Page 171 of Slapshot Baby

He absorbs this the way he absorbs a hit on the ice. Full body. No flinch. Just the impact registering somewhere behind his eyes before he processes it.

"Did you get pregnant before the accident?"

"Yes."

“Whose baby is it?”

“How can you ask me that question?”

“Just answer me!”

“Yours, Kai. It’s always been yours.”

"The condom." His voice drops. "I remember a torn condom and your voice telling me to relax because you were on the pill."

My stomach lurches. I press my hand flat against the wall to keep myself vertical. The plaster is cool and slightly damp from the shower steam.

"I missed a few pills that week. I didn't realize it mattered until my period never came."

"When did you know?"

"Five weeks after the gala."

“Did you ever plan to tell me?”

"I was going to tell you. " But the excuse sounds weak even in my own ears.

“No, you were not.”

“I was, Kai. Please, believe me.”

"You didn’t tell me in the lake house. No. Not in my apartment or in yours the night you showed up in lingerie and crawled onto my lap."

"At the lake house, you were still recovering. Your memory was in pieces. You didn't even know Wyatt's name three weeks before that."

"I knew yours."

Two words. Quiet. Devastating.

I wrap my arms around my ribcage. The towel shifts. I've messed up because now that it’s time to tell Kai, I don’t know how to justify five months of silence.

"I wanted to tell you so many times that I used to practice the words in my car, in the shower." My throat closes and I swallow through it. "But every time the moment came, something stopped me."

"What stopped you?"

"You."

His chin pulls back. A flash of something scorched crosses his face.

"Not like that. Not you doing anything wrong."

I step forward and the water from my hair drips onto the hardwood. "I started falling in love with you. And I was terrified that if I told you about the baby, you'd look at me and see an obligation instead of a choice."

"You decided what I'd feel before I had a chance to feel it."

"I know how men react when a woman they barely know tells them she's pregnant. My father taught me that. You show up, you say the right things, you kiss your daughter's forehead, and then you leave because staying is harder than arriving."

"I’m not your fucking father. You should know that by now."