He told him about us? Anger ripped through me, and I tried my best to push it away. I felt irritated at his confession. It explained Ryker’s attitude the last time I spoke to him. It was like he knew what I was going to say. Just remembering that time gave me unpleasant feelings.

I let out a slow breath and tried to look at it from Matt’s angle. I needed to be understanding. He was Ryker’s close friend, of course he’d felt obligated to do it. He didn’t need to be punished – I was sure he’d been punishing himself enough as it was judging by his hesitation.

“Are you still seeing him?” I asked curiously.

“No,” he answered. “He’s refusing visitations. I think he’s trying to keep clear from me. Before he got busted, we drifted apart a bit, so… I’m not surprised he wants to sever our friendship.”

I mulled his words over for a moment. It was good to know Ryker wasn’t just avoiding us but everyone else too.

“It’s okay,” I finally reassured him. “I see why you did it. You were also looking out for Ryker, and in a way I’m glad. He deserved to know long before I had the courage to tell him. Don’t feel bad and don’t be sorry.”

“Really?” he said incredulously, looking about my face in astonishment. “You’re not going to tear my head off?”

“No.”

“You’re… pretty damn understanding, Allie.”

“Because everyone has their own reasons. I don’t have the right to judge.” Really eager to get away after that, I glanced down at my watch. “Look, I gotta go. Thanks for telling me the truth, Matt. I’ll see you around, okay?”

I didn’t wait for him to respond. I turned around and hurried away, shocked to find myself fighting tears on my way to the house. The pain I caused Ryker… I didn’t want to think about it. I’d been angry at him for everything he’d put me through, and I lashed out feeling justified for letting him go. But anger fades away and what’s left behind are the words that were said – and words never fade away. They become part of your past, forever following you, and forever making you wish you’d chosen different ones.

I was in a bad mood by the time I was at the front door knocking. Mom was holding Kayden in her arms when she opened it. She didn’t say a word to me, nor did she glance more than a second at my face. She just turned around and disappeared back inside while I followed her in.

In the living room, she carefully set Kayden down on the play mat I’d given her.

“Was he easy today?” I asked, not bothering with normal pleasantries.

“Babies are never easy,” she answered, looking indifferently at me before disappearing into the kitchen.

I rolled my eyes – she was in that kind of mood today – and dropped down to Kayden’s level. He was freshly changed in another outfit, his hair recently washed and his skin smelling like baby soap. Despite Mom’s dislike toward me, she obviously loved her grandson to bits.

Kayden cooed when he saw me, and he latched his tiny hand around my finger before bringing it to his mouth to suckle on. I laughed and covered his chubby face with kisses. “I missed you, little man. So, so much.” It was never easy being away from him. I thought time would help that, but it didn’t. I felt like a piece of me was missing every time I had to leave him.

Mom returned and set the baby bag down. She hovered nearby, her shadow falling over us. The calm before the storm, I knew, and I braced myself.

Holding the formula tin, she shook it at me and said, “Kayden has a serious problem with this formula, Allie. He’s colicky, and his poo is darker than it should be. Have you even put your nose to the bottle when you’ve finished making one? It smells disgusting.”

“You’ve been feeding him this stuff for the last two weeks and haven’t said a word about the smell of it –”

“What’s your point?”

“Did you expect it to smell like roses?”

She glared. “I expect it to smell appropriate enough to feed my grandson.”

I sighed for the seventy millionth time today. “What are we really talking about here, Mom?”

“Breast milk, of course. What else? You’re giving him this crap when you should be feeding him from your own body. That’s the way a mother should raise her baby.”

“I already told you, Mom, that when I tried feeding him, he couldn’t latch onto my breast. My nipples were inverted –”

“You should have kept trying! Before formula was invented, you think mothers could walk away from breastfeeding their kids because their nipples were flat or inverted? No excuse. They tried. They didn’t have an easy way out.”

An easy way out. Four little words that made me livid and sad all at once.

“If you’d at least stuck to something for once, especially if it had something to do with your own child’s best interests, then maybe he wouldn’t have gotten sick when he was just two weeks old.”

Wow, biggest low blow of all.

I bit my tongue, choosing not to respond. It was pointless. I continued staring down at Kayden, hoping she’d finish her scolding and leave me alone. Breastfeeding had been a huge chore for me. I’d spent nights crying, feeling like a failure because I wasn’t producing enough to feed Kayden. In return, Kayden would scream all night long demanding food I couldn’t physically give him.

But to say I was responsible for his cold… that was worse than every bad thing she’d ever said to me combined.

“Now when he sleeps in his crib tonight,” she went on, satisfied by my silence, “make sure you rotate his head. The back of his head is flat, and you don’t want him to end up wearing a helmet because you were too lazy to turn his face a few times in the night.”

“Alright,” I muttered lifelessly. Kayden didn’t have a flat spot, but what the fuck was the point in arguing? “Anything else?”

“Nothing for now, but I’m sure there will be more to come.”

Exhaling, I looked up at her stern face and quietly said, “You know, it wouldn’t kill if every once in a while you could do the opposite of criticising me. Like paying me a compliment, or telling me I’m doing well would be nice. Just every once in a while, you know? Not all the time or anything.”

She pursed her lips before replying, “If the day ever comes, sure.”