Page 2 of Where the Roses Bloom

Just enough.

“Well, they’re too small for you,” he said.

“Right.” My throat burned. “Why were they with your stuff?”

He laughed. “What, you thinkI’mthe one with baby fever? That’s always been you.”

It hit me all at once. The late nights…showering as soon as he got home. The lies he fed me like sugar until I stopped asking for anything sweet.

I’d convinced myself the affair was over—he told me it was.

But I’d never really been able to trust Carter, had I?

“Did you get her pregnant?” I asked.

Her…the girl he’d never even named, the one he’d slept with at work for months. The one he said meant nothing. And now…now, there were a pair of baby socks in his stuff, and he’d been spending nights away again.

He’d wanted a family, he always said so.

Just…not with me.

I set the socks on the counter, Carter going back to whatever he was watching on TV. I thought he would just ignore me as usual…but he cleared his throat.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just found out. Was trying to figure out how to tell you.”

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood, fists clenching at my sides. I didn’t know what he expected…for me to scream, cry, challenge him. Demand answers.

But I didn’t want any of that.

I just shrugged.

“Goodbye, Carter,” I murmured.

I turned before he could answer, walked down the hall toward the bedroom. My body felt floaty, weightless, like I’d just stepped off something high. I didn’t look back.

“Willow.”

I kept walking.

“Come on. Don’t be dramatic,” he called after me.

I opened the closet, grabbed my old duffel from the top shelf, and started folding clothes by muscle memory—loose tees, worn jeans, the threadbare sweater I always wore after hard days. I reached under the bed and pulled out the old tin where I kept my oils and tinctures. My kit was by the door, everything I would need to uproot my life and go somewhere new.

My whole life fit into a two bags and a pillowcase.

It was sad, really.

Carter appeared in the doorway, arms crossed. “You’re really leaving?”

I zipped the duffel. “Yeah.”

“You don’t even want to talk about this?”

I slung the strap over my shoulder and looked him dead in the eye.

“You’re having a baby,” I said. “And it’s not mine. What’s left to talk about?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it.