Dancing to the Truth (The Brent Trilogy 3)

Chapter 2

I am standing in the park by myself, with my hands in my pockets. It is the middle of March, and the weather is perfect. The sun is shining, you can hear the birds chirping, and there is a gentle breeze in the air carrying the scent of freshly mowed grass and blooming flowers. I take a deep breath, and I exhale slowly, savoring this moment.

It's Sunday afternoon. I woke up and had breakfast with Marcus. We had a bit too much to drink during our celebration last night, but strangely enough neither one of us was hungover this morning. After breakfast, Marcus left to get back to Austin. I told him he could stay as long as he wanted, but he insisted that he had laundry to do and that he had to return back to work in the morning. But he did promise to drive down and see me soon.

I was supposed to have the kids all day, but Whitney wanted to go to church that Sunday, and after everything I did to her, I couldn't say no. Her parents, my soon-to-be-ex-in-laws, helped Whitney buy a small house in a nice neighborhood, where she now lived with Justin and Isabelle. I hadn't spoken with Whitney's parents since my double-life was exposed via an illegal CD burned by a jealous ex-lover of my ex-lover, and honestly, I didn't want to. If someone had done to my baby girl what I had done to Whitney, I would want to murder them.

"Daddy!"

I heard the scream coming from my back, and I turned around to see Isabelle running towards me. She was eight-and-a-half now, in second grade, and she was still the only one that seemed to love me as much as she ever did. The blessed childish innocence. She threw her arms around my neck, and I embraced her tightly, my nostrils filling with the strawberry scent of her hair.

As I was holding onto Isabelle, Whitney and Justin were walking slowly towards me. Justin looked more restrained than usual, and in the past six months I could feel him drifting from me and becoming more distant than usual. It broke my heart, but there was nothing I could do about it, but be patient and let him come to me. Justin had just turned eleven last week, but unfortunately, I wasn't invited to his birthday party. I had made a silent promise to myself that I was going to make it up to him for it today.

Whitney looked better than ever. Her hair was done, she looked less tired than when she was living with me, even though I didn't know how that was possible, and she looked like she had started working out.

I let go of Isabelle and tried to give Justin a hug, but he just muttered a half-willing "hello" and then proceeded to go to the park playground.

"Isabelle, go play with your brother," said Whitney and Isabelle didn't wait to be told twice as she bolted towards the swings. "And don't run or you will hurt yourself!"

"Hey," I said to Whitney.

"Hello," she said. I wanted to reach out and kiss her on the cheek, but I knew that that was probably not a good idea. Whitney has been very reasonable about the whole thing, much more reasonable than I deserved her to be. It was better if I didn't push things any further, at least for the foreseeable future. We were friendly enough with each other, but I was hoping that maybe in the future, she would change her mind about me and we will be friends again. Until then, I was going to give her anything she wanted—and that included her space more than anything.

"How are you?"

Whitney just shrugged, and didn't say anything.

Here came the awkward part of the conversation that I couldn't wait to get over with. "So, my six-month test came back negative. I thought you should know."

I didn't say HIV. I didn't have the courage to. I know that Whitney is a nurse and I shouldn't feel this way, but it was the way I felt and there was nothing I could do about it.