As I lay on the couch in the Villanueva living room, keeping an ear out for Mateo on the baby monitor, I hear a car pull up. I know it's Jane coming home from the club where she celebrated Lina's birthday and considering how slurred her voice was on the phone 20 minutes ago I know she's completely wasted. I decide to close my eyes and pretend to sleep; tonight out of all nights she needs to sleep so if I'm here I can get up with Mateo to help Jane as much as possible. I shut my eyes just in time for Jane to come stumbling in the door. I can feel her eyes on me, but I just lay there pretending to sleep. She walked passed me and into her room to check on Mateo. Over the baby monitor I heard her mother walk into Jane's bedroom where Jane started telling Xo about her "amazing kiss" with Michael. Even though I should have given her some privacy and turned off the baby monitor I couldn't. I was crushed and devastated, but most of all I was heartbroken. Hearing Jane go on about kissing Michael was just as painful as if I was there to see it. The last time I felt this much pain was when I told her I didn't love her anymore.
At that moment Jane stopped talking and whispered something to her mom about the baby monitor. Quickly I turned the baby monitor off before she could even get out of her bedroom and returned back to my position on the couch with my eyes closed. I could hear a sigh of relief when she saw I was "sleeping" before she walked back into her room and shut the door.
How could she do this to me, to our family? I blame Michael. Everything is his fault. He was always just around. He couldn't leave Jane alone. Even when Mateo came home from the hospital Michael was there and has been there every day since. I have expressed my concerns multiple times just to be made into this jealous ex-boyfriend instead of a concerned father.
Jane and Mateo are my life now and even though part of me wanted to jump up and leave or jump up and run to Jane confessing my love to her, again, I knew none of those were the right moves. Instead I was going to lay here until the morning, say goodbye to my son, then go to work and pretend like this awful night never happened. Maybe it was just a drunken mistaken. Maybe she won't remember it in the morning or maybe she will regret it.
Then the thought hit me, "What if she chooses Michael?" How would I be able to live with that? How can I live with that guy in my life every day for the rest of our lives? He would have a hand in raising my son, our son. I couldn't live with that and she can't expect me to. Jane is smart surely she will realize that our family is at stake and even though she loves him she loves me too and being with me is what's best for Mateo. Then another thought occurred, "Would that make me her second choice? Would I then be her safe choice?"
When Jane and I first got together she said that Michael was safe and familiar to her and even though she loved him she knew that she couldn't marry him. Even Michael said that I was her fantasy, the one she never thought she could have. If she chose to be with me because of Mateo, would that mean that I was her safe choice and Michael would turn into her fantasy? Would I be able to live the rest of my life knowing that the only reason she was with me was to keep our family together for Mateo? If this was the case would I be able to go on knowing I didn't let her go so she could be happy?
I then shook my head. I can't keep thinking like this. It's going to drive me crazy. I just have to live with whatever decision she makes, but like I said many months ago, I'm going to fight for her because she is what I want. Our family together forever is what I want and that will never change. Then I closed my eyes and fell asleep dreaming of what I wanted our life to look like together.