Just One More Breath by Leigha Lewis Read Free Book Online Page B

frown was begging to form on Shawn’s face and he hastily changed the subject . “How about you, Nicole? How are you doing?”
    “I’m here, so I guess that means I’m ok ay,” I replied, breaking our eye contact. I picked up an edamame bean and began dusting the bits of sea salt off the shell.
    I hoped that Shawn would accept my answer and move on, but he continued . “I’ve been worried about you, Nic. There were so many times that I wanted to come over and check on you and spend time with you. But we hadn’t spoken in a while and I honestly didn’t know how to approach it.”
    “Shawn, you and I have been friends for a long time. You never have to feel weird about contacting me ,” I said lightly. Although I had been in a serious relationship with my ex for the entire length of my friendship with Shawn, hanging out with him never seemed to be an issue. There were always subliminal comments made by my friends about the disinterest my ex showed toward whom I hung out with. Come to think of it, we really did live two completely separate social lives. Is that where we went wrong? Sometimes we couldn’t get a babysitter for Jax, so spending time out separately made sense.
    “What happened? I mean...I heard you and Jaxson were having problems…but....” Shawn stopped when he noticed me shifting uncomfortably in my seat. Hearing his name made me feel sick. I knew that Shawn wanted to know what was going on but I was having an internal debate. I had always been comfortable speaking candidly with Shawn, but this topic was extra sensitive. I wondered if I should tell him about my overall generic feelings or if I should get deep and raw, laying all of my emotions out on the table.
    I decided to go with the latter. I was sure that if I told him the generic version, he would just poke a prod until he got everything out of me anyway. This is what made him such a good lawyer. Jax possessed a similar skill. Too bad he never had the chance to explore its potential.
    I took another big gulp of my Mojito and prepared to be completely honest.
    “ My ex came home one day and told me that he no longer wanted to be married. He said he wasn’t happy and didn’t want to continue living like this. He said he was a young guy and wanted to be free.” My voice was shockingly void of emotion. “I should’ve just cut all ties with him after he said that, I should’ve granted him the freedom that he so desperately needed…but I pushed. We both have excellent relationships with our fathers and I wanted Jax to have a healthy relationship with his father. So we worked out a visitation schedule through the court and he showed up for his first visit. With his new girlfriend.”
    Shawn’s eyeb rows creased at the irony of my statement. “So he wanted to be single and free but he went out and got himself a girlfriend?” he asked.
    Yes, that irony was not lost on me. I sniffled and nodded, but surprisingly there were no tears. Shawn gave my hand a gentle squeeze of support and I continued, “Yep, a shinier, newer, younger girlfriend. I had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach when he showed up, as if I knew I shouldn’t have sent Jax. But my hands were tied. It was a court order and getting the court involved was one hundred percent my idea. So, I had no choice. I had to go against my gut and send Jax with his father.”
    “You can’t beat yourself up about that , Nicole.”
    “Shawn, I never go against my gut when it comes to my child - ever.” A stray tear fell from my eye and I angrily brushed it away. “The rest of it gets really blurry. All I remember is my ex calling me and saying that Jax had an accident. I assumed it was a bump or a bruise—maybe he needed a few stitches—but when I got to the hospital, they told me Jax didn’t make it.” With those words I began to shake.
    Shawn stood , joined me on the opposite side of the table, wrapped his arms tightly around me, and began to rock me gently. When the