He trailed off, so I interrupted. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever is going on in Hyde’s life has nothing to do with me.”
My dad’s expression shifted, and his voice dropped a tone. His icy eyes were even cooler than normal as he told me, “Remy, the reason Hyde’s not making those plans any longer is because the girl he was seeing died a couple months ago. She was killed in a car crash.”
I sucked in a breath and felt my body go numb. “That’s terrible.” The words escaped on a breathless whisper before I could stifle them.
My dad squeezed my shoulder and pinned me with his intense gaze. “The girl was pregnant when the accident happened. Hyde’s coming home because he has a newborn baby girl he doesn’t know how to handle. The baby has been in a NICU unit on base in Georgia for the last couple of months. I had no clue the reason Zeb has been so hard to get ahold of and has been handing so many of his projects down to his foremen is because he’s been going back and forth to help Hyde out. Their family has been going through a lot, and I felt like you should hear about it from someone who understands your history with Hyde, rather than be caught unaware if you hear about his child when he returns.”
“I...” I honestly didn’t know what to say after I started speaking, so I went with the refrain I’d forced myself to repeat lately. “It’s going to be fine. Hearing that hasn’t changed my mind. His life still has nothing to do with me. It sucks he’s going through so much and lost so much, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do to help him.” Even if I wanted to. I was as clueless as he apparently was when it came to babies. And he’d made it pretty clear ages ago that there was no place in his life for me. I gave myself a mental shake and told myself to get it together. I still had to get through dinner. I wasn’t going to let myself get caught up in obsessing over how badly Hyde must be hurting, and how desperate and scared he must be if he was finally returning home when nothing else had managed to bring him back. “Let’s go inside. You have to promise to play referee if Mom starts acting up.”
He agreed, and his gaze softened slightly, but he didn’t look like he bought my thin veneer of composure one bit. I couldn’t blame him.
Neither did I.
Hyde
THERE WERE MANY times in my life when I’d felt helpless and useless.
There was the night I left Remy in that hospital bed without a backward glance.
There was the day my mom broke down in tears when I told her I was going to enlist, and she pleaded with me not to go.
There were the first few weeks of boot camp when I was overwhelmed and absolutely positive I made the wrong choice.
There was my first deployment, my first birthday, and the first major holiday away from my family on foreign soil.
There was a time when my dad suddenly started having chest pains and was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night. My mom was convinced he was having a heart attack, but I hadn’t heard anything until he was already home and recuperating after having a stent placed due to a blocked artery. He could’ve died, and I would’ve been none the wiser. My mom would have suffered the loss and heartbreak all on her own.
There was the night the girl I’d been seeing, the daughter of a commanding officer, informed me she was pregnant right when I was on the verge of breaking up with her. While I’d been away for training, she’d taken comfort in the arms of a friend while I was gone. She wasn’t sure if the baby was mine or his, and she was more worried about her family finding out about the pregnancy than about how I would react to being cheated on.
I couldn’t do anything in any of those situations to make myself or anyone else feel better. I protected no one and didn’t make one single thing better.
Recently, the biggest moment where I’d felt like I was doomed to keep getting railroaded by life, rather than actively living it to the fullest, was the heart-stopping moment when the higher-ups pulled me away from my assignment to inform me there’d been an accident involving my ex and the unborn baby. When I heard there was a chance to save the baby—that very well might not be mine—but not the mother, I forgot how to breathe. I nearly buckled under the weight of fear and frustration. I knew instantly that I couldn’t make any major medical decisions on behalf of the child until I proved she was mine. I’d never been as helpless as I was at that moment.
I lost a girl whom I no longer loved but still cared about deeply. I lost a friend and fellow soldier whom I thought I could trust until his betrayal. I nearly lost my baby. She was mine in my heart already, regardless of what any test would reveal.
For several tense and precarious weeks, I had to stand in solidarity with the man who’d been sleeping with my girl behind my back each and every time I was out of town. I was pretty sure that the only reason they came clean was because I’d finally decided not to re-up and was on the verge of getting out of the service and returning to civilian life. I had hoped that once I was home more, I could salvage my relationship with her. For once, I wanted something I’d invested a lot of time and effort into to work out. I wasn’t sure we’d ever had a lifetime kind of love, but she was a good girl who was easygoing and never asked too much of me. I liked her more than most and enjoyed coming home to her when I got the chance. Little did I know that my girl was well on her way to moving on without me. Since she came from a military family; she was looking to hook herself to a career military man, which was not me. I never planned to give my entire life to the service. It was a choice I’d made when I felt cornered and saw no other way out. Sure, I appreciated how the Army forced me to grow and taught me more about myself than anything else ever would, but I was not looking for a future of taking orders and constantly moving around.
My unfaithful girlfriend really couldn’t say who the baby’s father was, but she planned to find out for sure once the little girl was born. Unfortunately, time ran out for all of us to wait and see. I decided to do whatever was in the baby’s best interest and put aside any grievances I had for my former friend as the neonatologist tried to keep the little girl, who was alarmingly premature and suffering from injuries due to the severity of the car accident, alive. I repeatedly heard that everything that could be done to save her was being done, but there was always an undertone that warned I shouldn’t get my hopes up.
Eventually, the test proved she really was mine. So eventually I was able to put all of my time, effort, and resources into helping her pull through. I was calling all the shots where the baby was concerned, and I let the other guy focus on ensuring her mother was put to rest peacefully and properly. The young woman’s family was difficult to deal with, and they were not very interested in how the baby was faring, so I was honestly grateful I didn’t have to play the grieving significant other when I was still processing my emotions about the situation. I couldn’t force myself to attend her funeral, but I had visited her grave and made a million promises to her that I would give our child the best life possible, even if I had no idea what I was doing. I refused to think about anything that happened before the little girl became the center of my entire world. Being mad and resentful about how she got here wasn’t going to do me any good. I needed to focus on the fact she was here and do what was best for her from that point on.