Change Up Read online

  “I barely know you at all!” Izzy shouted back at me. “You’ve been home three or four months a year for my entire life. How do I know what you are like? What you do, or feel, or anything else? We spend a few weeks together doing things in the winter, but I don’t really know you, Dad, just like you don’t really know me.”

  Her statement stung me and caught me off guard. All this time, I had thought we had a good relationship with each other, but clearly, Izzy didn’t feel the same way, at least not at this point in her life. I sat back down on the bed next to her, feeling sadder than I had in a very long time.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Izzy,” I said to her. “I know I haven’t been the ideal Dad for you, but this is the life I lead, and it allows us to live the way we do and have what we have. I’ve had to make sacrifices, and so have you. I guess I just didn’t consider your sacrifices as much as I should have.”

  Izzy turned and looked at me. I think she could see that what she had said had hurt me, and maybe that is what she intended at first. She sat up on the bed next to me and put her head on my shoulder.

  “It’s… it’s not all you Dad,” she said to me. “I just… I just don’t think it’s fair I guess. I have spent my whole life having to basically share you with the whole town and half the world because of who you are. And then there’s this hope that opens up that maybe I’ll get some time to get to know you, and so you get to know me, and someone else steps right in and takes it away. It hurt, Dad. Maybe I didn’t react the best way. I’m sorry about that, but it’s how I feel.”

  “I get it, Izzy, and maybe it all happened pretty fast. I have to admit, I was caught by surprise at how I feel about Kristin. It’s not something that I planned on when I first got back home. She just… I don’t know, I can’t really explain it. I think you’ll understand it better when you’re older, and someone special comes along in your life.”

  “Do you love her?” Izzy asked me pointedly.

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that, at least not right at the time. “I think it’s a little too soon for me to say that,” I answered. “But I can say that I think Kristin could have a place in my life, and in our lives.”

  “How can you say that, Dad? You’re both so different, and you only just met. It seems to me like she’s just using you, just like everyone else tries to do, you just can’t see it because she’s young and pretty.” Izzy was having a hard time comprehending it all, and I was having a hard time explaining it.

  “Izzy, we have to find a way to work this out,” I said, feeling exasperated.

  “I don’t know how that’s going to happen,” she said, and laid back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

  I felt like I had said all I could say for now. We both needed some time to think about each other’s feelings on this, and my mind turned back to Kristin and how she was probably feeling right now.

  “Think about what I said, please,” I told Izzy. “We’ll talk more about this later,” I said, standing up to go.

  “I’m sure we will,” she said softly, rolling her eyes and rolling over to her side, so she faced away from me again.

  I left the room and walked down the hall to the living room, sitting down so I could text Kristin and see how she was. She gave me some curt answers about her being okay and Dad driving her home, but she didn’t want me to call her, not yet anyway.

  I felt like I was at my wit’s end and slammed my phone down on the coffee table. Mom came walking in from the kitchen when she heard me.

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to start slamming things around here too,” she said sarcastically as she sat down next to me on the couch.

  “How’s Izzy?” Mom asked me.

  “Not great,” I told her, leaning back on the couch. “She’s pretty upset by the whole thing.”

  “Wes,” Mom said to me looking over at me, “it’s none of my business what you do in your personal life, and I have always respected that, but…” I interrupted before she could finish.

  “Don’t you start too Mom,” I told her. “Kristin is not some golddigger looking to get her name in the newspaper.”

  “I’m not saying that she is Wes,” Mom replied. “But you’ve only known her for a few days. Maybe… maybe having her spend the night with you in your house wasn’t the right move to make right now, especially with the way things are with you right now with playing, and with Izzy.”

  “I didn’t plan things out like that Mom, it just happened,” I told her. “Geez, when did I get the reputation like that? And why are you taking sides with a teenager who has no experience with relationships?”

  “I’m not taking anyone’s side, Wes, I’m just pointing out to you that when you make decisions like that when you are here, at your home, that you have more to consider than just yourself.”

  Dad came walking through the door a moment later and tossed his keys on the end table.

  “How’s Kristin, Dad?” I asked right away.

  “I think she’ll be okay,” he told me. “She’s home, but she’s upset. I think she feels like she did something wrong here and came between you and Izzy. How’s Izzy?”

  “Angry, upset, hurt, confused, stubborn, unreasonable, you name it,” I said to him. “ I don’t know how to fix this.”

  “You want my advice?” Dad asked me.

  “Please.”

  “You’re not going to like it,” he said to me.

  “You may as well say it anyway, Dad,” I answered. “I haven’t liked anything I have heard all morning so far.”

