Page 35 of Mended Fences

Found a meeting yet?

I typed back a quick reply before shoving my phone in my pocket.

CHASE

Heading into one now

Twelve weeks of sobriety, and I still felt like a fraud. Like any minute now, someone would point at me and say, “You don’t belong here.”

But that was the point, wasn’t it? None of us belonged here. We just ended up here anyway.

I grabbed my keys and forced myself out of the truck. TheMichigan winter bit at my exposed skin as I crossed the parking lot, each step feeling heavier than the last.

The hospital doors slid open with a whoosh of warm air that carried that distinct antiseptic smell. My stomach churned as I thought of Elena’s steady hands stitching me up the last time I saw her, her face carefully blank while I bled all over her ER.

Room 214. Second floor. Just get there.

The elevator was, mercifully, empty. I leaned against the back wall, watching the numbers illuminate.

One.

Two.

The doors opened, and I stepped out, turning left toward where I thought the meeting rooms would be.

That’s when I saw her.

She was standing at the nurses’ station, one hand resting on a stack of charts, the other pressed against her very pregnant stomach. The sight hit me like a linebacker trust to the chest, stopping me mid-stride.

Eighty-four days. Eighty-four days of thinking about what I’d say when I saw her again, and none of those imagined scenarios includedthis.

She hadn’t noticed me yet. I could’ve turned around. Got back in the elevator. Found another meeting somewhere else, anywhere else.

But then she looked up.

Her eyes widened slightly—the only tell in her otherwise composed expression. She was thinner everywhere except her belly, dark circles under her eyes that even careful makeup couldn’t completely hide.

“Chase.” Her voice was soft, professional. Like I was any other person she might encounter in these halls.

“Elena.” My voice cracked on her name.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A cart wheeled by. Someone laughed down the hall. The world kept moving while we stood frozen, three feet and an ocean of unsaid things between us.

She shifted slightly, and that small movement drew my eyes down. My brain short-circuited.

“You’re pregnant,” I blurted out, immediately feeling like an idiot.

One corner of her mouth quirked up—that subtle expression I used to live for. “Your powers of observation remain unmatched, Chase.”

My throat went dry. “How... how far along?”

“Twenty-four weeks.” Her voice was carefully neutral, clinical. Like she was discussing any other patient’s chart.

Twenty-four weeks.I counted backward, my head spinning. Then it hit me. The timing… God, the timing.

The lights suddenly seemed too bright. The hallway too narrow. My hands started shaking, and I shoved them in my pockets. But then I got a hit of her subtle burnt sugar scent and my shoulders dropped a fraction from my ears.

“Is it—” I cleared my throat. Swallowed hard. “Is it mine?”