Shattered - Chapter 32: Chapter 32

Madison and me had a nice brief conversation that could probably go on for hours, it was the first friend that I've ever met on my own without the help of anyone and we seemed to get along together nicely, Cassandra was also really sweet as well, she let me try her desserts, Asian cuisine was my favourite.
That's a lie, me and Nathan loved trying different cultural foods all the time, we wanted to vacation around the world one day when we were older to appreciate every culture out there.
Getting to work to do all the documentation to prepare for the real work later on, I didn't realize the time until Nathan showed up at my office door. "How's everything going?"
"Everything isn't too bad, still adjusting but I like it. The people are really friendly, just let me pack up a few things then we can head out for lunch." He sits on one of the chairs in front of my desk scrolling through some emails on his phone as I organise some of the documents I was working on.
"Your coworkers seem very nice, a lot of them were staring at me though," he tells me amused.
"Maybe they know who you are," I wink, "you are the famous, hot, sexy billionaire in the country." I whisper.
Taking his eyes off of his phone he looks up to me, "let me rephrase that for you babe, your famous, hot, sexy billionaire that loves you very much."
I smile at his response, "okay, let's go Mr. Big Boss."
I lead him out towards the doors of the building, "bye Mrs. Peterson!" Madison calls after me.
"Thanks, you too! See you later," I respond back to her.
Nathan decided to surprise me today, I had no idea where he was taking me for lunch, we arrived at this restaurant which wasn't too high class but fancy enough. We sat down ordering our food, I decided to get a garden burger with fries while he had ordered some crispy lobster tacos.
"You look happy," he comments.
The smile on my face probably gave it away, "it's because I am."
"A penny of your thoughts?"
"It's been awhile since I've eaten this." I tell him excitedly.
"Yeah, I've noticed that you've been very healthy these days, and all our meals..."
"Well, I had to change the way I eat after Leo so he would eat all his fruits and vegetables, that kid wasn't easy to feed the healthy stuff until now, he is actually good now."
"It's good, remember when you only ate fries?"
"That wasn't healthy, I can't believe that I ate it so much."
He chuckles, "I don't understand what's so good about fries," Nathan questions my strange liking about them.
"What?" I exclaim, "I'm sorry but fries are amazing." I roll my eyes at him.
The waitress came back with our plates of food placing them gently on the table in front of us.
"You're still good with going to Aviana's event this Saturday right?" He asks me as I put one of my fries in my mouth.
"Yeah I'm fine with going, what about Leo?"
"Mr. Ben will be watching him while we have some fun, it's not a kid event and plus, you'll be able to hangout with him all day the next day. You'll be able to smother him with your love, I'm sure there is plenty enough time for you to do what you do best."
"What?" I narrow my eyebrows at him, "I do not smother him!" I have no idea what he is talking about.
"Pfff! Say that to your son who gets way more kisses and hugs then me."
"Look at you, don't you spoil him with waterslides? What about that bike? That new tablet for a kid that age? You're going to fry his brain before he hits the age of ten and get consumed with social media."
"All the kids are into the electronics Alina, look at our house, your married to a man who owns a huge company which revolves around technology. There isn't just devices, I brought him home drones, little race cars, amazingly designed smart tiny robots."
"Precisely. You know when I was his age I used to have to read books, do crossword puzzles, word searches and freaking sudoku." It's true that this generation is all on the electronics, I just don't want him to depend on the number of likes and loose himself in the universe of social media.
He shouldn't loose touch with real human contact, "at least he doesn't know how to use any of it, I'll show him educational apps if that gets you to lighten up," Nathan pauses for a second, "and a few fun games. He'll only be able to play with it when he's done his homework, reading and whatever you want."
This was something I could agree to, Leo would learn to work hard for what he wants so I'll be happy to this proposal. "Deal."
"Good, now eat up."
After me and Nathan finished up he dropped me back at my office, he told me he would come pick me up later today so we can pick up Leo together, it was nice that my day would end at two-thirty which gave me an forty-five minutes to have some peacefulness before my little man came back with a crazy amount of energy. Surprisingly he has been acting differently, a little more quiet, calm, it was quite frightening from time to time.
At least the sound of his laughter would reverberate every couple of minutes, no matter what he would always laugh at the tiniest things which made me feel like he was doing okay.
My head was starting to throb again for no reason, my vision went out for a second then came back as an overwhelming pain soared through my head making me clutch the side of my head. My eyes shut in reflexes as I winced from the ache, it keeps happening which irritates me, this is what prevents me from doing things and leaves me useless.
I take out the pain medication from my purse, pouring out a a pill to ingest, now all I needed to do was wait for it to kick in. Working through the discomfort of my aching head, the time already rolled around to two-thirty and it was time to pack up my things to leave and see that wonderful son of mine. I missed hums so much even though he just left to school, I feel like I missed out so much of his childhood because of our finances. No matter what, in the world it seemed like money was the source of our problem.
Sometimes I don't understand companies as in why they raise prices by a large amount when the CEO's are already rich... why would they want more money? They already surpassed the average amount of money a person has, what do they do with the extra money? They could have anything they want in the world but what happens when they couldn't keep that happiness sustained for long? Make more money?
All I knew was that Nathan used that money to upgrade our house like his own personal project, with also separate a good amount to give it to different charities. He has been talking to me about something he wants to do which I say he should go for it. Nathan wants to help students wanting to go into the medical field, he wants to help invest in researches for the well-being of the population. There was no clue of where this idea had come from, we were just talking until all of the sudden he just blurted it out to me.
I have nothing against it, for a fact it was a good idea which left me confused about how he decided to come up with that? He's always have a big heart which lead him to donating to some charities but not to help out personally with the education aspect and the before process of each young individual that would occur preparatory to a degree in medicine.
