Page 37

I’m lost in thought on the drive back to Fallon Ridge.

It feels strange to be leaving behind a life I was forced into. I made it mine. I stayed in Chicago because going back home just wasn’t an option. I fulfilled my dream of becoming a nurse while I mourned my losses. I moved forward in some aspects of my life while others were stuck in neutral. And other times, of course, I find myself slipping into reverse.

Oftentimes, in fact, I find myself slipping into reverse.

And so heading home pregnant seven years later feels an awful lot like I’m circling back, like I’ve somehow reversed the clock and I’m course-correcting. It’s too late, of course, and it’s with the wrong man, but I’m coming back home in much the same way I left all those years ago.

My father sent me away so nobody would know that the daughter of the pastor got knocked up at the tender age of seventeen, that not only was she having premarital sex with her boyfriend, she was stupid enough to get pregnant.

When you sign away your rights, I guess you’re just expected to sign away all the feelings that go with it, too.

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

My mom would’ve helped me. Tristan would’ve helped me.

But my dad had the final say in the matter. Growing up in a religious family wasn’t without its challenges, but no challenge was bigger than being forced to give up the precious baby that was created out of pure love between Tristan and me.

This is why I don’t go back to Fallon Ridge. I prefer to keep the hardest time in my life in the past. Going back only brings all those tragedies back to the surface.

I’ve thought a million different times of telling Tristan what really happened, why I really went away, but I can’t think of a single good thing that would come from it.

Oh by the way, you have a son out there who’s around six years old now, and I know so many years have passed but we had a closed adoption so there’s no chance you’ll ever get to meet him. I wanted to reach out and tell you, but clearly you moved on with your life after my dad ripped us apart and forced me to move to Chicago. You excelled at football in college and you didn’t need me finding you and tearing your life apart when we couldn’t do anything about it anyway. And then you were drafted into the NFL and you got married and you’ve moved on with your life now so let me come in and fuck it all up for you.

Somehow that just doesn’t have the right ring to it.

But just because I’m going home doesn’t mean I’ll see him. From all accounts, he left Fallon Ridge and never looked back much in the same way I did. He wanted to bury what we had in the past. He had to have been confused about what happened, about why I suddenly disappeared without saying goodbye. My dad knew I would’ve told him if I’d have been given the chance, and so he made sure I had zero contact with Tristan once he found out that I was pregnant.

I kept telling myself that at least he wasn’t hurting the baby. At least I was allowed to hang onto it, to allow it to grow inside me, to bond with it in this way. At least I’d know there was a living, breathing manifestation of the love I shared with Tristan somewhere out there.

The day I gave birth should have been the happiest day of my life. Instead, it was the most tragic. I wasn’t even allowed to hold him. I pushed him out of my body, and that ended the connection I shared with him.

I’ve never felt a love like I felt for that little boy. It was the last day of school before spring break when I took the test, when my dad found the positive test, when he sent me away.

And each year as winter starts to fade into nicer weather, that feeling of dread washes over me again. I was already nine weeks along when I took that test. What did a seventeen-year-old know about pregnancy anyway? I just figured I was stressed over my math test and that’s why my period was late. I didn’t think I was pregnant. I felt fine—a little tired, but what teenager in her senior year wasn’t tired all the time?

Until I missed a second period. Then I got nervous.

And sure enough, the two bright pink lines told me the truth.

A baby boy was born a few weeks early on September twenty-seventh…two days before my eighteenth birthday. If he would’ve waited two days, I might’ve gotten to take him home.

Instead, the nurses didn’t tell me the weight or the height. They snatched him from my body, wrapped him in a swaddle, and took him out of the room.

They said he was adopted by a couple who had been trying to have a baby for years. They assured me he was loved and cared for.

But to go into a hospital, birth a child, and leave without that child because of somebody else’s orders…it was some step far beyond heartbreaking, and I’m not the same person I was when I stepped foot into that hospital.

I think about that boy every day. I think about Tristan every day.

And I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to go back home to Fallon Ridge and live there like it wasn’t the stem of the worst tragedy of my life.

I exit the highway and drive down the country roads toward home. I take a left and drive through the small downtown boasting a gas station, a bed and breakfast, a market, a tavern, a diner, a few shops, and Fallon Ridge’s pride and joy, the Pizza Joint.

I spot Fallon Ridge High School off to the south, the only large building in town. The elementary school and middle school are on the other side of town, closer to our neighboring town with whom we share our school district, and the church is on the west side of town.

