Don't You Go and Carry On With Your Life

Jack

Kellin, Kylie, and I were staying with my mom for two more days. The judge was giving Alex a week to move all of his stuff out of our house, but he texted me saying he would be done in three days. I hadn't been to our house out of fear of running into him. I knew it would be awkward if we saw each other any time soon.

I honestly didn't expect to get the kids and the house. I wanted both but I thought the judge would only give me one or the other. I also didn't expect to Alex to have to give us so much money. I knew he made a lot but he was going to give us almost five-thousand dollars a month.

Kellin was pretty upset about having to spend two weekends out of the month with Alex. My lawyer, Tyler, explained that since Kellin is under eighteen he couldn't just decide not to have to spend time with Alex. I thought that two weekends out of the month didn't sound that bad. It would give Alex time to repair the broken bond he had with Kellin. I didn't want Kellin to hate him for forever.

"Daddy! Daddy!" Kylie ran over and tapped my legs on the verge of tears.

"What's wrong, Angel?" I asked and she pointed to Kellin. "What did he do?"

"He no play." She cried.

“He won’t play with you?” I asked and she nodded letting me know that was correct. I picked her up and wiped her tears. "Kellin why won’t you play with her?" I asked him and he glared at me from the floor.

"I'm doing homework and she keeps trying to draw on it." He complained and I laughed.

"Oh. We'll give her some paper so she can draw on it instead." I told him.

He sighed and pulled out a piece of paper. "Here Kylie." He called out and I let her down. She walked back over to him thanked him for the paper. I know she annoyed him most of the time because she wanted to do everything he was doing it. I thought it was cute, but I tried not to let her annoy him too much.

"Any luck finding a job, Jack?" My mom asked as she stepped out of her room.

"Yeah! I have an interview Monday with this insurance company. It's a data entry job. It seems pretty simple and I'll make fourteen dollars an hour." I exclaimed. I really wanted to start working again so I was excited to finally get a call back.

"That's good! I really hope they decide to hire you." She said.

"Me too."

"Uh Daddy can you take me home really quick? I need my math book." Kellin sighed.

"Uggggh okay." I groaned. I really hoped Alex wasn't there. I don't think I could deal with seeing him right now. "We'll be back mom." I told her.

"I can watch Kylie for you while you go." She suggested.

"Yeah, thanks." I said.

I picked up Kylie and kissed her on the cheek telling her we wouldn’t be gone long. I grabbed my keys off the counter and we went out to my car. Then I solemnly drove us to our house. Alex's car was outside of the house along with another car. It was probably one of his friends helping him move.

"Will you come in with me? I don't want to go in there alone." Kellin told me.

"Yeah yeah I'm coming." I said. I walked to the door with him and used my key to unlock and opened it. There were boxes of Alex's things all by the front door. I could hear voices in the back of the house but ignored them. Kellin went upstairs to find his book while I stayed downstairs.

I looked around the living room and kitchen to see if Alex took anything I would notice. It didn’t seem like he took anything other than his clothes and personal items. He was practically leaving me with everything.

Seconds later Alex walked around the corner with Taylor next to him. They were talking about something but quickly stopped when they saw me standing there.

"J-Jack? W-what are you doing here?" Alex asked nervously.

"Kellin left his math book here." I said quietly. I wanted to ask what she was doing here, but I didn't want him to be under the assumption that I still cared. Plus we were divorced now so I guess he could be with whoever he wanted. It just kind of bothered me that he was moving in with her so quickly after our divorce. It felt like our marriage meant nothing to him.

"Oh um-"

"-We won't be long." I cut him off to save himself the trouble of coming up with an excuse.

"Okay got it." Kellin said as he came down the stairs. He slowed down once he saw Alex standing there with Taylor. “Is this the lady?” He asked, he had never seen Taylor before.

“Kellin just let me ex-“ Alex began, but Kellin cut him off.

"-Unbelievable." He said and stormed out of the door.

"Kellin wait!" Alex called after him, but Kellin kept going until he was back in the car.

I simply walked past Alex and out the door without saying another word to him. This made things so much worse between him and Kellin.

"I can't believe he bought her into our house." Kellin said angrily, when I got in the car. "He let her come between our family and he's still with her? How can he be so evil??"

"He's not evil, he's just a guy who made the worse mistake of his life." I said calmly.

"Why aren't you angry? Why aren’t you angry that he’s still with the women he cheated on you with? Why didn't you yell at him for having her there?" He questioned.