  “I think you need to give them both some time to think about it. Izzy needs to sort out her feelings about it, and Kristin needs to sort out her feelings about you and the whole situation.”

  “You’re right, Dad, “ I told him as I stood up. “I don’t like it.” I started walking towards the door.

  “Where are you going?” Dad asked me.

  “I have to talk to Kristen,” I said as I walked out to my car.

  I didn’t know what I was going to say to her just yet, but I had to talk to her and see what she was feeling and what was going on – good, bad, or otherwise.

  20

  Wes

  The entire way over to Kristin’s apartment I kept trying to think of what I was going to tell her. I couldn’t tell her things had been sorted out with Izzy because they hadn’t. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to want to hear anything else, but I had to at least try to make things better on one end of this.

  I pulled into the parking lot of her apartment and parked the car. I scaled the steps up to the second floor and went to the door she went into after our first date, Apartment 12. It seemed an odd thing to think about at this moment, but my number with the Pirates for all those years was 12. My baseball player’s superstition kicked in and hoped this was a good sign.

  I knocked lightly on the door and tried to wait patiently, shifting on my feet and looking around. I couldn’t even peer into the window of Kristin’s apartment since the blinds were closed. I knocked again and saw a neighbor peer out of their apartment door the next one down, giving me a suspicious look. I just nodded and smiled and turned my attention back to the door.

  Kristin opened the door and looked up at me. I could see she had been crying and her face was red.

  “Are you okay?” I said to her right away.

  “Wes,” she said to me, “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this right now. You have your daughter to deal with.”

  “Just… can I come in for a few minutes so we can talk?” I pleaded with her. Kristin relented and stepped aside so I could walk in.” She shut the front door and walked over to the couch and sat down. I took the seat next to her.

  “First, I’m glad you got home okay,” I started saying. “I can’t apologize enough for all this. I talked to Izzy and tried to explain things to her, but she didn’t really understand what I was trying to say. I think she just needs some time to process it.”

  “Wes, I don’t want to be the cause of problem
s between you and your daughter,” Kristin said bluntly. “If she’s not ready for any of this, then maybe we are better off stopping things before… before they get more serious.”

  “Do you think it’s not serious already?” I asked her.

  “Wes, we’ve known each other for three days.”

  “Kristin, I can tell you that I don’t just jump into bed with someone for the sake of having sex. It has to be more serious to me than that. I thought that you felt the same way.” I looked over at her and saw her look down into the handkerchief she was holding.

  “Despite what Isabelle might think, I wasn’t looking to do that,” Kristin stated. “ I never thought we would end up like that yesterday.”

  “Are you sorry that we did?” I asked her. “Because I can tell you I’m not sorry at all.”

  Kristin thought for a second before answering. “I’m not sorry it happened, Wes; it was wonderful. But I am sorry if it is causing a rift between you and your daughter. I am not going to be the woman people in town talk about as a bitch slut homewrecker, and I don’t want to have to be around Isabelle if she is going to hate every moment I am there.”

  We both sat silently for a minute looking at each other. I put my hand on hers and held it.

  “There has to be a way to fix this,” I said, trying to come up with a solution.

  “Go home to your daughter, Wes,” Kristin said to me as she stood up. “It’s more important that you fix that.” She walked over to the front door and opened it for me.

  “I want to keep seeing you,” I said to her quietly as we stood together by the door.

  “I don’t see how that can happen,” she said, crying lightly. “Not right now.”

  I walked out the front door and turned to face Kristin, but she gently closed the front door and left me there. I stood for a second, still not believing what happened in just a couple of hours.

  I slowly walked down the steps towards my car, feeling dejected.

  What the hell just happened? I thought to myself.

  21

  Kristin

  After Wes, left, it was hard for me to concentrate on even the smallest tasks. I tried several things to try to take my mind off what had happened this morning, like sorting laundry and straightening up or checking my email, but nothing could shake it from my mind. In my head, I felt like I had done the right thing by telling him to go to his daughter, make that his priority, and move on. My heart, on the other hand, didn’t feel the same way. I felt devastated by everything that took place. Even in just the few days that we have known each other, I felt a stronger connection to Wes than I had felt with any man before. He was nothing like I had expected him to be and everything about him was making me happy. Now it was all gone.

  I went into the bathroom to take a long shower and hopefully wash some of this out of my system. My mind kept flashing back to the moments we spent with each other at the pond, the time we spent together at the house, and then to when Isabelle came in. I tried to think what I could have done differently, but nothing came to me and every scenario I imagined ended the same way – with Wes and I parting ways and moving on.

