Page 12 of Not Because You Loved Me

It was driving me insane.

Every single day I looked for signs. I looked for the bump that wasn't showing and listened for morning sickness that never came. I practically held my breath every time she went to the bathroom, expecting her to come out, sit me down, and finally tell me we were going to be parents. But she didn't. Kat kept going to spin classes, kept eating her strict athlete's diet, went to work, took care of her players, and acted like we were just a regular newly engaged couple.

Why hasn't she taken me to a doctor appointment? Why haven't I seen an ultrasound? Is she hiding it? Is she ashamed?

The questions had been clawing at the inside of my skull until I felt like a rope pulled so tight it was about to snap. By the time Kat and I had walked into my parents' house, I was already at my breaking point. When I saw her slip on that fitted dress, I panicked. When I saw her reaching for charcuterie, my brain screamed that half of it wasn't safe for her. And when my cousin handed her champagne... the world went red in a way I had never experienced before.

I didn't mean to shatter the whiskey glass. I didn't mean to yell at her in front of my family.

"What about the baby?"

The moment the words tore out of my throat, it was like a dam bursting. All the frustration, the fear, the months of feeling kept in the dark came rushing out in a toxic wave. I accused her of being reckless. I accused her of ignoring our child.

And then she looked me dead in the eyes, her voice completely steady, and said the four words that shattered our entire existence into dust: "I am not pregnant."

My mind scrambled, trying to find traction. "I saw the fucking test in your bathroom garbage, Kat! Don’t play stupid!"

"I’m not playing anything! I’m not pregnant!"

Panic, sharp and blinding, clawed up my throat. Not pregnant? How could she not be pregnant? The horrific, ugly thoughts hit me before I could stop them. Was it someone else's? Did she get rid of it? Did she destroy our future without telling me?

I snapped. I grabbed her wrist; the crazed words spewed out of my mouth before my brain could catch up to my heart. "Is it not mine? Did you cheat on me? Were you going to pass off someone else’s kid as mine? Or did you get rid of it so I wouldn't find out?"

"Fuck you, Trent!"

Her voice sliced through me. "I am not pregnant, I have never been pregnant, and fuck you for even suggesting I cheated on you!"

"I saw the test!" I roared, my hands shaking so violently I had to clench them into fists. "That's the whole reason I asked you to marry me!"

The deafening silence that followed was worse than any scream. The air vanished from the room. Kat froze, her beautiful eyes, which were more green than hazel tonight, widened, and then I saw the moment the light went out. My words hit her like a physical thing, and then she built her wall up right in front of me.

"What did you just say?" she whispered.

My mouth went dry. My dad called my name, but I couldn't look at him. I couldn't look away from Kat. I tried to fix it, tried to pull back on the reins as my brain frantically tried to reorganize reality.

We aren’t having a baby?

"I thought I was doing the right thing. Stepping up. I proposed because you were carrying my child."

Kat stood there, a solitary tear spilling over her lashes, looking at me with a devastation so profound it nauseated me.

"I thought you proposed because you loved me," she whispered.

The red haze in my vision cleared instantly, replaced by a suffocating dread. The truth hit me like a freight train.

Oh God. What did I just say? What did I do? How did this happen?

"That’s it, isn’t it?" Kat said, her voice dropping into a flat, deadly calm that terrified me far more than her anger. "You never fell in love with me. You were attentive because you thought I was carrying a baby... You proposed out of obligation. Not because you loved me."

I felt like everything was slipping away from me, Kat, our little family… our daughter that looked just like her.

"I saw the test, Katerina," I pleaded, my voice cracking, all the aggression draining out of me, leaving only pure, desperate panic. "Just confess."

My mind understood what she was saying, but it was as if my heart was desperately trying to hold on to the future I had been picturing for three months.

"I don’t know how a test ended up in my bathroom, but it wasn’t mine," she said, looking right into the hollow center of my soul. "If I were pregnant, I would have told you. I never cheated. And when I eventually have a family with the right man, I know I'll be a wonderful mother."

I flinched, my mouth opening, but no sound came out. No… no… I… why did that sound like it wouldn’t be me? I am the right man…