998
"Lindsey! Please don't go! We can figure this out. This doesn't mean that you have to leave me," she was crying as she watched him pack up his bag.
He couldn't bear to look at her, "I have to, baby. This is the right thing to do and we both know it."
Stevie fell to her knees and started sobbing, "please don't do this. We had plans. We were going to get married and try to have a child of our own."
He takes a deep breath and helps her up off the ground, "Steph, I have to step up and take responsibility. This is my baby. It should have a family."
"That doesn't mean you have to leave me," she pushes him away.
"You know I didn't mean for this to happen," He says, moving close to her again and hugging her tightly. She doesn't resist this time, but she doesn't wrap her arms around him, either.
"You can still help raise this baby and take care of it. You don't have to be with her."
"It's the right thing to do."
All Stevie could do was watch him as he packed a few of his things. He was going to go be with her tonight. He was going to go be with her forever, actually. This was it. They were breaking up again. She felt like an idiot thinking they could actually work out this time. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked around the room. All of his things were scattered all over the place. He'd moved in as soon as they got back from The Dance tour.
"Do you not love me anymore?" She asked, her lip quivering.
Lindsey paused what he was doing and moved over to her. He placed a kiss on her lips and she desperately kissed him back, knowing it would be their last kiss, "I will always love you, Steph. I just need to do the right thing and that's to step up and be a man and a father and help Kristen raise this baby."
All she could do was nod a little. She couldn't stay in this room a second longer. She couldn't watch him leave. She walked downstairs and slipped her shoes on and grabbed her sunglasses. She headed outside and walked down her driveway and she didn't stop. She walked and walked until the sun had gone down. She looked up and she wasn't even sure where she was and she wasn't even sure she cared. She turned around and headed back the way she thought she came from, but she didn't want to go home. That was the last place she wanted to be. If he could just pack up and leave, then what was stopping her?
She finally arrived back at her place, not realizing how far she had actually gone. She packed a couple of bags and called a cab to take her to LAX. Staying in this city would surely kill her, as she was already so broken. She would go stay where it was safe. She would go stay in a place that didn't remind her of him every time she looked around. She would go home.
It was the middle of the night when she arrived in Arizona. She looked up at the house she spent a good portion of her childhood in and took a deep breath before ringing the doorbell. She waited for her mother to answer.
When Barbara came to the door, she didn't ask any questions. She took her daughter into her arms as Stevie began to cry again.
"Come inside, my sweet girl. Whatever's wrong, we'll figure it out and it'll be okay."
All Stevie could do is nod her head as the sobs wracked her small frame. She made her way into the house with her bags. Her mother took one look at her, "you need to sleep, little one. We can talk about this in the morning."
Barbara helped Stevie carry her bags up to her room. Stevie slipped her shoes off and collapsed onto the bed. She was so grateful her mother didn't ask any questions tonight. She wasn't ready to talk about it. Her mother tucked her in and kissed her forehead before going back to her own room. Stevie fell into a fitful sleep until morning.
When she finally awoke the next morning, she could hear the quiet chatter from downstairs. She looked down at her clothes; the ones she had been wearing the day before and decided to try to make herself look presentable before she headed downstairs.
Once she descended downstairs, she could hear her mother's voice, talking to Lori in the kitchen. Her brother and her dad were seated at the table.
She cleared her throat when she walked in, "good morning."
Everyone turned and looked at her surprised.
"Do you want some breakfast?" Barbara asked, already getting her a plate.
Stevie shook her head, "no mom, it's okay. I'm not hungry."
Lori glanced at Barbara before looking over at Stevie, "are you going to tell us what you're doing here?"
Stevie recounted the events from the past couple of days; how Kristen had called to inform Lindsey she was pregnant. How the next day he went to her ultrasound with her. Then how he came home and wrecked her life. By the time she got to that part of the story, she was sitting on the kitchen floor against the cabinets, sobbing and shaking.
No one really knew what to say at first. They all thought Stevie and Lindsey would make it this time. Barbara and Lori leaned down to pull her to her feet and they both held her. Her mother stroked her hair, "I'm so sorry my sweet girl. You stay here with us as long as you need and everything will be alright."
Stevie nodded a little and wiped her eyes. She glanced at Lori, "call Karen and let her know where I am and that I won't be back for a while. Make sure under no circumstances does she tell Lindsey where I am."
Lori nods, "anything else?"
Stevie shakes her head before resting it on her mother's shoulder as she begins to cry again.
Jess gets up from the table and goes to hug his daughter, "do you want Chris and me to go kick his ass?"
This gets a quiet laugh out of Stevie as she hugs her father, "no, that's alright. I do appreciate the offer."
"Honey, I really think you need to eat," Barbara says worriedly.
Stevie sighs, knowing her mother won't give up until she eats something. She sits down at the table to eat breakfast. She pushes the food around her plate and wipes her eyes. Her parents leave her be, for which she is grateful.
Lori sits down next to her, drinking a cup of coffee and watching her sister in law. "Do you want to talk?"
"About what? About how the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with and have a family with left me because he knocked up his ex girlfriend?"
Lori looks at her as if she regrets asking, "yeah....."
Stevie clears her throat, trying not to cry again, "do you know what the worst part is? We were trying for a baby."
"I'm so sorry," Lori says, reaching for Stevie's hand and holding it tight.
Stevie shakes her head, "maybe it's just not meant to be, you know? We can never seem to get our timing right. Someone always ends up getting hurt. Now he's having a baby with another woman and I've officially lost him. This isn't something that's just going to go away. He's going to be responsible for this baby for the next eighteen years." She pauses and takes a shaky breath, "it's just that I really, really love him. More than anything in the entire world and it hurts. It feels like there's...a hole right through my chest. Sometimes I feel like I can't breathe. I don't understand how he could just up and leave like that."
"I think that finding out he's going to be a father probably scared the shit out of him. I wouldn't be surprised if he was back at your place right now," Lori says, trying to understand why Lindsey would just leave Stevie without a second thought.
"If he is there; good. Let him see that I'm gone. Let him feel just a little bit of the pain I'm feeling right now."
Lori tucks some hair behind Stevie's ear, "hey, you're going to get through this. You know that, right?"
Stevie nods, "I've done it before. I can do it again. I just need some time."
"There's nothing wrong with that. You take as much time as you need. We all love you and we're all here for you."
"Thanks Lori," Stevie says as Lori gets up to go check on her daughter.
Stevie closes her eyes, enjoying the moment of peace without someone breathing down her neck, wanting to talk about her feelings. She knows that regardless of what happened or why he left, it was only a matter of time before Lindsey would be calling her parents house, asking where she is. She knows they won't tell him; that she's safe here. It just kills her that she had to run away from him again. She thought they were past this point in their lives. She thought they had finally figured it out. She was always one to believe in fate and destiny, but she couldn't understand why destiny kept bringing her back to Lindsey, only to tear them apart over and over.
All she knew is this time she wasn't going back.
Author's Note: So I've had this idea in my head for a while. I hope it doesn't suck. I'm much more comfortable writing in second person like Then, Now, and Again, but it just didn't seem right for this story and I wanted to try something new. I trust you guys to tell me if it sucks or not.