Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

TRISTAN

It felt surreal. Suddenly I was fifteen again, standing in front of Cheyenne's mother's door. I had no idea how much Mrs. Benson knew about any of this, or what I was going to say. I just had to wing it.

Back in Nevada yesterday, I'd booked a ticket to Iowa, flown here, and spent the night at a hotel near my hometown of Spirit Lake. Carrying Jacob's diaries with me in my backpack almost felt like they were some kind of good-luck charm, though I hadn't had the damn courage to read them yet. I needed to focus on the task at hand, not allow myself to get so emotionally involved that it paralyzed me. I'd barely allowed myself to think about my son, for fear that I'd break down.

I wasn't sure I could read the diaries anytime soon. How would I function on tour with the regret I knew I'd feel? The more I distanced myself for now, the easier it would be. The less real this situation would seem. But I felt guilty for not opening them right away. Then I'd remind myself that he was gone, and nothing could bring him back, certainly not reading his personal thoughts and feelings.

I still hadn't knocked on Mrs. Benson's door. Instead, I looked around for a moment, taking a long whiff of the fresh air in Spirit Lake. Nothing smelled like this. It smelled like my childhood. Not much had changed here. The same trees lined the street outside Cheyenne's childhood home. The same view of the lake in the distance. The paint on the exterior was the same, although flaking. The fence was the same, too, albeit a bit rusty.

The door suddenly opened. Startled, she jumped back.

I cleared my throat. "Mrs. Benson..."

"Oh my God. Tristan." She covered her mouth. "It's you."

I sucked in some air. "I know it's been a long time."

When tears formed in her eyes, I suspected maybe she felt guilty for keeping my son a secret. In any case, I wasn't here to have it out with Cheyenne's mother. I just needed to know one thing.

"I need you to tell me where Cheyenne is."

"She's living in Milford now, with her husband."

That was a couple of towns over.

"Do you have an address?"

Her breathing seemed shallow. "Is there a reason you need to see her?"

"I need her address," I repeated.

Mrs. Benson went back inside the house and returned with an address written in pen on a piece of paper. She handed it to me.

I'd planned to see my parents while I was here, but I was too anxious. I'd go see Cheyenne first and come back to Spirit Lake after.

***

I'd imagined this moment several times over the years but never thought I'd actually see Cheyenne again. Even as I stood at the doorway to her house, I couldn't believe it. My heart thundered in my chest as I forced myself to press the doorbell. It was the middle of the day, so I had no idea whether anyone was home.

But then the door opened, and Cheyenne stood there, looking almost the same as I remembered, her brown hair still long, the same beautiful blue eyes. Now they had slight creases at the corners. I looked into the eyes of my first love, yet love wasn't what I felt anymore. Cheyenne looked frozen but not exactly shocked. Her mother, I assumed, had given her warning that I was on my way.

"Hi, Cheyenne."

"Tristan..." she whispered.

"I think you know why I'm here." Sadly, she really didn't. She just thought she did. What I had to tell her was far worse than she could ever imagine.

She stepped aside. "Please come in."

I needed to get the hard part over with. No matter how much anger I harbored for the decision she'd made, she deserved to know. So I came right out with it. "He died, Cheyenne. Our son passed away in a car accident."

She nearly fell over, bringing her hand to her mouth. "What?"

"I'm so sorry to be the one to tell you."

As she began to cry, I somehow held back my tears. "It happened a little over a year ago. He never told his parents he came to see you. He wrote about it in a journal that was found after he passed. Jacob never had the chance to find me. A friend who read his journals came looking for you, but you weren't at the address he had for you anymore. So she came to find me instead."

"Oh my God," she murmured, holding onto a side table.

As much anger as I felt toward Cheyenne, all I could see was a mother who'd lost her child. There was no place for anger right now. In this moment, she and I were just two broken people who never had a chance to know our son. In my case, never had a chance to meet him.

I felt numb as I went to her kitchen and found a glass in the cupboard, pouring her some water.

With a shaky hand, she took the glass from me and gulped the water down.

I took an article from my backpack. I'd had it printed at the hotel back in Nevada.

"This is a news article about what happened. He was riding in a car with some kids who were racing. He was the only one who died. It was about a year after he'd come to see you." I swallowed, my throat parched.

"How could I not have known?"

"Bad luck and timing. No one read his diaries until recently."

She closed her eyes. "I can't believe I'll never see him again."

At least you got to see him once.

It took several minutes for her tears to stop enough that she could talk again. "I know you must be so furious with me. I can't even begin to-"

"Don't, Cheyenne. Sure, I'm furious. But that doesn't matter right now. You need to process this. I'm not gonna force you to explain yourself today. I'm pretty sure I know everything you're gonna say anyway." I shook my head and looked down. "Nothing you can say will bring him back."

The anger in my heart had shifted-at least for the moment-to a mix of sadness and regret. It didn't feel like I knew Cheyenne anymore, didn't really want to, and yet here we were, sharing a monumental pain no one else in the world could understand.

I couldn't breathe. I needed to go, but I didn't want to just leave her.

"You live with your husband?"

"Yes." She wiped a teardrop from the corner of her mouth.

"You shouldn't be alone right now. Have him come home. I'll wait until he arrives. I can come back before I leave town, if you want to have the other conversation, but I don't think we should be talking about any of that stuff right now. I just gave you devastating news, and you need to process it." I found a pen and paper on the desk in her living room. "Here's my number, if you need to reach me. I'll be at my mother's for a couple of days."