  When I got out of the shower and put my robe on, I could hear frantic knocking on the door. Part of me wanted to just ignore it. I figured for sure it was Wes, trying to come up with some solution where we could stay together. I tried to ignore it, but the knocking kept up, and at some point, the neighbors were going to think something was wrong and call the police. I marched over to the door, throwing it open and saying “Wes, there’s nothing you can say…”

  “Where have you been?” Karen shouted at him as she brushed past me and into my apartment. She sat herself down on the couch looking up at me with a frantic look on her face. “I have been calling and texting you all morning, and you’re not answering,” Karen said to me. She looked up at me and could see that something was wrong on my face. “What’s wrong? What happened?” she asked as she came over to me, took my hand, and had me sit next to her on the couch.

  I went through the whole story with her – the date with Wes, the picnic, the dinner at the house, our intimate moments, his daughter, everything. By the time I was done explaining the events of the last day, I felt spent and was sobbing again. Karen put her arm around and pulled me close to her.

  “Hey,” she said to me. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Kris. It was just… just bad timing I guess. And there certainly seems to be some issues between Wes and his daughter that go beyond you.”

  I sat up and looked at her. “I know all that,” I told her. “But it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. I really liked him, Karen. He made me feel special, and I think he really cares for me. We were just getting to know each other well, and then it all just fell apart.”

  “Kris, I don’t think it was ever going to be easy for you two,” Karen said. “There’s a lot to overcome there. His lifestyle, his family, his age – it was all playing against you I think. Maybe that’s why he’s been alone for so long.”

  There was some truth to what Karen was telling me, but I didn’t want to hear any of that.

  “Those just seem like excuses to me,” I said to her honestly. “It shouldn’t matter how much money he has, what he does for a living, or how much older Wes is than me, Karen. It’s supposed to be about how we feel about each other.”

  “In a perfect world Kris, you are right,” Karen responded. “But we don’t live in a world like that. Life is messy and complicated and never that easy. It’s not like you see in the movies or read in a romance book. Other things get in the way, and we don’t always get it worked out perfectly.”

  I slumped back on the couch. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Love, romance, relationships… none of it is ever fair, Kris.”

  I looked over at Karen, feeling sad again. I knew she was doing her best to try to cheer me up.

  “Why don’t you get dressed and let’s get out of here for a while,” Karen suggested to me.

  “I don’t want to walk around town, Karen,” I told her. “Suppose I run into Wes? Or his daughter? I don’t think I could handle it right now.”

  “We don’t have to hang out around here,” Karen said to me. “Let’s go for a ride. We can head over to the mall, do some window shopping, get some lunch, maybe see a movie. Sitting around here feeling this way isn’t good for you.” Karen held out her hand to me to pull me up off the couch. I grasped her hand, and she pulled me up. I reached over and gave her a hug as I started crying again. Karen put her arms around me and hugged me tightly.

  “I know it hurts right now,” Karen said as she stroked my hair, “but it will get better.”

  “Not soon enough,” I whispered back to her. I broke the hug and went into the bedroom to get dressed. After putting on my clothes, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a pained face looking back at me. I tried to make it better, wiping my eyes with a tissue and taking a deep breath, forcing a smile out, but inside I knew it was forced.

  I walked back out into the living room and grabbed my purse and jacket. I picked up my phone off the table and glanced at it, and then decided to leave it off.

  “You’re not going to turn it on?” Karen asked as we walked out the front door.

  “No,” I told her as I stuffed the phone into my purse. “I don’t see any point. I know Wes has tried to call and text me. It’s just going to upset me if I see it and hear it.”

  We walked down the steps to my car and got in. I started the car and looked over at Karen before I pulled out of the parking lot.

  “Thanks, Karen,” I told her, giving her a slight smile. “I needed someone today.”

  “No problem, Kris,” she replied. “Now let’s get out of here.”

  I pulled out of the parking lot, heading down Main Street and out towards Route 5 so we could drive the twenty miles or so to where the mall was. As we got onto Route 5, we drove past Martin Road, and I could see Wes’ SUV parked at his parent’s house. I focused my attention back on
the road in front of me as I tried to put the earlier events of the day behind me.

  22

  Wes

  The rest of the day seemed like a constant tug-of-war for me. I tried to do my best to connect in some way to Izzy, while at the same time sending messages or trying to call Kristin when I could. I didn’t seem to be getting anyplace with either one of them. Izzy would barely talk to me, only giving me passing glances at my parent’s house as she moved about. Kristin wasn’t answering any of my texts or calls, and it seemed she was resigned to ignoring my efforts to talk to her.