The next morning, Caitlin was woken up by Brandon shaking her. She wearily pried her eyes open and tried to make them focus on her son, who was staring at her, eyes wide.
"Mummy," he looked worried. "Why is all our stuff in boxes? Where are we going?"
Sighing loudly, Caitlin pushed herself into a sitting position, and lifted her son onto the bed, trying to find the right way to explain that they had been kicked out of their home.
"Honey, me and daddy had a big fight, and we both think it's best for us to be apart for a little bit."
She noticed Brandon's bottom lip begin to quiver and her anger levels began to rise. She couldn't believe Jeff had put her in this situation, with a toddler ready to throw a tantrum.
"But what about daddy? He will be all on his own. He will get lonely."
Serves him right, Caitlin thought angrily. He dug his own grave, now he can lie down and die in it. I've been lonely for years, but Jeff never gave a damn about that.
"Daddy will be fine," she tried her best to smile brightly, despite the bitterness and resentment she was feeling. "He has uncle Matt to look after him, and you can visit him, and he will visit you too."
"Can I ask him? I want to make him promise he will visit." Brandon jumped off the bed, and ran out of the door without waiting for an answer.
Caitlin lay back down and stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out what she was going to do. They were officially homeless, and she didn't expect anyone in Cameron to put her up. Matt would defend Jeff to the end, and Shane and Shannon wouldn't want to put themselves into the middle of the situation. Plus Shannon and Crystal would not want Caitlin and a three year old invading their home. Amy couldn't deal with it, and her connections to Matt would make her uneasy about the whole thing and Caitlin would never put her in the position to make her choose. She had nowhere in the world she could go and the realisation left her with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
After panicking for a few minutes, she came to her senses. She had a lot of money in her account, more than enough to get her set up in an apartment with Brandon somewhere. The only question was where she was going to live. Part of her wanted to get away and make a clean break, but she knew that Brandon would find it hard to adjust to life without Jeff.
The sound of her phone ringing brought Caitlin back to reality. Lifting the receiver, she gave a groggy "hello" and waited for a reply, although the last thing in the world she really wanted to do was talk.
"Well, good morning to you too," a very lively Paul responded. "Did I wake you?"
"Nope," Caitlin answered, smiling genuinely for the first time that morning. "I was woken up by another, absolutely gorgeous, younger man."
"Brandon is a lucky boy."
"Not right now, he isn't." Before she knew what she was saying, she was telling Paul about everything that had gone on between her and Jeff the night before, culminating in Jeff telling giving her the ultimatum.
"He did what!" Caitlin held the phone away from her ear. "What about Brandon?"
Putting the phone back against her ear, she said: "Brandon is very confused. He can't understand what's going on. I had to tell him that it was just temporary, but he is getting upset that he is leaving his dad."
"He thinks Jeff is his dad?" Paul sounded like someone had just stuck a knife in his stomach.
"Can we not do this just now?" Caitlin groaned, wishing she had kept her mouth shut. She was really getting herself into deeper shit with men. "I have had a godawful night, and today is going to be even worse, and I don't think I can deal with this debate on top of it all."
They spoke for a few more minutes, during which time Caitlin had figured out what she was going to do, even though she knew she would be hurting people by her decision, before saying their goodbyes. After making another brief phone call, Caitlin dressed quickly and ran through to the kitchen, desperate to pack the car and leave the awkward atmosphere of Jeff's house for good.
Sitting on the kitchen table was the listings for houses in and around Cameron, with a few circled in red marker, presumably by Jeff. She picked it up and glanced at his choices, all of which were either too small, too pricey or didn't have a garden, which was a must for a woman with a hyperactive child.
How sweet, she thought bitterly. What a shock he's going to get when he finds out I'm not staying in North Carolina.
"What time are you leaving?" Jeff asked, Brandon wriggling around in his arms. "I have stuff to do today."
"As soon as I get the car packed we'll go. Can you give Brandon his breakfast while I do that?" Caitlin walked to the porch door and looked back over her shoulder. "And try and explain to him what's going on, and that you still love him, he's a little confused about why he has to leave his home."
Out on the porch Caitlin surveyed the land one last time, trying to take in everything, remembering and storing all the memories she had of the place. The dirt bike track she had helped Jeff build and watched him race around, the man-made lake that she never went in because she was convinced there was something living in it, but where Brandon had learned to swim. Matt and Jeff play-fighting on the grass when she was sitting on the porch, heavily pregnant with Paul's baby. She had lived a long time here, and the thought of leaving it behind filled her with a fear and anxiety she hadn't felt since she had run away from home as an abused teenager, all those years ago.
It took over an hour to load the car single-handedly, by which point Matt had come over to wish her and Brandon a fond farewell. Caitlin knew deep down that it was only Brandon that the elder Hardy would miss: Caitlin and Matt had never really got on, although they had remained polite to each other for the sake of his brother.
Jeff strapped Brandon into his car seat and kissed him goodbye. As he straightened up, Caitlin heard Brandon begin to wail uncontrollably, and the sound broke her heart.
"I can't believe you are making me do this," she hissed at him over the roof of the car. "Look at what you're doing to Brandon. He didn't do anything to deserve this."
"Hey," Jeff snapped, in a voice Caitlin had never heard him use. It sounded detached, almost as though Jeff wasn't speaking at all. "I didn't do this. I gave you a choice, and you made the wrong one. It's not my fault."
"Some choice Jeff. You or Paul. A real friend wouldn't put me in that position. A real friend would have understood that I can actually balance a best friend and a lover." Caitlin slid into the driver's seat and looked up at her former best friend. "But remember, you haven't just lost you're best friend, you've lost the closet thing you have to a son and that will be something you will regret for the rest of your life."
Slamming the door shut, Caitlin started the engine and shot off down the driveway, eager to get away from Jeff before he saw the tears rolling down her face.
As Caitlin drove further away from Cameron, it felt as though a part of her was being left behind, a part of her was pulling, begging for her to turn around and go back home. Jeff had, and always would have, a large part of her heart, and she was incomplete without him. It would take a lot of time and work to help move on and fill the hole he had left in her life.
In the back seat, Brandon's sobs had changed to hiccups and small whimpers. Caitlin hated hearing her son upset, but she knew that nothing would calm him down, and that it was better for him to get the tears out now, and move on from it. But she knew she had to distract him some way, otherwise he would cry until he hurt himself or drove Caitlin to leave him on the side of the road. Reaching over, Caitlin found his favourite CD and inserted it into the player. Two seconds later, Harry Potter was blaring out of the speakers, and Brandon became silent, listening intently to the adventures of the young wizard.
Glancing at the map on the chair next to her, Caitlin checked she was on the right road. It would take a while to reach their destination, but she was willing to drive through the night to get where she wanted to be.
New York, here we come.