"Because I'm tired of yelling at him.” I sighed. “Nothing your dad does can surprise me anymore or make me respect him any less." I shrugged. It was true, Alex couldn’t do anything that would make me as angry or hurt as I felt when I found out he cheated on me.

"I'm not spending the weekend with him. I don't care what the judge says!"

"Kellin you have to. I can get in a lot of trouble if you don't go to him on his days." I told him.

"But Daddy I don't want to be around him or that lady. I don't even have the energy to ignore him the whole weekend." He said, making me chuckle.

"It'll be okay, Kells. You just have to stay there Friday night and Saturday and then you'll be back home Sunday." I explained.

"That's too long. I can't stand being around him for two minutes. Daddy please don't make me go!" He begged. I felt horrible because I knew how hurt he was by Alex's actions. I just couldn't do anything because I couldn't go against what the judge ordered.

"I'm sorry, Kells, but there isn't anything I can do right now." I said and he huffed and crossed his arms.

We drove back to my mom’s house in silence. Once I parked the car, Kellin quickly got out and ran inside. He went straight to his room and close the door. I sighed as I went to sit in the living room with my mom.

"What's wrong with my Kellin?" She asked.

"We saw Alex at the house and he had Taylor, his old assistant, there with him." I told her. "And on the way home he begged me not to make him spend the weekends with Alex, but I told him it wasn't up to me. If he doesn't go then the judge can take away my custody of him and Kylie. I hate that he has to go, but he has to you know?"

"Yeah I know. I feel so bad for him. At least Kylie doesn't know what's going on, but Kellin does and it hurts him." She said.

"Yeah. I just hope Alex can fix his relationship with Kellin. I don't want him to hate his dad forever." I told her.

"That's something Alex should be worried about. You're doing the best you can to keep yourself and your relationship with a Kellin together."

"I know mom."

"Good. Now go check on Kellin to make sure he's okay." She told me and I nodded.

I got up and went to Kellin’s room. I knocked on the door and waited to hear him to tell me to come in.

"Go away." I heard him say after my second knock. I could tell that he was crying.

"Kellin I just want to talk." I said and he didn't say anything. I took that as a sign to come in.

I walked in and he was laying on the bed curled into a ball with his blanket over him. I could see he was shaking from crying so I sat down next to him and began to rub his back for comfort.

"Talk to me, Kells. It might help you feel better." I said softly, but he continued to cry, unable to get any words out. "Breath, baby." I said and he took a deep breath.

"I j-just don't k-know w-why we weren't g-good enough for him." He cried, breaking my heart.

"No no, we were too good for him." I told him. "And one day Alex is going to wake up and realize that . . . I hope." I mumbled the last part to myself.

"I d-don't u-understand why he chose her over us."

"I don't understand either, but it doesn't matter. He's with her now and we're going to try to move on as best as we can."

"I can't m-move on i-if I have to spend all weekend with him."

"I meant we have to move on from what he did, and not let it hold us back. He's still your dad, Kells. And I know you might hate him, but he is only divorced from me. He still has the right to see you and Kylie. You two are his kids too." I explained.

"If he really cared about all us he wouldn't have cheated. Did he not think about Kylie and me when he was with her??"

"Kellin, you two aren't the reason he cheated. He felt there was something wrong with me and his relationship." It was kind of annoying to talk about Alex as if he is a decent person. He is a piece of shit, in my eyes, but I didn’t want my judgement to dictates Kellin’s. I also needed Kellin to spend his designated weekends with Alex so I wouldn’t get in trouble with the judge.

"But he didn't think about how he was tearing apart our family by cheating." He said while wiping his eyes.

"No he wasn't thinking about that. He was being selfish and only thinking about his own pleasure. But cheating on me doesn't mean he loves you or Kylie any less. Okay?" I said.

"Sure." He sniffled. I wiped some more of his tears and leaned down to hug him. He was seemed to still be tense.

"I sleepy." Kylie said as she walked in the room, rubbing her eye. She walked over to me and tried climb in my lap.

"Come on, let's take a nap. It'll help us relax a little." I picked her up and laid her in bed with us. She cuddled into Kellin, making him smile. I kissed them both on the forehead and we got some rest.

Notes

Sorry I didn't realize how slow this story starts out, but the first few chapters are just going to be about Jack and Alex adjusting to their divorce lives. It will pick up and more things will happen lol!