I shake my head, my chin trembling violently. He sighs, pulling me to him, and my cries start to come out in sobs. My tears stain his shirt, and I feel like my entire world is crumbling while he runs his hand up and down my back.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, my voice weak and watery.
“Why are you sorry?”
“That was so humiliating. You didn’t need to see that, and?—”
“Teeny,” he says, his soft voice somehow comforting even though all he’s said is my name. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
My hands cover my face where I muffle a sob I have no control over, and it sounds so painful and hopeless even to my own ears.
Everett lifts my face to his, all while the tears stream down my cheeks, and he wipes at them with his fingers. I look at him, all the sadness and regret pulled to the surface, and he looks back at me, urging me to say all the words held at the tip of my tongue.
“Everett…”
“Yeah?”
“You said—you told me before…you love me?”
He nods.
“Even after all this time?”
He nods again. “I don’t think I’ve spent a single day not loving you. Wondering what you were doing, thinking about where you were and who you were with.” He pauses and I cry, though much lighter this time as the hope in his words makes its way through the ache in my heart, letting me see for the first time in a long time what it means to love with my entire heart. He stoops down, and I tilt my chin up, and we kiss. Lightly at first, testing the waters in this territory that still feels dangerous and frightening, and then it becomes eager and ardent. Like we’re finally pushing away all the reasons this shouldn’t be happening. The fact that I’m still a married woman. Or that we have no idea where this could go, what the future has planned for us. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe I’m willing to do what I can to figure it out.
“Teeny.” Josh’s trembling voice, level and stern, cuts through the kitchen. I jump away from Everett, creating an arm’s length of distance between us while I wipe the back of my hands across my cheek, unsure if I’m wiping my tears or the evidence of our kiss. I look at Josh, but his glare isn’t pointed at me. It’s all directed at Everett.
“What did Leo just tell me?” Josh asks, his eyes still on Everett.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“You were pregnant?”
My heart sinks to the bottom pit of my stomach. “What?” I ask again, this time more shock and fear plaited in my voice.
“I just saw him on the way in,” he explains. “He looked pretty upset. He said he ran into you and Everett outside.” His voice cracks and shakes as anger visibly rattles through him. A flash of a wince crosses his face before he finally looks at me. “He said you were pregnant. And it was Everett’s.”
I stay silent, unable to deny everything he’s saying.
“Teeny, tell me that’s not true.”
More silence. And I nod, my eyes trained to the linoleum floor underneath me. “Josh, it was a long time ago,” I tell him, my voice trembling and scared.
“So he’s telling the truth. You were pregnant. That’s why you…” The pain of watching me, his baby sister, live through the trauma of what I went through at such a young age is evident in the way his entire body softens. His face, his voice, all of it feeling every bit of the ache that tore my heart apart twenty years ago. But then it’s like a switch. He remembers the person who caused all the pain is standing right next to me. “You piece of shit!” It happens in a blinding flurry. Josh lunges for Everett, gripping him by the collar of his shirt. He starts to shove him into the nearest wall, slamming him against it with enough force to knock the wind out of him. “You got her pregnant, and you fucking took off!”
Everett doesn’t fight back, even as Josh’s reddened face comes within inches of his. “I listened to her cry every night. I just thought she was having trouble getting over you, but you fucking got her pregnant andlefther!”
“Josh!” I cry out, pulling at his arms as he continues to shove at Everett. “Stop!”
Josh ignores me. “And you’re over here kissing her, acting like you’re not the one who tore her heart to shreds! Why the fuck did you even show up after all these years? What, you wanted to have another go? Once wasn’t good enough? You have to come back and hurt her all over again?”
He throws the final blow, his fist meeting Everett’s jaw with a loud crack. It’s then James comes rushing past me, putting his hands on Josh. He pulls him off Everett with much better success than I had.
“That’s enough,” James’s stern voice warns us.
“Are you kidding me? This fucking?—”
“I know,” James tells him.