I turn down Oak Tree Lane, and I pass the first three houses without really noticing them. I can’t notice them when my eyes are on the fourth house. I was just here a few months ago, but it was for my father’s funeral. With random siblings popping up as if from out of nowhere and learning about the secret life my father lived, my focus shifted to different things. But this time, I’m coming home with no real plan. I don’t have a job. I’m pregnant. The father isn’t in the picture.

And every day, it seems like Tristan and our baby boy plant themselves closer and closer to the forefront of my mind.

What would life be like with Tristan today?

If my dad hadn’t forced me to leave, would we still be together? Would he be playing in the NFL? What would our lives look like?

There’s no way of knowing, of course.

The driveway is empty—unsurprising since it’s a Wednesday early afternoon. Sue and Russ are probably both at work, or volunteering, or whatever it is they do these days. Sue used to park her car in the garage, and Russ’s truck would sit on the left side of the driveway. Tristan got a car when he turned sixteen, and he’d park it in the street in front of the house most of the time, but sometimes in the driveway next to his dad’s truck.

The street is empty, too, and it leaves a little bit of an ache in the pit of my stomach.

Everything is different now.

I pull into my mom’s driveway. This is home now…again.

My car is packed full of my belongings, but I left behind any furniture I had. Sara offered to either sell it or donate it for me, and I took her up on that. All I really had was a bedroom set and a couch, anyway.

I grab my purse and one of the suitcases and head up to the front door. I draw in a deep breath, and the air smells sweet.

It’s just different here—the air. Chicago was always bustling and busy. Things are calm here. Quiet. The air was crowded there. Dirty. Here it’s uncongested and fresh.

I ring the bell, and my mom is smiling when she opens the door.

She wraps me into a hug. “You can just walk in, you know. This is home.”

I smile back as I squeeze her. “Thanks, Mom.”

“How are you feeling?” she asks, and she takes the handle of my suitcase from me.

“Good,” I say, setting my purse on the counter. “The baby is starting to punch my bladder now, so that’s fun, and he or she is the size of an artichoke.”

“Two more weeks until we know if it’s a he or a she?” she asks.

I nod. “The anatomy scan is at twenty weeks and you are definitely coming with me.”

She gets a little misty at that. “Happy to, Tessi-cat. Can I make you anything?”

“Just some water would be great,” I say. “I’ll grab my other suitcase and start unpacking.”

“Okay,” she says. “Lunch? Food? I can make you my famous grilled cheese…” she hints, and I giggle.

“I would love one of your famous grilled cheeses,” I say as I head back to the car. I grab the other suitcase and set it in the hallway leading down toward the bedrooms next to my other one. I guess I’ve got all the time in the world to unpack.

She makes herself a sandwich, too, and she heats up some tomato soup. She serves a bowl of Cheez-its on the side, and the combination is everything I remember about home.

It feels warm and inviting and good to be here. I know why I’ve stayed away so long, but part of me wishes I hadn’t. I wish I would’ve had more time with my mom over the last few years.

“Go ahead and get settled,” she says as she picks up our empty plates to take them to the sink. “I know you’re itching to get unpacked.”

I laugh. She knows me well despite the time that has stood between us. I prefer organization in my life, and I’m the type to unpack my suitcase the minute I walk in the door after a trip as opposed to the type who lets it sit for days.

I’ve been glancing at my suitcases sitting in the hallway like they’re mocking me the entire time I’ve been eating lunch. I’m already uncomfortable with being here having no direction moving forward, so unpacking those bags feels like the first step in getting my life on track.

I pull one of them down the hallway toward my room, and then I go back and drag the other one. I flip on the light in the room darkened by the closed shades, and I glance around my room.

It’s exactly the same as it was when I left it almost seven years ago, and it’s the same as it was when I was here a couple months ago for my father’s funeral. I couldn’t bring myself to open the shades when I was here last time, but this is my life now. I’m turning over a new leaf, and opening the shades to let the sunshine in just feels right.

I move over toward them, and with trembling hands, I grasp the rod in my hand. I pull it along, sliding the drapes open, and as I do, I glance out the window.

It looks exactly the same.

The same lilac bushes are slightly overgrown and I spot purple flowers edging around the bottom of my window.

The same white paint colors the Higgins’ house.

The same wood frames the window.

The same rhododendron bushes sit beneath his window.

The same blinds are open in his room.

And the same boy stands across the small space separating our rooms.

His eyes lift to mine across our bedroom windows the same way they did for years and years before we were forced apart.

The only difference?

He’s not a boy anymore, and I’m not the girl I once was.

TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK 2, HIDDEN MISTAKE