After I handed her the paper, I looked down. I hadn't noticed until now. "You're pregnant..."

She nodded.

"Do you have any other children?"

"No. This is the first since..." She stopped short of finishing the sentence. She didn't need to.

The minutes while we waited for her husband were quiet and painful. When I saw his car pull up, I left without saying another word. I didn't even look at him when we passed on my way out.

A raw feeling developed inside my chest. Cheyenne was pregnant, starting a life with her new husband. Meanwhile, the son I never knew had grown up without his actual parents. She'd get a second chance to start over, to do things right, and Jacob would never have a second chance at anything.

***

A half hour later, I pulled up at my mother's house, a brand new, sparse structure on the same plot of land I grew up on. I'd tried to convince my mother to let me buy her a house for years. She'd finally agreed to let me build her one on the property a couple of years ago.

When Mom opened the door, she had a huge smile on her face. All I'd told her was that I was coming to town. "Tristan!" She wrapped her arms around me.

"Mom." I rubbed her back, feeling awful for what I was about to do.

Her expression darkened when she pulled back and looked at me.

She wrapped her hands around my cheeks. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

In that moment, I finally broke down, crying like a fucking baby in my mother's arms.

She held me tighter. "Tristan, my God, what happened?"

How was I going to tell her she'd had a grandchild she never knew about who was now dead? I was her only child. My mother had always wished I was the type of man to get married and settle down, but she'd resigned herself to likely never having any grandkids. This was going to devastate her.

"I'm sorry I'm not a better son, that I almost never come home. I'm sorry for so many things," I said, my voice shaky.

"You owe me no apologies. I'm so proud of you. Please tell me what's wrong."

We sat down, and I told my mother everything. She cried, and I held her like she'd held me after I told her the grandson she'd never met was no longer.

"Do you have any photos of him?" she asked.

I reached into my bag for the pictures Emily had given me. I'd only looked at them once, so it was like looking at him for the first time all over again. My mother's eyes filled with tears again as she stared.

"There were so many times when I thought about what might have happened if I hadn't moved away from here," I told her. "It always felt like I might've been missing out on a better life. But I had no freaking idea how much I was missing."

She finally looked up at me. "He was beautiful."

"There's no doubt he's mine, right?" I smiled sadly as I wiped my eyes.

"Not in the least. My beautiful grandson." She sniffled. "Wow."

Just then the doorbell rang. When I opened, the last thing I expected to find was Cheyenne.

Her eyes were red as her dark brown hair blew in the breeze. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," I said, stepping aside.

"Hi, Mrs. Daltrey."

My mother nodded once. "Hello, Cheyenne."

She held her stomach. "Do you mind if I sit?"

I gestured toward the couch. "Of course."

My mother left the room to give us privacy.

Cheyenne took a seat. "I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight if I don't explain myself to you." Her voice trembled. "I know it's hard to believe, Tristan, but I thought I was making the right decision at the time."

"It was a decision I should've been in on," I couldn't help but say.

"Of course, I realize that now. But sixteen-year-old me was scared and a little out of her mind."

"Did you know you were pregnant before I left for California?"

"No." She shook her head. "It was four months after. You'd already left, and that made it even harder for me to garner the courage to tell you. I realize now that I made a mistake. At the time, though, I blamed myself for being irresponsible. I was the one who'd forgotten to take my pill a couple of times. You'd done nothing to deserve that predicament. I knew if you found out, you'd give everything up and come back home. That's the type of person you are, Tristan. But I couldn't let you do that, especially when I knew I couldn't raise a child. I made the only decision that made sense at the time. But it was the wrong one. I know that now. I didn't have the right to make the choice for you."

"No, you didn't," I muttered.

"I don't know how I can ever make it up to you. I'll live with this guilt forever."

I sighed deeply. "I wish you'd at least contacted me when he came to find you."

"I felt it was his decision. I told him I'd support whatever he wanted. He was hesitant. I think he was afraid of rejection. Because of who you are."

That was a knife to the heart. The idea that my son would think anything was more important than him killed me. I hung my head. "If that was the case, he was very wrong."

"I didn't push it because I was scared of your reaction, too. But I believed he'd find you eventually. I'd asked him to let me know when he decided so I could tell you first."

I raised my voice. "You should've told me anyway."

"I know!" she cried. "I know. I made all the wrong decisions. I believed we had more time. I never imagined..." She placed her head in her hands and bawled.

Fuck.

I took a seat next to her but stopped short of touching her. "Try to breathe, Cheyenne. You can't afford to get upset in your condition."

She looked up at me, her eyes swollen and red. "How could you care about me at this point?"

"Because I'm not a cruel person. I understand why you made the decision you did. It just makes me sad. And you're right. I would've given up everything. I wouldn't have regretted it, either. That would've felt nothing like the regret I have now."

If I didn't figure out how to forgive her, it would eventually kill me. I wasn't there yet, though. "Cheyenne, go home and rest. You said what you had to say." Then I told her a lie. "I forgive you. Just take the time to mourn and stop feeling like you need to explain yourself. What's done is done."

She needed to leave. If she stuck around any longer, she'd sense my lingering anger and question whether I was being truthful. I worried about her health and didn't want to be responsible for something happening to the baby. She couldn't afford to lose another child.

Cheyenne seemed to calm a bit. I walked her out and realized her husband had been waiting for her in the car. He and I made brief eye contact as I shut the door.