Jayden's Guitar

There was a loud knock on the other side of my apartment door and the buzzer sounded, about six times. I was in Jayden’s room, playing videogames with him, I wasn’t in any rush to answer the door, so I let my mom, even though I was pretty sure it was going to be for me.

Surprisingly, Jayden was beating me at the car racing game we were playing. It and the console were just some of the things that he had brought along with him. When we first started playing early this morning, it surprised me to see how well he was at it. May must have let him play often, which was something I couldn’t see her doing, but then again, I didn’t know her. She very well could have had a boyfriend teach him it all.

“Jace!” My mom called from the living room. “You have a guest.”

“I’ll be right back, okay buddy?” I told Jayden.

“Mmmkay,” He nodded, obviously too into the game.

When I walked into the living room, my mom and Harley were sitting on the couch, both of them laughing.

“Its great to see you again dear, but I should be starting dinner, your welcome to stay.” My mom explained.

Harley smiled, “Thank you, but I am going out to eat with my parents for dinner tonight. Hopefully I’ll see you before you leave.”

“Of course, of course! I’d love to see all of you, come over anytime time.” My mom smiled and walked out of the room. I had forgotten how welcome my mom was with everyone, especially the band. She loved them, even though she hardly got to see them.

Harley glanced and me, it was an odd look. The kind that I only got when I knew she was mad, very, very mad. “Jace.” She said. “I think we should have a talk.”

“Yeah, ‘course. What’s up Harls?” I asked and took a seat on the couch across from the one she was planted on.

“Seriously Jace? I think you know what’s going on, you have a five year old kid sitting in the other room and apparently he’s yours! What do you think I want to talk about?” She spat. I was almost completely taken aback, for whatever reason, I expected her, of all people, to be okay with this. Sure, I didn’t exactly talk to her about it, I had called our Manager a few weeks back when I found out Jayden would be legally mine, but I hadn’t spoken to the rest of the band since we came home all those weeks ago.

“Harley, if you’ll let me explain…”

“I will, and you better start now”

“So I know that I never actually told you about May or why it was I moved here. I just said it was family issues, when really, it was my own issues. I was sixteen and my girlfriend May was pregnant with our child. I couldn’t handle raising a kid, I knew that I had to be a musician, I had to be in a band, so I moved in with my grandparents. I’ll never understand how my parents let me go through with this, or why they didn’t convince me that I could work it all out, because I think, I knew, I could, but I didn’t.

“So I upped and left May, just like that, without any warning. I left her a note and was gone. I imagine that she was even more heart broken, I mean who does that? But I met you guys and we ended up getting really good at playing music, really fast. By then, I had pushed May and the baby long out of mind. They weren’t part of my main concern, so I moved on and I hoped May had too.” I sighed and sucked in a breath, “about a month and half ago May was in a car accident and she was killed. Jayden was there, but somehow he was brought to child services and they called me, obviously May had it written down that I was the father. So when they asked if I was in a position to take care of him, I accepted. I figured it was a second chance, he needs a parent and I am here. I know you must think it’s the most horrible thing ever, but please, try to understand. I need you to Harley.” I explained.

I looked at her from across the room. Her mouth was agape, she looked completely torn. She regained her composure and sat back on the couch, she seemed to sink into the cushions.

“Jay,” She started, “I’d love to say I am sorry for all of this, but…I just can’t. It sounds horrible, but it seems like it’s almost payback. You gave him up, and now you have to take care of him. It’s just…I don’t know how to respond to this. This is the last thing I expected to hear about when I heard why you were coming home so early.”

I nodded and started to fiddle with my hands. From the corner of my eye I saw Jayden walk out of his room and into the kitchen, after looking into the living room to see Harley and walk away, he went to go see my mom. He’d only been here a few weeks, but he was very comfortable with us. Sometimes he called us by our first names and others by ‘Grandma and Dad.’ At first, it was strange but we managed to get used to it. My only hope was that it all stayed this calm and easy with him here. I know that there’s a ton of things I don’t know about him, in all honestly, I don’t know anything about him. He’s talkative, but it’s really only about television shows he likes, or the videogames he plays. I have yet to get anything else out of him.

“Can I ask you a question?” Harley asked, bringing me back into reality.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Why didn’t you ever at least tell us all this was going on? Especially in the beginning?”

I shrugged and sank back into my couch, “Because I left them Harley, they weren’t my concern anymore. I didn’t want to have spend my days knowing that I had made a horrible, selfish decision, and I certainly didn’t want anyone else to know. I didn’t want you guys to worry or think about any of it. I know its greedy and selfish and just absolutely horrible, but I was young, and I would change it all if I could but I can’t.” I tried my hardest not to sound angry at her, and I wasn’t. I was angry at myself and it showed through the way I spoke.

“We’ll work it all out Jace. We’re not going to make you go through all this alone.” She smiled at me. “We’ll just have to tell the rest of the guys we have a new band member.”