Page 87 of Worthy of Sunsets and Second Chances

Dread makes my stomach drop and I feel nauseous. Why does this feel so ominous? Why does this feel like a conversation that is the beginning of the end?

I won’t let that happen.

Eli: Is everything okay?

Kendra: I need to tell you something, and I would like to have some time alone to do it.

Kendra: If that’s okay?

Eli: Anything you need, sweetheart.

Kendra: Thanks. I already talked to Lainey. She said she and Rem could be there around 5.

Eli: Okay, I will order us something from Gino’s and pick it up. We can eat and talk at your place.

Kendra: Sure

I look at the clock—it’s only eleven. This is going to be the longest day of waiting for whatever gauntlet I feel is coming. I grab my jump rope and go outside to try and sweat out my nerves.

At five thirty I walk into Kendra’s kitchen with our dinner and zero appetite. I’m so worried about whatever she has to tell me that I have been a fucking mess all day. I assume she is going to break up with me or tell me she is dying. Either thing I wouldn’t be able to handle well, obviously. I need her yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever—and it’s time I fucking told her that.

But seeing her sad eyes when she greets me stops me in my tracks.

I kiss her softly and say, “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“Come sit down.” Kendra guides me over to her favorite worn, eat-in breakfast table and I sink down next to her, food forgotten on the counter.

“I have been worried all day, please talk to me, sweetheart.” I take her hand and stroke my thumb back and forth across her knuckles.

“There is, is something that I need to tell you. Something that I need you to know. I wanted to say it before, so many times, but it’s not easy to do. It’s awful and would ruin any other moment. Like our first date? Or Christmas? I couldn’t tell you then. Or just blurt it out on a random day? It’s too hard.” She covers her face and starts to cry.

“Are you dying,” I choke out so she doesn’t have to be the one to say it.

“What?” She jerks up, looking at me, shocked. “No!”

“Thank fuck.” I pull her onto my lap and kiss her, roaming my hands over her body, needing to feel as much of her as I can.

Kendra pulls back and scrambles off my lap like I burned her.

“That’s not helping.” She runs her hands through her hair, tugging on it in distress. I’ve never seen her like this before. Whatever she has been harboring is tearing her up.

“You can talk to me, tell me anything. Kendra, look at me,” I demand, and her pacing stops, but her breathing increases.

“Please don’t hate me,” she whimpers.

“Never,” I vow.

Nodding, Kendra says, “After our summer . . . the reason I got tested for the breast cancer genes, finally, was that I was worried. I had some swelling and tenderness in my breast, so I went to my ob-gyn for my regular appointment, which was right around that time anyway, and asked to do the tests.”

I swallow hard, leaning forward on my elbows, listening to her closely, not rushing her.

“She made me take a pregnancy test as well as the blood testing for all the cancer workups I did. My doctor told me it was routine since I had been sexually active.” Kendra clears her throat and looks at me with tears welling in her eyes.

“Kendra,” I whisper.

“I was pregnant, Eli. With our baby.” She pulls out a strip of black-and-white ultrasound images from her back pocket. They flutter as they unravel to reveal the pictures of a tiny speck of life.

Another baby that I didn’t know existed.