Finding Abel

Chapter 23.

Opie

I watched in amusement as Erin chased Henry around the living room. They were playing a game that resulted in Erin acting like a monster while Henry was the brave knight that had to protect the kingdom. The kingdom just so happened to be a blanket fort that Erin made in the living room. Henry was having a great time with his mom and playing with her took his mind off of Abel. It was Jax's day to have him and Erin rightfully decided to keep Henry with her this time.

"Ahhh," Erin tumbled to the ground dramatically when Henry struck her with his plastic sword. He started to jump up and down when he realized that he had won the battle. Erin joined in on my laughter and then grabbed Henry and peppered him with kisses. Henry protested his mom's kisses through his laughter and she eventually let him run off to go find his shoes.

"You sure you don't need anything from the store?" she asked me standing on her feet. "No, I'm good, this will be fixed by the time you get back." Erin had been complaining that her fire alarms kept chirping even after she changed the battery, so I offered to help fix them.

"Hey," Erin said grabbing her purse off the counter, "what's going on between you and Jax?" I gave her a look knowing that she was just being nosy. I didn't really want to tell her the real reason because I didn't want her to feel like our relationship had to change. Erin had become a really good friend to me and it was nice to talk to someone who didn't always expect me to act a certain way.

"Nothing, he's just being his regular self," I grumbled. Erin pursed her lips, obviously wanting to hear more. "Erin please just drop it," I stopped what I was doing and looked at her with a serious expression. Erin gave a heavy sigh not bothering to hide her disappointment, "okay," she groaned.

She eventually had to leave when Henry walked in on us with his favorite shoes on the wrong feet. I had to hold in my laughter because he looked so proud of himself and I didn't want to ruin his moment. Erin gave him a big smile and picked him up off the ground and planted a kiss on top of his head. She had braided his hair down in an attempt to hide the fact that his hair was still uneven. He looked good this way and you couldn't even tell that he had a bad haircut.

"Say bye-bye Opie," she waved at me but her attention was on Henry. Henry gave me a big wave and then started to blow kisses which made me crack up. He was a really sweet kid and Erin was a good mom; I liked being around them for the simple fact that they were so simple. I wasn't trying to replace my own family, but with Lyla not talking to me, Erin provided a listening ear to all of my problems. Don't get me wrong, she voiced her opinion when she thought I was wrong, and she always advised me to try and work things out with Lyla. But my friendship with her was something that I cherished because she and the boys reminded me so much of the things I used to love and had before I went inside for five years.

That's why I was so angry when Jax suggested that I was trying to create something more with Erin. I respected Erin enough not to bring something like that to her. I would never put her in that situation while I was still trying to work things out with Lyla. Erin and Lyla were friends! That would create so much chaos if I even thought about doing something like that. However, maybe in another life, Jax would have been right, maybe if things weren't so messed up, I would have taken my shot with Erin.

Suddenly, I heard a loud banging on the door, kind of like the one's police do. I was confused as to who was trying to get in here so urgently. Wendy usually had a special knock or she would just yell from the other side, so I knew it wasn't her. But then I heard the person bang on the door again, louder, and harder this time I got down from the ladder and went to open the door. To my surprise though, my wife stood on the other side of the door. She looked like she had been crying but then when she saw me she looked angry. Her face turned into a scowl and her nose scrunched up. I didn't even have time to ask her what was going on when her hand smacked my cheek, making my head snap to the side.

"How could you?!" she screamed at me. I was so confused; I had no idea about what she was talking about. I hadn't had a full conversation with Lyla in weeks, there was no reason for her to come here and slap me.

Lyla began to scream at me through her tears and lunged at me with kicking and screaming. Her movements were erratic and uncontrollable. I had no choice but to pull her inside of Erin's condo to keep her from alarming Erin's neighbors.

"Get your hands off of me!" she pushed my hands away when we were fully inside. 

"What is wrong with you?! Why are you acting like this?!"

"What is wrong with me?! I'll tell you what's wrong with me! I married you; I trusted you; you vowed to protect me and love our family! But all you've ever done is compare me to Donna and lie about what goes on in the club! You never loved me! All you've done is hurt me and screw my friends!"

I watched Lyla in astonishment, she hadn't said more than a couple of sentences to me since our separation and now here she was pouring her heart out. 

"Lyla, I admit that I was wrong," I leaned up against the door in defeat, "I've been unfair to you and I haven't been much of a husband or a father."

Lyla shook her head as tears fell down her cheeks but I continued on anyway. "I've been thinking a lot about what to do about us. I was wrong in so many ways, I should have never slept with Ima. I was just so angry with you for keeping your birth control from me because it felt like you had betrayed me somehow."

"I didn't want another baby Ope," she said in between tears.

"I know," I looked down ashamed, "I know that now. I just wanted to recreate the five years I missed with Ellie and Kenny while I was inside. I missed out on so much and I'll admit that I thought if I could get you pregnant that you'd finally quit your job."

This was the most honest I've been with Lyla, and it felt good to finally tell her my truth. "Did you ever love me Ope, or was I just a distraction for you?"

I shook my head, "you were never a distraction, I did love you, and I still do. I just never got to grieve Donna, I just jumped in a relationship with you because you felt different and nice and I loved being with you and Piper and the kids. When we got married, I thought it was what I had to do, the step we had to take. But we never talked about the important things, you, and me, we never even talked about Donna."

Lyla remained quiet at the mention of my late wife's name. "I'm not her Ope, and it's unfair that you put me in her shadow." I nodded my head in agreement, "yeah I realize that now."

We remained silent for a while, allowing our truths to lay there out in the open. I thought that maybe had I talked about Donna, maybe she couldn't haunt me anymore. Maybe she was stuck in another realm because I couldn't let her go.

"So," Lyla said nervously, "you and Erin huh?"

I felt my eyebrows come together in confusion, "what?"

Lyla rolled her eyes, "c'mon Ope don't ruin a good thing."

"Lyla, what are you talking about? I'm not with Erin, where did you get something like that from?"

Lyla's face turned a deep red as she became more and more embarrassed. "I...I just thought," she struggled to speak.

"Thought what? That I was sleeping with Erin?" Lyla flinched at my words even though I wasn't yelling. "Lyla who told you that?" I felt my blood boiling. Lyla had never shown interest in the type of relationship I had with Erin. Not once did she think this way before, this had Jax written all over it. "Was it Jax? Gemma? Tara? Who?" I pressed.

Lyla looked like she was going to be sick by my line of questioning, "Uh..." her breathing was ragged. "Um...Tara had just stopped by the house. She just thought that you...that you two...were doing something behind my back."

I squinted my eyes at Lyla, "Tara told you that I was cheating on you?" Lyla swallowed the lump in her throat and I could tell that she was uncomfortable. Lyla considered Tara a friend so the fact that Tara had set her up like this made me mad.

I grabbed my jacket off the coat rack and opened the door to leave. "Ope wait!" Lyla said running behind me, "she was just looking out for me!" Lyla continued to vouch for Tara, obviously not wanting anyone to get into a fight. But whether it was Tara or not, I knew that Jax had to be the one behind this whole thing. He couldn't stand the fact that I had a relationship with Erin, he just had to be his usual controlling self. But today, I was going to knock the king off his throne.