Page 74

“Hey, Carter. I just left my appointment. Everything looks good. The baby is healthy. Strong heartbeat. Ten fingers. Ten toes. And, um… it’s a boy.”
I pause. My voice shakes, and I clear my throat before continuing.
“I thought maybe I’d feel different, you know? Less emotional. More… prepared. But I don’t. I just keep wondering what you’d say if you were here. Wondering if you’d smile. If you’d care.”
I sigh, glancing out the windshield at the blue sky that feels far too calm for everything churning inside me.
“I wasn’t trying to shut you out. I was just trying to protect what little peace I had left. And maybe… protect myself from hoping for too much again.”
Silence.
I let it hang there, let my emotions sit in the air like fog, heavy and unspoken.
“I’ll send you the ultrasound if you want it. Or not. Your call.”
I end the recording.
My thumb hovers over the send button. Just a tap, and it’s done.
But I don’t.
Instead, I hit save and tuck the phone into the passenger seat beside me.
I want to drive off and stick with my decision not to send the message, but I couldn’t stop staring at the ultrasound photo.
Our son.
Tiny fingers, squirming legs, full of life and energy. Moving so freely inside me like he already knew the world had space for him.
And I remembered something—something I hadn’t let myself feel in a while.
He was made with love. Real love.
And maybe, despite everything that’s happened… maybe Carter and I deserve a chance to see what that love could become.
I grab my phone again, and my hand hovers over the voice memo I recorded just minutes earlier. I hesitate for half a second, then press send.
The message flies off into the ether. My heart goes with it.
I set the phone down in the passenger seat and close my eyes.
Then it buzzes.
Carter’s name lights up the screen.
My breath catches. I swipe to answer, already spilling over with emotion.
“Carter, I’m sorry,” I blurt, the words tumbling out of me faster than I can stop them. “I’m sorry about everything I did, okay? I should’ve told you everything from the beginning, but I was scared. I didn’t know how to explain it. I had fallen in love with you, and it all happened so fast, and I just didn’t want to lose what we had. I tried to pull the article, but it was already too late.”
I keep going, barely pausing to breathe.
“I just… I really want to find our way back to that night on the beach. Before all of this. I’m willing to try if you are. Just say yes.”
Silence.
Then a voice I don’t recognize.
“Well, well, well,” a woman says, thick with mockery. “Carter’s still the charmer, huh? Aren’t you the woman who tried to ruin his company?”