Page 18 of Defending A Promise
“Thank you. That’s sweet,” she says softly.
Nicholas is now out of the pool and playing with his trucks in the grass. Bella looks relieved and lies down next to him as he drives his trucks up and over her body.
I turn to Riley, “Wanna tell me what’s going on? What we’re dealing with?” By the look on her face, I’m not too sure she’s going to answer me, but she changes her mind.
“It all started with a picture I posted on social media when I found out I was pregnant with him five years ago.”
Chapter 9
Riley
When I woke up, I panicked, not knowing where I was and where Nicholas was. But then everything from last night came flooding back. I jumped up and went in search of my son and found him in the pool with Declan watching him like a hawk. They were bantering back and forth, and Nicholas looked like he was having the time of his life splashing around in the pool.
That’s when I realized I could smell the delicious aroma of brewing coffee, and my body decided it needed at least one cup – if not an entire carafe. I turned and took a look at the kitchen and could see the level of destruction my little guy made through this once beautiful room. Little boys are destructive. There’s no way around that.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat on the patio with Declan as we made small chit chat, but there’s an elephant in the room and it’s demanding we talk about it. I’m just not sure I want to. Declan has been so nice taking us in, but the evidence in the kitchen tells me we will be wearing out our welcome sooner rather than later – so maybe I don’t need to address said elephant.
But then I look over at the man who took us in at a time when I didn’t know what we were going to do, who told me that he promised my twin brother years ago that he would take care of me if anything happened to him and then told me that he amended his promise yesterday to include my son. How could I not tell him what’s going on?
“Wanna tell me what’s going on? What we’re dealing with?” Declan turns to face me, but still keeps an eye on Nicholas.
That’s the moment I decide to let someone other than my parents into my life – if only for a short time. “It all started with a picture I posted on social media when I found out I was pregnant with him five years ago.”
“What do you mean?” He sits back and takes a sip of his coffee.
“Well, just what I said. I posted a picture of my ultrasound on my social media pages – after telling my parents and Nick’s parents of course – showing my little bundle of joy. I got a lot of congratulations posts and comments, but one of them stuck out to me.” I pull up the screenshot on my phone I had taken at the time and show it to Declan.
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I can’t wait to meet my son or daughter. #greatthingstocome
“I thought it was a mistake. You know? Someone accidentally commented on the wrong post. But when I went on all my other social media accounts, the same post from the same person was there. That’s no mistake.”
“No, it isn’t,” he says sternly. “What did you do next?”
“Of course, I unfriended this profile and blocked him everywhere. And that seemed to work for a while, but then when I posted pictures of Nicholas when he was first born, I got moremessages, but from different profiles – all the same type of thing.”
“What is wrong with people?” he asks to the universe.
“I don’t know, but I blocked every person I didn’t personally know on all platforms and then locked down all my accounts so that if I didn’t reach out to you, you couldn’t reach out to me or see anything on my page.”
“Good.”
“Well, sort of. It really hurt my business. Being an event planner is all about word of mouth and accessibility, and by now, this guy knew what I did for a living, so he would start commenting on my professional pages. It sucked having to monitor the comments constantly. Almost every day, I was deleting one of his posts if not more.”
“Mommy, I’m thirsty.” Nicholas approaches the table.
“Here, buddy. Drink your water.” Declan hands him a bottle of water.
Nicholas uses two hands to drink and takes a big sip. “AAAHHHHH.” He smacks his lips when he’s done.
Both Declan and I laugh. “Grandpa taught him that.”
“Sounds like something your dad would teach him.” We watch Nicholas run back over to his trucks. “So, you’ve blocked the whole world out. How did you go from that to what happened last night?”
“Well, everything was online and relatively harmless – creepy – but harmless. Until about a year ago.”
“What happened then?”
