Stories Yet To Unfold

The weekend had come and gone way too fast for both of their likings and it was already Sunday afternoon, Rian and Hannah were on their way back to Samantha’s house to drop off Hannah. Once he pulled into the driveway he walked around the car to where her door was so that he could help her unbuckle the straps on her seat. When they got to the door Rian knocked and waited for Samantha to answer the door.

“Hey baby, did you have fun with daddy?” Sam asked as she bent down to Hannah’s level wrapped her daughter in a hug.

“Yes! We got to go to Nana and Papa’s house!” The small four year old told her mother.

“You did?”

“Yup. And they gave me a toy when we gots there!” Her grin became even wider if that was possible.

“Hannah, why don’t you go take your bag up to your room and play with toys while I talk to mommy for a couple minutes. I’ll come up to say bye before I leave.”

“Okay Daddy,” The small girl agreed and quickly made her way to the staircase to head up stairs to her bed room with her small backpack.

“What do you want to talk about?” She asked as she led the way into the living room.

“Is Jake here?”

“No, he was called into work today, he won‘t be home til later. Why?” Rian’s awkwardness was beginning to make her nervous, he was usually never like this.

He had no idea how to ask her, but he had to know. “…Does he hit you?”

His question had caused the color in her face to drain, but he wasn’t going to point that out to her. ”No… Why would you even think that?” He could tell she was lying by the way she had answered him. She was lying through her teeth.

“Friday night Hannah woke up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare. When I asked her what it was about she said it was about when Jake would hit you. She was crying, a lot Samantha. Don’t lie to me about this Sam, this is serious.” You could cut the tension in the room with a knife.

“What do you want me to say Rian?” She asked him. She couldn’t lie to him, he knew.

“I want you to tell me the truth!” He replied letting his voice raise a bit showing his frustration with her.

“Once, okay? That’s the truth.” Lie, but he didn’t need to know that. Her relationship was none of his business and she became defensive.

“How long ago?”

“…It‘s been a while.”

“And Hannah saw it?” He pressed on.

He didn‘t mean to make her cry, he just wanted to get to the bottom of it, but he felt terrible when stray tears began to fall. “… Yeah, she had come into my room because she heard the yelling. … He promised to never do it again though, he was just really mad.” Rian couldn’t help but scoff at what she had said. He couldn’t believe the words that were coming our of her mouth.

“Cause he was mad?! What, so does that make it all okay?! Do you even believe him when he says it’ll never happen again?”

“…I want to.” Sam answered him as she averted her gaze to the floor.

“Ha, way to pick a winner Samantha.”

‘What do you expect me to do Rian?! Leave?! And where would I go?! Where would we go?! We have stability here! He takes care of us!”

“You know I would take the both of you in in a heartbeat! She’s my daughter!” Getting just as loud as she was.

“We tried that after you knocked me up in the back of your tour bus, remember the month after my parents kicked me out?!”

“That was five years ago Sam!” He argued back. No matter how much he matures his past is always thrown in his face by her.

“Your point? Don’t try and act like you want to take on the responsibility for the two of us now!”

“I was young! I was just as scared as you were!”

“And what was I? I didn’t have the choice to decide when I wanted to take responsibility for her like you did two years after she was born, when you decided you were finally old enough to take on the responsibility of caring for a child two days out of the week. You left us! You left me to figure everything out myself! ”

“I had a job!”

“Don’t you dare try to use your job as a shield, you had off time then just like you do now!”

“Whatever Sam. I’ll see you on Friday.” He told her as he headed for the stairs to tell his daughter bye. “I’m heading out munchkin. I’ll be back on Friday to come pick you up.”

“I don’t want you to have to go though.”

“I have to babe, Gotta make sure uncle Alex and Uncle Jack aren’t getting into to trouble.”

“Okay,” The small girl replied, he could hear that she was upset and he hated it. He slowly made his way back down the stairs and headed out to his car in route to his house.

“Hello?” The young guy answered his cell phone after noticing it was the mother of his child.

“Hey, it’s Sam.”

“What, you call to rub the fact I was a complete douche about stepping up and becoming a parent in my face some more?”

“…I’m sorry about that. And no, I didn’t” The second he left her house she regretted the things she had said, but no matter the cruelty it was all true. He did leave. She was alone through the hardest part of it all.

“Well, what can I do for you then?” He asked, sounding a bit meaner than he had meant to.

“I was supposed to be off work tomorrow, but I got called in and we could use the money, so I was wondering if you could watch Hannah so I won’t have to take her to daycare.”

“Yeah, that’s no problem. When do you want me to come pick her up?”

“Well I could actually just drop her off on my way into work.”

“Alright, sounds good.”

“Okay, so I guess I’ll see you tomorrow around nine?”

“Yeah, see you then.”

“Thank you Rian. And I‘m sorry about the things I said earlier today. I was out of line.”

“Stop thanking me, it’s my job, she’s my daughter too and don’t worry about it. It‘s fine..”

“Okay, bye.”

“Bye.” The young guy hung up his phone and turned his attention back to the conversation he was in before Samantha had called him.

“So are you gonna do anything about this Jake situation?” Alex asked from his spot on the couch where he had been sitting.

“I don’t know what I can do. My hands are kind of tied here. I talked to Samantha about it and she did nothing about it. It‘s like she doesn‘t really even care about it. ”

“He’s beating up on the mother of your daughter.” Jack had cut into the conversation. It seemed to Rian that everyone who he had told had their own two cents to put in on what they thought about the whole situation. Not that it bothered him, but they didn’t really understand fully. He talked to her and she still decides to nothing about it. He offered her a place to stay in his house and she turned him down. There was nothing he could do.

“Your hands won’t be tied when he moves on from just beating on Sam to beating on Hans.”

Rian physically cringed at the thought. “I’d kill him.”

“I think it’s safe to say we would all kill him.” Rian cringed at the thought of Jake, none the less anyone laying a hand on Hannah, he didn’t know what he would do if he were faced with the situation. He was sure whatever would happen though he would be facing some jail time once he was finished with the guy.

“What if she came here and stayed with us?” Alex asked.

“I kind of brought that up, and she threw that back in my face using the way I acted when she first found out she was pregnant till Hannah turned one…. I screwed so many things up back then.”

“Everyone screws up Rian, the difference here is you’re trying to make it right. You’re there for Hannah and she knows that, she was hurt though when you denied them both back then.”

“… I know. I just, I wish I could go back and do that all differently, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“She’ll come around. I’m sure Jake won’t always be there.”