Part 3 of Just Us Two
6: "Stop yelling and listen for a second!"
25: "I thought I'd never see you again."
|| Another time skip: 4 years after the ice cream shop incident. Ava still doesn't speak but she and Gina communicate through sign language. Also, they moved from Central LA to San Diego. Not a major move but far enough from Sarah 🥴 Or so she thought. Below is a picture of Ava.||
Gina
"Ava! Its time to go sweetie! Tell Mrs. Alex bye." I shoved all of my things into my purse after finally finding my wallet. I paid for Ava's therapy session before grabbing her hand and walking out of the building.
Its been almost 3 years we moved and since she started her therapy sessions and she's improving so much. She still doesn't talk much so we rely on sign language but she's musically inclined so that helps strengthen her voice and vocal chords.
We walked out of the building swinging our hands playfully as we made our way to the local ice cream shop. We established a new tradition since our move; after every session we go and get ice cream before heading back home or to my office; I am now the head of a real estate company.
I opened the door to the ice cream shop letting Ava go in first before following in behind her. We walked up to the counter together and the usual worker greeted us.
We ordered and paid for our ice cream taking it to go this time since I had to go back to work. Luckily everything was in one vicinity so we could walk almost everywhere.
"When we get back inside I need you to finish your homework and stuff then you can get your ipad okay?" I looked down at Ava and saw ice cream all over her face.
I just chuckled and reached into my purse grabbing the pack of baby wipes I had in there.
"You're always making a mess munchkin. You must like being sticky huh?" I softly cooed at her whilst tickling her sides in order to hear the laugh that absolutely melts my heart.
I smiled brightly as I watched her fight to get my fingers from her sides as she hopped around. I stopped after a few seconds before squatting down in front of her to finish wiping off her face and hands. I took her bowl from her since she was done with her ice cream and threw it away in a nearby trash can before grabbing her hand and walking back towards my office with her.
Soon we were back in my office; she was doing her homework on the floor next to me and I was sitting at my desk filling out some paperwork when I assistant called me.
"What's up Rachel?" I put the phone on speaker since I was still typing but I quickly picked up the receiver after I heard her words.
"You have a visitor here.. Its uh.. Its Sarah Paulson.." I could hear her trying to hide the excitement in her voice.
"What does she want?" I huffed in annoyance.
"She said she wants to speak to you. Should I send her up?"
"Yeah go ahead and bring her up here. Put all my calls on hold until she leaves here too alright?" I hung up the phone before running my fingers through my hair.
"Ava, Mommy's friend is about to come up here so I need you to behave okay?" I turned and faced her as she peeked up from her homework. She nodded before signing to me that she was done with her homework.
I took the papers from her setting them on my desk as the door opened revealing Sarah and Rachel. I gave Rachel a slight nod letting her know it was okay to leave as Sarah walked into my office.
I ignored her presence for a moment as I reached into my drawer pulling Ava's ipad out. I unlocked it and handed it to her letting her do her own thing before giving Sarah my attention.
"Can I help you?" I raised my eyebrow slightly and my voice stayed emotionless throughout the question.
"Well hello to you too." She remarked sarcastically. She sat down in one of the chairs in front of my desk before folding her arms.
"Oh cut the bull shit. What do you want and how did you even find me?"
"I have my sources..."
I raised my eyebrows before chuckling softly. I shook my head at her before speaking again.
"Keeping tabs on me? One, that sounds very stalkerish and two, you lost that right when you left out of nowhere after I found out my daughter had asthma. So you can go ahead and waltz right up out of here and lose your tabs." I scoffed in disgust. How she gon keep tabs on me and she the one who left? The hell?
"I didn't just up and leave."
I interrupted her quickly as my voice raised slightly.
"Yes you did. You left me high and dry plus you blocked my number and all my social media so I couldn't get in touch with you. You left the rights to pop up on me when I woke up to an empty house at 7 months pregnant."
