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“I did check the syllabus,” he said, sounding almost sheepish. “I thought you would come back in for a meeting to wrap everything up.”
“Oh, you wanted closure?” I nearly yelled. “That’s what you wanted me in there for? To drag me through everything I’d already experienced at Thanksgiving dinner? I don’t think so.”
“Fine, what do you want me to say?” Maxim demanded. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I’ve been fucking worried out of my mind. I’ve needed to talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” I said. “How about that?” I could’ve laughed at myself for how disastrous I sounded talking around the lump in my throat. Because I knew that all I wanted was the man in front of me. Try as I might not to, it was out of my control.
“Ruth, I meant what I said in that lecture hall,” Maxim said. “That I’d let my business go to my head. That I’d forgotten, in some ways, how to be human. But there are still things I need to say that couldn’t be said in there.”
“I can’t,” I said, tears falling down my face. “Oh, stupid hormones.”
“It’s fine — cry if you want to.”
“I don’t want to cry!” I shouted, drawing the attention of a couple of people picnicking across the way. “If we have to do this, can we go somewhere else? Anywhere else?”
“My car’s waiting,” Maxim said. “Would that work for you?”
The same car where a delirious crush had blossomed into full-blown, passionate sex? No, it wouldn’t work — but I didn’t have very many options at my disposal.
“Just say what you want to say,” I told him, taking the handkerchief he offered me and ruining it with my makeup and snot. I probably looked like a hot mess. “Don’t drag it out.”
“What I wanted to say was that I love you.”
“You already told me that at Thanksgiving,” I said. “Or rather, you told a room of people while trying to get back at my dad for whatever happened between you two.”
Maxim hesitated. “What happened between your father and I isn’t easy. But I am sorry about the way I acted that night — and how I treated you. Gerald and I have talked since.”
“You what?” I shrieked, aghast. “When? What did he say? What did you say? Did you kill him? Did he kill you? No, no, obviously not. You’re here, aren’t you?”
“I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere,” Maxim said. “The thing that was between your father and me — it’s done. We’ve put the past in the past.”
“I’m glad you’re not angry at my dad anymore,” I said. It was at least one significant load off from what I was currently staggering beneath. “So you don’t have to pretend to love me anymore.”
“That wasn’t pretend,” he said. “Yes, I said it at not an ideal time, but the feeling is real, Ruth.”
“Say it, then. Say it again.”
“I love you, Ruth Miracle,” Maxim repeated. “I didn’t know it was possible to love like this. I don’t understand what you’ve done to me. But it can’t be reversed.”
I didn’t hesitate like I had around the table at Thanksgiving. “I love you, Max. But you’ve hurt me so badly that I don’t know how we could ever salvage anything.”
“We don’t have a choice, zolotse. We’re going to bring a baby into this world, and that’s something we do together. If the love is there, everything else will follow.”
“You … actually want me to have the baby?” I asked. “Even after the precautions we took?”
“If we made a baby in spite of everything we tried to prevent it, then don’t you think it’s a fighter? Don’t you think we should give it a chance at life?”
“I want it,” I whispered. “I want to have it so badly.”
“Then that’s what we’re going to do,” Maxim said, tugging me to him so he could hold me. “We’re going to have a baby.”
“I’m scared.”
He chuckled. “Shit, I’m terrified. I’ve never had a father, Ruth. And your father was the last thing I had that was close to a mentor. You’ve seen how I’ve fucked that up.”
“I think every new parent is afraid,” I said. “We’ll be okay, though. Our baby will be loved.”
“And I will spend the rest of my life making everything up to you,” Maxim said, kissing me softly. “I love you, zolotse.”
