“Don’t.” His voice is low and controlled and aimed atme. “Don’t tell me you didn’t mean it. I heard you, Alex. She heard you.”
I look down at the counter because what can I say? I knew it was a fucked up thing to say the second I said it, but I can’t take it back. And my chest feels tight and—
“Look at me.”
I look at him.
“Do you have any idea,” he starts, and then stops, running his hand through his hair, so pissed he doesn’t even know what to say. “How hard this has been for her? How many conversations we’ve had? How many nights she’s cried, thinking she wasn’t enough because she can’t carry our children?”
I didn’t know that.
I don’t say anything.
“We’ve been trying to figure this out for over a year. Over a year of worrying we wouldn’t ever be able to start a family. And we finally made a decision. And she was happy, she was actually happy about it, and you—”
He stops again.
“It’s not really your baby,” he repeats back to me. “You said that to my wife.”
“I know.”
“Do you know how bad she wishes she could give me a baby? She never even thought that was in the cards for her. It took so long to get her to a place where she believed it was. Andyou, someone who’s supposed to care about her, sat there and told her it didn’t count.”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“Then what did you mean?” He spreads his hands in frustration. “Because I’m trying real hard to find the version of that sentence that isn’t cruel, and I can’t find it. So why don’t you walk me through it.”
I can’t.
Because my heart hurts, and I made that pain a weapon and aimed it at the people who love me most, and I can’t take it back.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble.
“What the hell is going on with you? You’ve been off this whole visit. You’ve barely said a word, you’re on your phone constantly.” He shakes his head, looking at me with my own blue eyes, filled with worry as much as anger.
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Alex.”
“I said nothing’s going on, Nate,” I snap.
The refrigerator hums, doing something with the ice maker, way too loud in the silence that’s overcome both of us.
“I love you,” Nate says finally, his voice coated in exhaustion. “You know that. But I need you to understand something.”
I nod, accepting my fate.
“Iris is my wife. And you will not talk to her like that in my house again, do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
He glances toward the hallway again, the pull to go check on her visible in every line of his body. “She cares about you so much.” He looks back at me. “And you just went and broke her heart for no goddamn reason.”
I know exactly what I did, and I have no defense for it, and the thought of Iris crying alone right now because of me makes me hate myself more than I already do.
Nate starts toward the hallway, but stops before he gets there.“I think you should leave,” he says, without turning around.
I don’t say anything.