The passionate side of Nathan was coming to the surface, he always gets so invested into these types of projects. The mind set that came with each and every new assignment that he has ever received, yes his company was his life but these types of projects were like fun to him.
By the end of the work day for me, my desk was nicely organized to how it looked like in the beginning, everything was neatly put into the proper compartment and drawer. A few paper files that would need to be looked at the next time I'll be in, but today I also remembered that Wednesday Nathan needed me to go into his work to just get somebody else's point of view on the pitches.
I quickly grab my stuff to leave while dialling Nathan's phone number, putting my device to my ear, it kept ringing... then it went to his voicemail with him not picking up. Maybe he was in a meeting right now, I don't want to disturb him so maybe I'll just wait a little bit, so instead of pestering him I just shot him a text, 'hey babe, just finished, call me when you get this! Love you."
It was nice out today so I just sat down on a bench that was in front of my building hoping for him to call in a few minutes. We were going to pick up Leo together, to be honest, deep down inside I was so excited to hear about Leo's day. Hopefully it would be a better experience compare to his old school, he wasn't too enthusiastic about it yesterday, maybe in awhile he'll lighten up to the idea of it and actually start enjoying it himself.
For some reason, that kid was the nicest, polite child I've ever seen and for some reason he had the worst batch of kids. I just wanted what was best for him.
It's been fifteen minutes since I've text Nathan, normally he would respond even if he is at work, his phone would be on for incoming business calls and he was the boss so I don't see the problem. If he didn't answer soon, then I would have to go pick Leo up myself which wasn't something the little man would be happy about.
If we didn't leave soon then we would be late, never in my life was I ever late for Leo's stuff, pick-up, concerts and activities such as sports, I've always showed up.
I decided to shoot him another text, where are you? We have to leave to pick up Leo soon. Please call me immediately. We've spoke about this, he was going to start bringing home his work home, so he can finish it to be able to come pick Leo up with me.
I'm only giving him five more minutes then I'm going to take a cab to go pick up Leo.
I was beyond piss at him again, it's only been a few minutes, he was lucky that I even gave him ten minutes. Where is my husband?
Okay— well I'm not going to wait anymore for him anymore, I'll gladly pick up my son.
I call a cab giving him the address to the school while telling him to step on the gas in order to arrive on time, right when he pulls up to the curb I dash out of the car after paying him to rush into the school, I was already fifteen minutes late because of traffic.
That will be the last time that I'll ever wait for Nathan.
"Mommy!" Leo shouts running up to me when he see's me.
I quickly bend down to pick him up, the throbbing in my head stop due to my anger that overpowered it, "hey baby," I kiss his cheek, "how was your day?"
I put him down, leading him to the front of the school, "it was good! I made so many friends," he starts putting up his fingers as he multitasked counting, "one named Johnathan, one named Amelia, and Kyle and—" he stops abruptly, "I forget" he giggle.
"That's great! Maybe you can have play dates with the kids after we settle in the house." I tell him as a new cab pulled up. Where the hell was Nathan?
We entered the car and he started to drive the way to our house, "I had so much fun today, we got to play with kinetic sand, there was a play structure and the kids were really nice! They also loved the cookies mommy, they tasted really yummy."
"I'm glad they liked it because we both put a lot of effort and time into making those goodies for everyone." At least they're liked it.
Leo looks around the cab, "where's daddy?"
"I have no idea, he wasn't able to pick you up, maybe tomorrow baby." The look on his face made me feel sympathy, the look of disappointment was smeared all over his face.
"It's okay, there's always tomorrow and the rest of the year." Today was very important to him, it was his first day of school with Nathan in the picture. His first time being picked up and dropped off by a completed family which means more to a kid then you think.
"But I wanted him to come today," he pouts sadly.
We finally arrived home, instead of waiting up for me, he dashed inside running off to his room and slamming the door loud in clear. I wanted to follow him, but I think he should be left alone to burn off some steam.
Finally when I started on dinner, the sound of the front door's lock was heard, "hello! I'm home."
He should've been there to pick him up.
"What's for dinner?" Nathan comes in kissing my cheek.
"Where were you today?"
He looks at me curiously, "what do you mean 'where were you today'? I was at work like always?"
The fact that he didn't have any clue about what he forgot about just made me angry again. "What happened to coming to pick me up so we can both show up for our son?" I snapped.
His eyes widen, it just dawned on him that he forgot something so important. "Shit, Alina, I'm sorry, I forgot about it today!"
My eyebrows narrowed at him while my eyes squint, "you forgot to pick up you're wife and son? Didn't you get my text?"
He puts his face in his palm, "I got tied up with work that I couldn't be disturbed by so my phone was turned off."
"You know, it was really important for Leo today that we both picked him up and now he's been in his room ever since we've been home."
"I'm sorry, just Larissa told me that we were working on a new deal—" I cut him off.
"Who the fuck is Larissa?"
"My finance manager and assistant, we were working on the shipments to finish my hotel, we had to plan before the end of this year."
"You should've been there to pick him up with me," I point at him.
"I was busy, I couldn't just drop everything and leave."
"Nathan. Look, I get you have important work but this is important too. You won't be able to get these memories back, a hotel or new tiny businesses can be put on hold for your son."
"You don't understand Alina, we have put in orders early in order to open up at the right approximate date."
"No Nathan, you don't understand, you have a son that needs to know his parents will be here for him for every tiny occasion. Every. Moment. Counts. Get that through you thick skull that we have a son and family will have to come first."
"I can pick up Leo tomorrow or another day, I just missed his first day, it's no big deal." He was just rubbing it off nonchalantly.
"It makes a fucking big deal to a kid who grew up with no father the first five years of his life." I raise my voice at him.
"And who's fault was that," he argued which only made my temper snap.