The Sweet Escape

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Letting go of Skylar was the single hardest thing Ian had ever done. And possibly the most painful. Seeing the way her eyes filled up with sadness and pain broke his heart. It had made him die a thousand deaths. But it was something that had to be done.

He realized something. Something important. He had too much baggage, and he didn't want Skylar to feel the weight of it all. He could never give her his sole devotion, because he would always have to put his daughter first. And to make sure Emily was happy, he had to make sure that Christina was okay. The last thing he wanted was for his daughter to lose her mother again. She'd be devastated if Christina ended up leaving, or going to rehab again or worse, dying from an overdose. She'd already been close once.

Another thing that had made him decide to end things with Skylar was their age difference. In four months he would turn thirty, and she had barely turned twenty-one! He had a daughter. A "baby momma." Parents that disliked her. He didn't want to put Skylar through that. He knew that she deserved someone closer to her age. Someone that didn't have any other obligations. Someone that could give her all their devotion. And no matter how much it hurt, it was the truth. And he needed to deal with it.

Skylar would be happier in the long run. She shouldn't have to deal with his crap. And he didn't want to make her feel miserable. Earlier when she't told him about moving back into dorms he realized that she really wasn't happy. Or as happy as she should have been. And he hated himself because he couldn't give her that. All he wanted was to make her feel like a queen, but apparently he just wasn't good enough for her.

So he had to let her go. And maybe he'd never love anyone else as much as he loved Skylar, but he could live with that. Skylar was still young and she would find someone else. And maybe she would love that person more than she had loved him. And he was okay with that. Or so he told himself that he was.

As Skylar drove away from the hotel she blasted Lana Del Rey. And she sang at the top of her lungs to every song. She wasn't going to cry. No. She didn't even feel like crying. And she wasn't mad. Not at all. Yeah, she wasn't exactly happy about her breakup, she was sad. But she wasn't going to cry and she wasn't going to feel resentful.

It was one thing to think about a relationship ending, a whole other thing to have it actually happen. And, yeah, she'd seen it coming. But there had always been hope. Hope that things would change. That things would become easier for both of them. That that would just be happy together. She'd hoped.

But if there was anything that Skylar had learned in her twenty-one years of life was that not all good things lasted. Heck, nothing good in her life had ever lasted. So why did she expect her relationship with Ian to last? It had been too good to be true. He'd been perfect. Too perfect. And she'd let herself believe that she was living a fairy tale life. That she would stay with the man of her dreams. That she would spend the rest of her life with him.

Of course Ian would never be able to focus solely on her. And she'd never asked him to. And she'd never expected him to. He was a father of a beautiful child. Of course she didn't resent Emily. She understood. Emily grew up without a mother, and now she was back, and of course the little girl wanted her parents together like she saw other parents with their kids. She didn't blame Emily. She was just a child with dreams and high hopes. And Skylar had been just like her once upon a time.

Christina was not to blame. Skylar knew that as well. That woman may have a nasty past. She may have left Ian and Emily. And she may have gotten involved with drugs and shady people. But, guess what, Christina was human! And she had made mistakes just like everyone else. And Skylar knew that she was trying to get better. Because people could change. And Skylar believed her. She was just another imperfect creation. Just like Skylar.