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Mia wraps her arm around my shoulders as we walk to the train station.
All I can think of is the word eleven.
I’m eleven weeks pregnant.
Eleven weeks ago, Asher’s sperm unknowingly fertilized my egg and now I’m pregnant with his baby.
For eleven weeks, there’s been something growing inside me. It started as just a few cells. But now it probably has arms and legs and might even look like a person.
Eleven weeks.
Eleven weeks is too far along to terminate.
I press my forehead against the train car window knowing that even if they’d saidfourweeks, I wouldn’t do it. It’s a part of me. A part of him.
I swallow the bile rising in my throat and take a sip of water, positive my heart is about to be put through a blender and pulverized as visions of Christopher appear in my mind.
And when our train goes over the bridge on the way to Calloway Creek, I contemplate if this is the one I’ll jump from when everything goes to shit.
Chapter Sixteen
Asher
I’m forty years old. I shouldn’t have to play games. So why am I letting her play me? If she’s going to end this, she should be mature enough to come right out and say it.
I haven’t seen her since Antigua. Since the night she said maybe this was getting too complicated but then slept with me anyway. Was that goodbye?
I swore the next time we saw each other I would tell her how I really feel about her. But maybe I waited too long. Or perhaps I misread her the entire time and she was never that into me.
Twice now, I’ve been to New York City, and twice she’s come up with excuses why she couldn’t meet me. Granted, each visit was only for three days and two nights. Should I really expect her to drop everything on a whim and rearrange her entire schedule to see me?
But the thing is—I’m pretty sure that’s what she did for the previous sixteen months.
Maybe my daughter got to be too much for her. I get that her adolescent antics threw a wrench into our plans. And yes, it’s something we’ll have to deal with if we move forward. But to ghost me because of my kid?
She hasn’t exactly ghosted me. She does reply when I text her. It’s just not the playful responses I usually get. The anticipatory winky faces. The sexy innuendos.
There are just so many things I want to tell her. Things I can only tell her in person. I never told her that when we first met, I had this incredible sense of déjà vu, like we’d met before. Like maybe it was kismet and we were meant to be together.
I never told her because I knew it would scare her away. She’s this incredible, strong, independent woman on the outside, but on the inside, it’s like she’s battling demons. Demons she won’t let anyone see. And those demons keep her from showing her true self. They won’t let her give as much of her as I need. They hold her hostage.
It very well could be that I’m not the right man for her. The right man would be able to slay those demons. The right man could protect her from them.Fuck. I want to be that guy.
So, yes, I’m going to let her continue to play me until I have my say. Until I can be face-to-face with her and tell her everything I’ve kept bottled up for well over a year. Because I swear that’s how long I’ve loved her. Even when I didn’t think I did, I did. It’s so goddamn cliché. Hell, songs have been written about it. But I truly believe I loved her even before I met her.
I scrub a hand across my face.Jesus, Ash, get it together. I hit the bathroom and splash water on my face just as Bug bursts through the front door, tosses her backpack across the room, and runs into her bedroom.
“Hello to you too,” I yell.
“Whatever. My life is over.”
I stand in her doorway, prepared to hear how a boy has broken her heart. She’s thirteen. It was bound to happen sooner or later. “Want to talk about it?”
“No.” She buries her head in a pillow and screams.
I don’t say anything. I just stand here wondering what Marti would do.
She kicks off her shoes, which doesn’t look easy considering she’s lying face-down. Finally she says, “I want to change schools.”