"And now she's using it against me. She knows, and I don’t know how she does, but she does. She knows what it would do to me, hearing that she's pregnant with your child, and she's doing it on purpose because she's always known exactly how to hurt me?—"
The words pour out of me and won’t stop.
"I always imagine what our baby would look like," I confess, my face pressed against Devon's shirt. "Your blue eyes. Your smile. I'd lie awake at night picturing it, thinking about our future children, us as a family, and I'd feel so stupid for hoping?—"
"You're not stupid." Devon's voice is rough. "You're not stupid for wanting that."
I pull back to look at him, and his face blurs through my tears. "Why doessheget to be pregnant?”
"She's lying." Devon cups my face in both hands, his thumbs swiping at my tears. "About everything. The baby isn't mine. It can't be, because I never touched her. Not like that. There probably isn’t a fucking baby at all, Jade.”
Hope swells inside me but then I wonder—what if she’s not lying, and she is pregnant? I don’t give a fuck who by—how can she be a mother?
Devon is crying now, too. Tears stream down his face, dripping onto his shirt.
"Listen to me," he says. "Are you listening?"
I can’t lift my head to nod.
"You are enough. Do you hear me? Baby or no baby. Pregnant or not. You, exactly as you are, have always been enough for me."
"Devon—"
"I fell in love with you when we were eighteen years old," he continues, his voice cracking. "You were wearing that blue shirt, trying todisappear into the background, and all I could see wasyou. Not Mila. Not any of those other girls.You."
I shake my head. "You could have had anyone?—"
"I didn't wantanyone. I wanted the girl who made me laugh. The girl who listened to me ramble about my dreams for hours. The girl who saw past all my bullshit and loved me, anyway. The most beautiful girl in the world.” His forehead presses against mine. "That's you, Jade. That's always been you."
"I'm so scared," I whisper.
"Of what?"
"That you'll realize she's right. That I'm not—that I'm too?—"
“Fuck that. You could gain a hundred pounds or lose a hundred pounds or never have children or have ten children, and I would still want you. I would still choose you. Every single day for the rest of my life. Mila is nasty and lonely—so how perfect is she again?”
I search his face. I love him so damn much. My heart twists like it wants to snuggle against his, and all of a sudden, I just want my husband.
"I love you," I say.
"I love you too." Devon kisses my forehead, my wet cheeks, the corner of my mouth. "And we're going to get through this, I swear.”
I don't know how long we sit on the kitchen floor, holding each other. My eyes burn and my throat is raw, and my body aches from crying.
But something feels different.
We’re not healed—not yet. The wounds are still there, still bleeding. But I don't feel alone with them.
Devon's fingers interlock with mine like they were made to fit there. Maybe they were.
"Whatever happens next," he whispers, "we face it together. No more secrets or lies. No more trying to protect each other from the truth."
I squeeze his hand.
We have no other choice.
Chapter Thirty
