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Chapter Nineteen

Reed

“ R eed,” Elijah says. Outstretching his arm to me. He pulls me into a hug, patting the center of my back firmly. “How’s the new apartment?” His brows lift, and he taps my chest with his pointer finger. “Your mom is so happy you are coming home for family dinner. She’s really missed you.”

I nod. “I know. I feel bad I haven't been back until now. It's just– I’m just trying to adjust to starting a new life, outside of Bipal.”

Elijah smiles. “You were never the guy that needed to be a Lancaster, and I respect the hell out of you for it.”

Guilt consumes me. While on one hand, Elijah isn’t wrong in that I’ve never needed to flaunt or boast that I’m a Lancaster heir, nor have I needed to let people know that I come from money. Being a smart, good person has been what I’ve been about, because it’s what my dad taught me .

But the guilt is there, potent as ever, because the reason I haven’t been back home since moving out eight months ago is because I’m weak. Too weak to see her. To see them. And the incredibly happy life they’ve started.

Only now, I received an internship abroad, and I’m leaving in a month. Family dinner kills two birds with one stone. A check in with my family, and letting them know that next month at this time I’ll be living in Germany, working for a startup. Elijah of all people will understand.

With his hand between my shoulder blades, he guides me to the kitchen, noise brimming from the closed door. My stomach twists. I’ve seen photos. I’ve received cards. I’ve ignored texts and phone calls. Still, I am largely unprepared for what I’m walking in on.

This is it, Reed. You get through this one evening and you’re free from all of this pain. This one dinner and you’re done.

Elijah pushes the door open, exposing Murray, Vivienne and their daughter sitting at the table, the baby’s round cheeks pink, slobber on her chin.

Behind them, Maribel stands with a phone turned sideways between her hands, a video recording. “Say the date and what you’re doing so we remember,” she tells her daughter, aiming the phone between them.

“This is Ri’s first time trying rice cereal, she’s three months old,” Vivienne says to my mother, to the camera, a smile plastered on her beautiful face. She turns, dunking the little plastic spoon into the bowl of rice cereal, and that’s when she sees me.

Her eyes grow wide, and my focus moves between hers and our daughters, and in that instant, I know it’s been a mistake.

The biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I should never have let Murray have them.

I should have stood up against Vivienne instead of letting her do what she thought was right.

I thought I was being respectful, letting her choose, but that was wrong.

I know that now as Murray takes the spoon from Viv and airplanes it into the baby’s mouth.

My baby’s mouth.

“No,” I breathe out, suddenly dizzy and sweaty, my palms clammy. “No, this isn’t–she’s not–” my eyes find Murray, but my vision is blurry and my heart, my god my heart is racing. “She’s mine, they’re mine,” I say, but my words don’t leave my head, despite my lips moving, I can’t hear myself.

“They’re mine,” I breathe out, struggling to make them hear me.

Elijah’s eyes come to mine, but his are fuzzy and hazy, too, and when I look at Maribel, she doesn’t have a face.

It’s her, logically I know it’s her, but she evaporated before my eyes.

So do Vivienne and my child, too. And that’s when I start screaming.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Viv whispers, pressing the back of her hand to my forehead. “Reed, shh,” she quiets me, pressing her palm to my forehead, then my cheek. “You were having a nightmare.”

“You’re—” I swallow through the cottonmouth, blinking up at her, my chest tight, heart racing. “I saw you two, you and Murray, and our daughter, I saw you two feeding our daughter.”

“Reed,” she breathes, but she can’t say anything at this moment to make me feel better. Because that nightmare I just slept through, that nightmare is months away from being my reality .

“No,” I tell her, scrambling out of bed, to my feet. She holds the sheet to her chest, her blonde hair a mess.

“Reed, it’s only four, we have a few more hours, I?—”

I put my hand out, holding a pillow to my groin with my free hand.

“I saw you living a full life with him, raising my daughter with him and—” I stop talking and take her in.

Small in the huge bed, the white blankets pressed to her chest, one leg peeking out, soft velvet skin on display.

Her eyes are tired, deep pockets of dark pooling beneath them.

She’s been so stressed, so depressed. So have I.

I don’t want an internship in Europe.

I don’t want an apartment away from here.

I don’t want another man to love my girl and raise my baby.

“I’m telling them. I’m sorry, but I’m telling them.

Because I can’t– I won’t do this to us. I won’t be the reason why we’re both living our backup lives.

It’s not fair to us, it’s not fair to Murray, it’s not fair.

And I won’t do it.” I lick my lips, my pulse hammering.

“I’m sorry Vivienne. But I love you too much to go along with this. ”

Vivienne’s eyes go wide as Elijah and my mother open the door. Elijah looks at the pillow on the floor, and I scoop it up, covering my naked body. I watch him. I don’t even watch my mother but I watch Elijah. I’ve come to respect him, to look up to him, to care about him. And he’s her father.

His gaze travels slowly through her bedroom, finally making it to her bed. He looks at the tangled sheet she has pressed to her chest, then his eyes come to mine.

“Harrison,” he starts, but I stop him.

“Elijah, the first night that you and Vivienne came here, she and I met, and we didn’t know.

I didn’t know she was my mother’s fiance’s daughter, and she didn’t know who I was either.

” I lick my lips, my gaze finally sliding to my mother.

She’s looking at me, head tipped to the side, a puzzled expression on her face.

My mother is a lot of things, but confused or puzzled has never been one of them.

“We had feelings for each other, mom. She was the one I told you about. Remember? And we’ve been denying those feelings ever since because we didn’t want to complicate things for you two.

We didn’t want what we have to ruin what you guys have.

” I swipe a hand through my hair, finding it wet with sweat.

The dream flashes behind my eyes again, and whatever reluctance that had crept in gets sufficiently smashed.

Seeing Murray feed my baby. Seeing Murray in home videos with my family.

No fucking way. “I’m sorry it all came out this way but I think it’s time to sit down, the four of us, and talk about a way we work this out.

Because I’m not living another day denying that I love Vivienne.

” I swallow thickly, my ears ringing from anxiety as I stare into Elijah’s eyes.

“I love your daughter, Elijah. I am asking for a family meeting for all four of us.”

My mom reaches into her robe pocket, but keeps it there.

“I felt sick this morning. I got up and walked the halls to see if the feeling would pass. I heard you two in here, in here arguing. But I went back to my room and woke Elijah because why would Vivienne and my son be in the same room at four in the morning arguing? But sickness hit me again, so I ran to the hall bathroom and got sick.” She lifts her hand from the fuzzy pocket on her robe, and opens her palm to produce a positive pregnancy test. “And I found this.” She looks at me, her naked son, and looks to Vivienne, naked but for the sheet she’s wrapped in .

Elijah’s eyes command my focus. I wish I weren’t naked for this. I wish this wasn’t happening post-nightmare at four in the morning. I wish this weren’t happening at all, that in some universe Vivienne and I could have met first.

“Did you get my daughter pregnant?” he asks, stepping closer to me, a flare lifting his nostrils.

“Yes,” I answer, and his fist coming toward me is the last thing I remember.