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Talon’s smile dimmed a little, and I wondered if I’d misread this whole charade. Was it not what he said it was? Was this not a way for us to heal the wounds of our past, to reclaim our friendship, and move on to someone new?
Talon squeezed my hand as we whipped around the rink. “I think we’re going to get everything we need out of this little arrangement.”
I’d justified it to myself by saying it was for Talon. But what was I getting out of it? We’d left things so abruptly back then that it was a huge loss. I’d also lost my best friend, the person I confided and took comfort in.
This felt a lot like our old friendship, but it was stirring up feelings in me. Feelings I’d kept buried because I couldn’t move past them. Was hanging out with him going to cause more harm than good? As I snuck a glance at his hard jaw and the scruff he hadn’t bothered to shave off this morning, I wondered what it would be like if Talon were mine.
I bit my lip as the scenarios played like a movie film in my mind, kissing while we danced under the stars, ice skating at this rink with no one around, and decorating a Christmas tree in his cabin, with a little girl or a boy asking him to hang a star on the top of the tree. Tears sprang to my eyes.
Talon glanced over at me, and whatever he saw had him tugging me to the side, across the ice from where his family was gathered. He pulled me behind a tree. “What were you thinking about? What could have been?”
The first tear fell.
Talon used his thumb to brush the tears off my cheeks. “Baby, don’t cry. You can have whatever you want. It’s still possible.”
“Is it?” I asked, my vision blurred from the tears.
He rested his forehead against mine, his gloved hands cupping my jaw. “You just have to reach out and take it.”
I couldn’t help but think that this was how he would have taken care of me back then. He would have been supportive. I’d worried we would both have fallen apart and we wouldn’t have been good for each other.
“Sometimes when I see Sebastian with Ember or Sarah and Knox with Addy, I have the same feelings.”
“You do?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“We went through a loss. You weren’t alone then, and you aren’t now.” I let him wrap his arms around me and pull me into his chest. I tried to reconcile the Talon from the last few years, the hardworking artist who hid out in his workshop with this one, the family man who wanted to spend time with me. I was thrown back to a time when we were together and I had Talon’s love.
I missed it. I missed him. It made the loss from our past so much more intense.
Much too soon, he drew back. “Are you okay to go back out there?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
“I never told my family what happened. They would have been supportive, but I knew it wasn’t what you wanted.”
“I didn’t want anyone’s pity.” It was more that I didn’t want any more blame heaped on me. I’d done enough of that myself.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I looked away from him, at the tuffs of snow resting on the branches of a nearby tree. “You can’t know that.”
He touched my chin and gently turned my face so that I was looking at him. “Something like twenty-five percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. It’s more common than you think.”
“I know the statistics.” I’d done my research. I couldn’t help but think that I’d done something to deserve what happened to me. That I was too young and immature, or I hadn’t gotten enough sleep or eaten healthy.
“There was nothing either of us could have done. I know it’s hard to hear, but that baby wasn’t meant to be. That doesn’t mean you can’t have kids.”
A piercing, sharp burst of pain spread through my chest. “I don’t know if I could go through that again.”
“Give yourself grace when you’re feeling this way.”
Every time I saw a child, I wondered what if. How old would my child be now? What would he or she be like? We’d lost the baby too early to learn any of those details, so I couldn’t picture him or her in my head. “I don’t always feel that way. It’s been a while.”
I think it was being here with Talon. It brought everything to the surface.
“You want to go back out there before they come looking for us?” Talon asked, his expression serious. If I couldn’t handle it, I knew he’d help me leave.
“We should.”
