Page 20 of Secret Triplets, Second Chances

JAKE

F ive years ago, when Lara told me that she wasn’t coming with me to Michigan, it felt like I was hovering outside my body. Like I was a character in a movie, watching my life play out in front of me.

Now, it feels like that, again.

“Zachery came with me to the clinic,” Lara is saying, her eyes on the ground.

“And I swore him to secrecy. I thought — I knew that it was what I wanted. But I also knew that it wasn’t what you wanted, and I would never ruin your future like that.

Not when you’d been working your entire life to get out of Wildfern Ridge.

When that was the only thing you’d ever wanted, and you were so close to getting it. ”

My mind swims with responses to that, knowing that Lara could never have ruined my life by staying in it. That Wildfern Ridge isn’t as bad as I thought it was. That I could live anywhere if it meant getting to be with her.

She is right, though. If she had told me the truth back then, I would have dropped my spot at Michigan. I would have picked up more hours at my dad’s company, even if it meant being around him more. We would have found a nice place here, maybe even bought a house together.

I would have done whatever it took to be there for her, to make a life in Wildfern Ridge happen.

And I wouldn’t be playing professionally in the NHL right now.

I would never have had the opportunity to punch Labowski in his face, to get myself splashed all over sports news stations, to spark discourse online about ‘the code’ and whether or not I’d broken it.

If Lara had told me back then, I wouldn’t have spent the past five years of my life trying to figure out what I did to make her change her mind back then.

“I lied to my parents about it for a while, but eventually I had to come clean. They were… upset, obviously. But all they’ve ever done is support me, and they kept doing that, having my back, keeping me safe. They were both there for the delivery.”

“So…” I swallow, try to meet her eyes, but can’t, my body a swirling, uncontained mass of emotions I don’t understand. It feels like the only thing I can do right now is make sure I have the facts straight. “You have a baby?”

We have a baby?

“Well…” she swallows, reaches into her pocket, and when she holds her phone screen out to me, her hands are shaking. I want to reach out and take them, soothe her, but I can’t when it feels like my own body is out of my control right now, like panic is sparking just under my fingertips.

I look at the picture on the screen and instantly see myself in the three kids staring back at me.

A little girl wearing a purple dress, looking shyly down at the floor, with blond hair just like Lara’s.

A little boy in the middle, holding a toy lion, his mouth open like he might be roaring at the photographer, his hair the exact same dark brown shade as mine.

It’s like looking at a baby picture of myself.

And on the end, a little girl with her arms crossed, taller than the other two, wearing overalls.

Her long dark hair is slightly tangled, her face red like she’s been running, and her eyes glint amber.

Just like mine.

“Three?” I ask, feeling like I’m speaking through a throat made of gravel. When Lara nods, it feels like the world ends around me.

It’s not logical, but my mind starts to do the math — three kids, and about five years lost with each, makes fifteen years I’ve already missed with them, collectively.

If she was three months pregnant with them the night she told me she wasn’t coming with me, they would have been born around January. They’ll be turning five in six or seven months.

I missed their first birthdays, four of them in total. Twelve birthdays.

Their first words, first steps, the first signs of their personalities. I missed caring for Lara during her pregnancy and being there for the birth of my children.

After years of telling myself I would never be like my dad, I’ve managed to somehow accomplish something much, much worse.

“Do— do they know?” I manage to ask, still gripping Lara’s phone in my hands like it might fly away, like if I hold on tight enough, I might be able to recover all those years with the kids I’ve only just now learned about.

“No,” she croaks. “I— they haven’t really asked yet.”

Emotions surge through me like crashing waves, dragging me under and pushing me down, turning me over until I have no idea which way is up or how to emerge from the drowning inside me. My own kids, and they don’t know me.

Our kids, and Lara has done this entire thing on her own.

I’m angry. I’m disappointed. I’m astonished.

But more than anything, I’m filled with a crushing sense of loss. Of grief for something I didn’t even have the choice to lose.

“Jake?” Lara asks when I start to scroll through the pictures on her phone, finding they’re all of her kids — smiling up at the camera, laughing, blowing bubbles, sitting in the bathtub, covered in chocolate.

The grief winds itself up until it’s a tight tornado spinning inside of me, and then, all at once, it morphs into that same bitter fury I felt right before I punched Labowski in the face.

“I thought you were too afraid to leave,” I say, and she says nothing in response, watching me like I’m a pressure cooker she’s waiting to go off.

Which pisses me off more. When have I ever given Lara the sense that I’m an angry person? I’ve done a fantastic job keeping it all bottled up inside.

“You should have told me,” I say next, because everything else I want to say is too harsh.

“I didn’t want you to give up on your dreams, Jake,” she whispers. “And you’d already told me that you didn’t want kids?—”

“No.” I shake my head, look up, meet her gaze and hold it. “You should have told me the moment you saw me in that emergency room.”

Though rage is still pooling in my stomach, I keep my tone even, calm, my body still. Around an asshole like Labowski? I’ll throw punches. But I’m never going to give Lara a reason to be afraid of me.

Even when I’m furious with her.

I get to my feet, needing to do something with all the energy building inside me.

Pacing, I speak to the ground, “You should have told me, Lara. I’ve been driving around town looking like an idiot.

Even if you were trying to keep it a secret, people must know.

This is a small town, and I know you love Zachery, but there’s no way he’d keep this secret?—”

“He did , I swear?—”

Then I see a flash of Shelby’s face, that expression. Something like pity and judgement when she asked if I was coming to see Lara. I choke out a laugh, and scrub my hand over my face, and when I turn to look at Lara, I realize she’s crying.

Something tugs inside me, willing me to go to her, to take care of her, to stop whatever is making her cry.

But I’m the thing making her cry. And I can’t stop what’s happening to me right now. I need time to think about this, to figure out what’s going on in my head. To work through what this information is doing to me.

Who knows about this?

Did my dad know?

That thought makes me sick with fury, and I turn away from Lara, taking a moment to breathe.

“I think you should go,” I say, forcing myself to stay facing the wall. If I turn around, I might go to her, take her in my arms, and that will only push the anger down further.

I need a second to work through it, to figure it out, before it boils over.

“Okay,” she breathes, standing, and I can hear the broken sob in her voice. I stay completely still until she walks back through the sliding doors, until I hear her car start, until there’s the crunch of gravel as she pulls out of the driveway.

Then I turn, grab an empty glass bottle, and hurl it against the wall.