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Some of it I could probably blame on pregnancy hormones. Most of it was completely Justin’s fault. Nick reached out and brushed a lock of hair away from my face, looking into my eyes.
‘I’m glad, really, that there’s nothing he can do to hurt you. But please. Please don’t do something like that without me again.”
My breath caught in my throat and my heart fluttered in my chest at the look in his eyes.36NickThis wasn’t how I was expecting the conversation to go. I hadn’t planned on getting to a place like this when she said she was coming over. In my mind, all I was supposed to do was be there for her. She was going to come over and tell me how things had gone with her meeting with Justin, and I was going to help her decide what we were going to do next. Hopefully, that would include taking the recording of the conversation when he admitted he stole the money from her and using it to press charges.
That was what I envisioned. Maybe we would spend the evening cuddled up on the couch watching a dumb old movie together to get all the negative things out of our minds. And yet somehow, we’d ended up here. It felt like we had reached a point of no return. I couldn’t just ignore what I was feeling, or what I wanted her to know.
It was already out there. I had already said enough that I was giving too much away. There was no such thing as holding back my emotions now. I couldn’t just pretend I hadn’t asked her not to meet with her ex without me. Especially because I knew it wasn’t just that. I wasn’t just asking her not to see Justin, or not to discuss her finances. I was asking her to include me in the major moments of her life.
It was opening myself up, and that made me vulnerable. But in that moment as I looked at her, thinking about what she had just been through completely by herself, I didn’t care. I spent all day equal parts scared and angry. That meant something. That wasn’t something I was just going to feel for client. Or even a friend. Having to go through that kind of reaction to knowing she was seeing him again, particularly after I’d encountered him for myself, made me face reality.
Bryn was sitting in front of me, talking about the meeting with Justin like it hadn’t been such a big deal. She was angry. That was obvious. And she admitted it was uncomfortable to see him and she was happy there were other people around. But there wasn’t anything in her voice or the way she was acting that indicated she understood she had possibly put herself in danger. Or she didn’t care.
I couldn’t deal with that. Not that I wanted her to be terrified or let Justin have any more control over her life. That wasn’t the point. If anything, I wanted her to erase him from her thoughts and move forward in a life where she could feel like he never even existed.
The point was if she could sit here like she hadn’t possibly endangered herself and our child, she might do it again. She might face another situation like this, and not even hesitate to just dive into it headlong without a second thought. I didn’t want to have to worry about that. She didn’t have to deal with things alone anymore, and I didn’t want her to think for a second that she did.
So, here I was. All cards on the table.
“I’m falling in love with you,” I said. “I spent all day dealing with the idea that he could have hurt you, and there would be nothing I could have done about it. And I’m not okay with that.”
There it was. Everything completely out in the open, no hesitation and no ambiguity. I said what was in my heart and what needed to be said. Something I probably should have said long before right now. There was nothing left to do but wait and watch her to see what she would say. In all honesty, that was far more intimidating than even letting the words out of my mouth.
I had no idea how Bryn was going to react. I didn’t know what was going through her mind or what she was feeling. It could have really gone either way, and that sank in more and more as the seconds ticked by. My mind went through a thousand different ways this could turn out. I thought about what she might think, what she might say, what she might do.
It felt like it was taking forever, but it was probably only a few seconds before she reacted. Her mouth still slightly open, she pulled back from me. Turning to look down at the food in front of her for a second like she was trying to figure out what to say, she pressed her hands to the table and stood up.