My eyes were quickly watering but I wouldn't let the tears fall. I was not going to give her power over me by letting her see me cry.
"You didn't even try to - "
"I didn't try to what? To call you? Cause I did. Text you? Certainly tried that too! Get in touch with you through other people?! Did that every single day!"
"Stop yelling and just listen for a second!"
I stopped in the middle of my rant and looked at her like she was crazy. I went to open my mouth to say something else but she put her hand up to keep me quiet.
"Its very rude to interrupt someone when they're speaking especially when you don't know what they're about to say. So as I was saying you never tried to give me a chance to explain the last time I saw you so I'm gonna use this time to explain."
I sat there looking at her with an annoyed expression because I really just wanted her gone at this point. I glanced over at Ava to make sure she was fine since I had started yelling but she was unphased by our arguing.
"I left because I was scared okay? I felt like I was going to fail the both of you honestly. We had found out she had asthma and the only thing that kept running through my mind was me messing up and leaving her alone for too long just to come back and find her not breathing." Her voice wavered a little bit. She closed her eyes before taking a deep breath.
"I was just really scared. I should have expressed that in someway or form but I saw the opportunity to run and took it without even thinking which was heavily wrong on my part and I deeply regret it."
"But you still did it. You didn't even try to come back or talk to me. I had to bump into in public to see you after I thought I'd never see you again." My voice was low and slightly cracked at the end of my sentence. I bowed my head looking at my lap as some of my tears fell.
I quickly wiped them before she could see them but I kept my head down when I heard her get up and walk around my desk. She turned my chair out to face her before crouching down in front of me.
She lifted her hand to my face slowly but I still flinched at her action. She softly sighed before grabbing my chin gently and lifting my head so I was looking at her.
"Who have you been around to making you scared of me?" She questioned me softly.
"I- I'm not scared. You just caught me off guard." I wasn't lying but I wasn't really telling the truth either and I think she could tell because I avoided eye contact.
"I call bullshit. What's happened to you within these past years huh?" She pried again making me a little angry.
"You've been keeping tabs so you should know!" I sneered back at her.
"That's a no no and you know it. Now calmly tell me what's happened while we weren't together. Get smart with me again and I won't hesitate to take you over my knee like I use to. Understood?" She responded calmly.
I lightly gasped thinking back at the times she spanked me in the past. I grew a little flustered as I shifted in my seat as I responded to her.
"Ava and I just ran into some people who weren't too understanding or too nice is all. They put up a nice facade though." I remarked softly looking down in my lap again.
"Well you won't have to worry about that anymore because I'm here."
"So you're just gonna pop back up after 6 years and think everything is gonna be okay? Yeah, no. Definitely not that easy lady. Don't you have a girl friend at home?" I slumped back in my seat with my arms folded.
"No I don't have a girlfriend at home and I'm very well aware that everything isn't going to go back to how it use to be but I'm gonna make things right and this time I won't run when the going gets tough. Pinky promise." She held her pinky up towards me. I stared at it for a few seconds before holding my hand out with my pinky up as well. We wrapped out pinkies around each other before pressing our thumbs against each other to seal the deal.
"Alright then. Ava, come here munchkin." I glanced back at Ava waving to her to catch her attention. She out the ipad down and walked over to my side.
"This is mommy's friend Sarah. She's gonna be around for a while so can you say hi to her please?" I asked gently. I reached over and lifted her up before setting her in my lap.
She leaned her head back onto my shoulder and waved to Sarah shyly. Sarah smiled at her before looking back at me.
"Guess we're a party of three now huh?"
"Yeah, I guess so. I'm so use to it being just us two but three doesn't seem too bad."
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word count ~ 1774
|| I feel like this is trash but I've rewritten this 3 times already so we're gonna stick with this version for now. So it took so long, I worked 2 doubles and finally got off on time today so whoot whoot.|| ~ T