The Ties That Bind Us: (The Ties Duet Part One) Danda K. (dark academia books to read TXT) 📖

We stop by a local supermarket after leaving the clinic to grab a few things for Emersyn.

As I travel up and down the aisles, letting Emersyn pick out a couple of snacks, Gelissa huffs and puffs dramatically. She’s tapping her foot impatiently while staring at her phone.

She mutters, “Are you done yet?”

“Seriously? You’re complaining? Like, actually complaining that I’m buying food for her?” I gesture to Emersyn, not ready to say her name out loud.

Gelissa just rolls her eyes and rechecks her phone before pushing the wagon with Emersyn in it towards the checkout.

We finish up at the store, and she never once says thank you.

There’s not a thank you or kind word spoken to me

I can’t fucking wait to get home to Cameron.

◆◆◆

It’s been two days since the paternity test, and I’m waiting very impatiently for the results.

Cameron is extremely quiet all day as we wait for the phone call. She has a shift at three, and I have the night shift at the store, so we’re spending the early part of the day watching TV in uncomfortable silence.

It’s never been awkward between us, but today is definitely an exception. Neither of us really know what’s gonna happen, yet somehow we both know how this’ll play out.

The entire morning went by without a call. I’m starting to worry I paid the extra hundred bucks for nothing. I can’t go for a whole month, not knowing. It’ll kill me.

Cameron’s stirring the pot of soup she’s making for lunch when my cell phone rings. Her hands freeze around the ladle as I stare at the phone, unable to move and holding my breath. I look down at the screen and see it’s the office calling. My stomach tingles from nerves, the thought of what they’re going to tell me weighing heavy on my heart.

Will I be more upset if she isn’t mine, or is mine? I know, regardless of the outcome, I’ll be disappointed in some way. Cameron’s biting on her fingernail, and I think her eyes may bulge out of her head by the third ring.

“Pick it up!” She grabs my phone and presses the answer button, shoving it to my ear.

I clear my throat, trying to loosen the tightness in it. “Uh, hello?”

The nurse on the other line gives her name and tells me she’s calling with my paternity test results. The room stills. All I hear is the faint voice over the phone explaining how my DNA is a 99.8% match to Emersyn and that I am, indeed, Emersyn’s father.

Cameron’s staring at me in anticipation, hands pressed together in front of her face while she blows air into them.

I still can’t speak, just nodding at the woman over the phone, not even acknowledging the fact she can’t see my movements. All I needed to know was if Emersyn’s mine, I don’t care about the scientific explanation behind it. When she wraps up her speech, I thank her for the call and hang up.

Looking at Cameron, she stares back at me with reassuring eyes, and I know she already knows.

“She’s mine,” is all I can choke out before my breathing picks up, and I feel like the kitchen is the size of a closet. I thought I’d have some clarity after knowing the truth, but all I have now is worry. I stand up, and Cameron reaches out to me, but I step away, overwhelmed with uncertainty.

I walk into the living room and throw myself down on the couch with my head in my hands. I need to be in a larger space, but no space seems large enough for me at this moment.

I rock back and forth, tears at the brink of bursting through my eyes. I don’t care if I cry; I don’t consider myself less of a man if I do...it’s the reason I wanna cry that makes me feel like I shouldn’t.

Now that I know Emersyn’s mine, I’m overwhelmed with sadness that I missed so many of her milestones. Her first words, her first steps, her first solid food, everything that happens in the first year of life that parents get to enjoy.

I was robbed of it, just like I was robbed of a mother and father.

The ability to love my child in ways I never was at that age has been stolen from me, and I feel like tearing down every wall in this house with my hands.

I want to find Gelissa so I can scream, hell, even cry, and shake her until she tells me why the fuck she kept my baby girl from me. I did nothing to her to warrant this punishment.

Besides refusing to change who I am to fit her selfish needs, I was good to her. I deserved to know my daughter. I deserved to watch Emersyn take her first breath regardless of my relationship with her mom.

I would’ve fucking been there. I would’ve been there for all of it. I would’ve crossed Heaven and Hell to get to that baby if I just knew she belonged to me.

My body breaks down, no longer able to fight back the tears. They’re streaming down my face, and I can’t help but feel like I did to my baby girl what my parents did to me.

I left her.

I rub the back of my hands across my cheeks and try taking deep breaths, but my sadness rises and rises like an overflowing riverbank, and I need to let it out.

I feel Cameron wrap one arm around my back and place the other on my knee, resting her head on my shoulder.

I try to speak, but I can’t formulate words at the moment. My body keeps shaking, and I feel like the pain of missing my child has been hidden inside me this whole time, and I didn’t even fucking know it. How can a feeling this strong erupt so suddenly? With no warning?

Is it possible to feel love and remorse for someone I just met a few days ago?

I choke out through sobs and gasps of breath, “I