Still, shame flooded my every cell. Not paying attention like that wassostupid and reckless. I reached into the stroller and slipped my arms through the straps, squeezing Henry against me.
“You’re okay,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “You’re okay.”
He clearly was, because he giggled as I squeezed him tight, momentarily forgetting his discomfort.
Then I remembered we weren’t alone. I’d slammed right into a stranger. Half of me hoped he’d stormed off. But he was standing right there. His legs were clad in faded jeans. Scuffed sneakers.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, looking up at his face. I had to squint, since the sun was right behind his head. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, I?—”
His words fell away. Confused, I stood up.
But as his face came into view, every muscle in my bodytensed like a strung wire. Because I could see him now, this man I’d physically collided with. He was staring at me and my baby in turns, the polite smile on his face frozen in place.
“Ellie? Ellie James?”
No.
Impossible.
But it wasn’t impossible. Because here was Sam Caplin, a man I’d last said goodbye to when I was stark naked, wrapped in a bedsheet.
Sam Caplin, the father of my child.
“You have a baby?” Sam asked, his voice disbelieving.
Was he fucking kidding me?
Fine, we’d play it that way. My hands shook as I flipped back the cover on Henry’s stroller, but I kept my voice steady.
“No, Sam,” I said. “Wehave a baby. Meet your son, Henry.”
CHAPTER 3
My Ocean Blues
SAM
The sounds of the river walkway—laughter from people on a bench nearby, the rush of the river, a car honking at the curb—all felt suddenly sharp and jarring, like someone pressing buttons on a soundtrack with the volume way up. A fat bead of sweat slid down my temple.
Of all things, my brain decided to laugh. The sound made Ellie’s jaw go slack.
I cut it off.
“Ellie,” I croaked. “This is not—I’m not?—”
What the fuck was I trying to say? I think it was that this wasn’t how I pictured seeing her again, which would be a totally normal thing to say,maybe, if she wasn’t with a baby that was probably, that was?—
I couldn’t even finish the thought.
I looked back at the baby again. The baby who was staring at me with these big blue eyes, eyes that came from my mom and my grandma. Grandma used to call mine her “ocean blues”. But it wasn’t just the eyes. The baby—Henry, Ellie said he was called—looked like a doppelgänger of all the photos my mom had in those rows of albums at home. The ones on thetop shelf in the living room with my name emblazoned on them like I was some kind of fucking celebrity.
I hated those albums.
I was spiraling.
I had a son.
