Page 55 of Everything After

“Apart from wanting children you never once expressed that you weren’t happy. But looking back, that’s what all those little jibes that you made toward me were. Jibes that I’d written off as irritable tiredness or stress because your schedule had been overloaded at those times.”

“That’s why I couldn’t stay away. I’m here desperately trying to put things right,” I stated.

“Put what right? Insulting me by asking if this child was yours?”

“Lily, I was so mad, finding out the way I did, so I lashed out. If I could take back one sentence I’ve ever said to you, it would be that.”

“You can’t begin to understand how wounded that made me feel. I’m pregnant with an unplanned baby to the man I love with all my heart. A man who left me because of my lack of effort. So you’ll excuse me because I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“Think? About what? You doubt that I love you?” Lily’s gaze held me captive as I stared back at her, willing her to believe me. The disbelief she could even question my love for her was evident by my incredulous tone. My gaze fell from hers to our joined hands resting on the table.

“Weren’t you the one who said love isn’t always enough?” she countered just as her cell phone rang, interrupting us.

Lily pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket, rejected the call without looking to see who it was, and placed it face down on the table. But not before I saw Cody’s name on the screen.

The timing of his call almost made my lungs burst out of my chest in frustration, and I almost lost my temper. But I knew I had to rein it in and focus on what was important.

“I did say that, but it was before I understood how you’d perceived us getting together. I’m so fucking sorry for going off the way I did. I regret not talking to you about my feelings now. Baby or no baby, I can’t live without you, Lily. Now that I know you weren’t indifferent, I can see how unreasonable and irrational you must have found me.”

A text notification alert sounded on Lily’s cell phone, and I hadn’t needed to guess who it was from. Fortunately, Lily knewthe importance of the moment between us and didn’t look to see what it said.

In the silent moments that followed, I’d never been more self-aware as when I watched the warring emotions of hurt and acceptance while she appeared to digest my apology. When the pause in our conversation became unbearable, I flashed her a small pleading smile.

“I hate this,” she eventually muttered.

“Hate what?” I prompted.

“Fighting. Feeling confused. Feeling betrayed.”

“Betrayed?” I asked, shocked at that word, because I’d always put her first until now.

“Don’t think I didn’t get to hear that you had dinner with some pretty girl,” she snapped, sounding jealous for the second time in the past few weeks. First with Sienna, now the student. I thought Lily had shed her insecurities a long time ago about other women’s attraction toward me, and figured she must know I only have eyes for her.

My heart stuttered and I shook my head. “You mean Delilah?”

“God! She even has a name. While you were dining with some other woman, I was home, devastated that you’d left… that the worst possible moment in our whole relationship had happened to us, and you were going about your business like my feelings didn’t matter.”

“Of course your feelings matter. They’ve always mattered, but you must admit how the situation between us might have looked to me,” I pleaded, and figured I sounded like a broken record, repeating that phrase over and over now.

“Alfie, I thought we were fine… solid. The band’s schedule hardly gives me time to breathe. If I’m honest, I’ve felt worn out for months. And now that I’m pregnant, the fatigue I felt before pales into insignificance.”

“I said I was sorry,” I pleaded again.

“So am I. Sorry I’m struggling to decide whether you’re here because you need me or because I’m having your baby.”

“Stop fucking saying that. You know how I feel about you. Baby or not, I love you with everything in me. You’re the love of my life.”

“And I believed you whenever you told me that, but I trusted you and put my faith in you… then you left.”

CHAPTER 34

LILY

Alfie’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened in shock when I called him out like I had. Then his eyes that usually glittered with love and adoration slowly filled with unshed tears before he cast them down at our hands. Despite our conversation, the moment he’d put my hand in his it had centered me.

My heart squeezed when I heard him swallow roughly while he attempted to get his feelings in check. Usually, he would have had a smart comeback, but it was like he was all out of words for the stalemate situation we’d arrived at.

On one hand, I could forgive him for feeling how he had, but since I’d come home this time, his behavior had been so out of keeping with the man who I had believed in.