Stef Foster along with her son Jude are starting their life over again when they meet Lena Adams, a woman in an unhappy marriage. While raising her troubled teen daughter, Callie, what happens when Lena falls for the blonde cop?
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STEF POV
" I don't know love. It's awfully big." I said looking around at the three bedroom apartment as Lena and I had looked at almost 10 places in the last week and it was making me more cranky then anything.
"I don't think we can ever get too big honey. We are on top of each other now so anything will look bigger then what we have."
"I don't know it cost a good amount."
"Honey we can afford it. Between the both of us we make a good enough income."
"I know but.."
"But what love? It's close to Anchor Beach, it's close to your job. The kids can walk even. What is it Stef?" She said as I walked out onto the balcony that overlooked a beautiful tree lined neighborhood with houses I could only dream of living in. I could see each one had a big backyard and driveways big enough for three and four cars. There were kids playing in the street with some basketball hoops and some roller skating down the block. It was something I so badly wanted to give my son again for loosing our house in the divorce had been a pretty painful thing and a failure on my part. One I had not forgiven myself for. Realistically, I knew with Lena and I both just getting out of divorces which had left us in somewhat of a financial mess, well me more then her, we were in no position to buy a house or even think about it. But I guess no one could stop me for dreaming about it.
Jude was only three years old when Mike and I bought the house on Cherry Street. It wasn't anything massive but it was ours and it took us three years to save for it and we loved it. I'd say I loved it more then my marriage and I was hoping to raise my son in that house, to see him grow tall, to bring his dates over and to build memories with him. I never wanted him to be cramped in some apartment on a pullout. Never and I sometimes wondered how much he was suffering because of that. Because of me spreading myself so thin and giving most of my attention to our girls when I knew my son needed me just as much.
The day we packed everything up on Cherry Lane I had tried to hold it together for him. I had tried to be my strongest but I had broken down unaware that he had seen me.
FLASHBACK
"Love make sure we have everything packed up from the kitchen. I'm just going to give the bedrooms one last look. Ok sweets?"
"Sure mom." He smiled taping one of the boxes up as I walked upstairs feeling more tired then ever. Looking around at the empty hallway I took one last look in my bedroom. A bedroom that carried more feelings then I would have liked to admit and a room that had seen me at my worst and at my best. These walls if they could talk would remind me of every single nasty fight Mike and I had, every name I had called him and every name he had called me, every tear I had shed over how miserable I had become, over how heartbroken I felt by the fact that I was hiding who my son really was from his father. But they would also remind me of the laughter Mike and I once had, and of the love making that was ok at one point, or the many times Jude had jumped in the bed with me in the middle of the night terrified of a storm or a bad dream. Shaking my head at the thoughts I walked into my baby boys room seeing his growth chart I made on the door frame when he was just three. Touching each mark with my fingers I could feel the tears begin to swell in my eyes because of what I was taking away from my son. That I had ruined his life because I couldn't suck up being married to his father. That I couldn't keep up enough with the mortgage payments and that I should have worked more overtime. But it was impossible. Maintaining this house and all it entailed, plus the amount of debt Mike left me in was impossible on my income alone. It was and it was my fault for not realizing that sooner. There however was no way I could remain in that marriage, and remain in a marriage where a father did not accept his son, or threaten to beat him because he was something he didn't want him to be. I couldn't do it and I never would as I suddenly found myself crying harder then ever as I slide down the wall sitting on the floor. Putting my head into my heads the tears just kept falling as I cried out the guilt, cried out the pain and cried out the misery I had been feeling the last few years. There was only so much I could take before I cracked and before my own walls would come crashing. The last thing I ever wanted to do was fail my son, or wreck his childhood. I just wanted him to be happy, to be safe, and to live the life he deserved. That was all I wanted always and forever as I could not get the tears to stop falling but soon feeling someone wrap their arms around me.
