It had been almost a year since I left my husband and moved half way accross the country to be closer to my parents. After his 3rd girlfriend showed up looking for him at my apartment I had enough and took my 4 month old son and left. I called my mom and asked if i could come home again at 20 and she said yes. Here I was a single parent living with her parents. I took a job waiting tables to pay the bills and put my son in daycare and without his father helping me at all I knew that I had to do what was right by my son.

It was New Years weekend and my son was finally asleep. He had a busy day playing at school and I had worked overtime as usual these days. My brother, sister and I were at the house by ourselves for the weekend because our parents were out of town for the holiday. My brother is 2 years younger than I and has a knight in shining armor complex. My sister is 4 years younger than I and likes older men. My brother had gone to get his girlfriend who was in a bad situation and bring her to our place for the night.

When he got back he was covered in blood where someone had hit him in the face with a chair. I saw the blood and after asking if he was ok I asked about his girlfriend because she was this tiny little girl. I raced out to his truck and helped her out. When I went to close the door I was met by the most haunting eyes that I had ever seen. They belonged to a man that I would later get to know as Jamie. As I hustled everyone inside the house all the comotion must have woke up my son because he was fussing.

When I got back to the room he was standing in his crib and wide awake and mad that I wasn't in there when he woke up. I picked him up and went back into the living room where everyone else had gathered. My sister called to say that she was working late then going to her friends house for the night. That was fine with me because we didnt get alone and she didn't like my brothers girlfriend. Jamie, I was told, was the girlfriends cousin and he was very sweet. He stood in the kitchen while I heated up leftovers for everyone to eat and held my son. He didn't fuss the whole time that Jamie held him at all. It was kind if funny because his own father couldn't hold him without him getting fussy.

After things were hot again, Jamie put my son in his high chair and everyone got something to eat so that my brother could go to work. I didn't think that my brother or son would be hungry but both proved me wrong and ate like hogs. After I got my son cleaned back up and laid back down, I took the monitor outside to try to get to know the man with the haunting eyes better. As we talked I learned that he too had just gotten out of a bad situation himself and that although everyone called him Jamie his name was James and he was about 4 years older than me. He was so sweet and charming that I had forgotten that men can act like that.

As I was getting ready for bed that night I asked him for a hug and he was more than happy to give me one. I told him that if he needed anything where my room was and that he could just come on in, I was a light sleeper. I gave him and his cousin some extra bedding and said good night with a kiss on the cheek. I went to bed that night happier than I had been in a while...