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On a dark beach over four years ago, Manning had made misguided sacrifices out of love. I hadn’t understood it then, but now I had to decide if I’d let Manning put himself through this. If he left Tiffany, she’d do everything in her power to hurt him—and she held all the power now. She had his baby. I could ask him to leave her and he would, but she’d turn him into the bad father he was already terrified of becoming.
He was right. I’d seen a life here with him, but I didn’t anymore.
I worked up the courage to look at him, my Manning.
“I love you,” he said, tilting my head up by my chin to kiss my forehead, the bridge of my nose, my mouth. “I love your sweet watermelon lips, your unrelenting kindness, even to those who’ve hurt you, your strength to move here all by yourself.” He got to his knees, his head at my breasts. Kneeling before me, Manning took my waist. “I love this body, and the family it will give us. The sky seems dark now, but that’s how light shines through. I promise you, Lake, I will make this right.”
I didn’t stop him. I let him hold me. I let him bury his face in my stomach. I could’ve stayed there the rest of my life listening to him tell me he loved me. I looked up at the ceiling to stem the tears I didn’t want him to see. He might take that as indecision, and it wasn’t. When I’d breathed through the urges to cry, I lowered my eyes and put my hands on his cheeks. I could’ve sworn I felt wetness there. “I love you, too,” I said. “But I can’t do this to you.”
“Yes you can. It’s not like it was that night on the beach. I’m older now. Stronger. I know I’m not my father.”
“She’ll take that baby from you, Manning. Can you live with knowing you’ll have no involvement in its life? That you won’t get to raise, love, and pick your baby up every morning and put your baby to sleep each night?”
“I’ll find a way,” he repeated, even though he knew—he had to know—this was the only way.
His eyes were red, tired. My heart split down the middle. It was just like Manning to try and carry the burden for us. He hadn’t asked for this baby, but if he couldn’t do right by it, it would kill him. I shook my head. “You need to be a good father,” I said. “And that child needs you. Tiffany hasn’t always done the right thing, but she didn’t deserve any of what we did to her this week.” I opened my mouth to end this, but nothing came. I couldn’t send him away. Words bubbled up and fizzled over and over, until I had to accept this wouldn’t get any less excruciating. I wavered, but I got it out. “It’s okay—I’m giving you permission to go.”
“I don’t want permission,” he said, swallowing. “I want you. I love you. What about you?”
I didn’t know. My heart was being surgically removed in the middle of a hotel room, and I felt each acute incision and snip. But I’d done this before and had come out the other side, so there had to be some way through it. The moment Tiffany had gotten pregnant, I’d lost a little part of Manning. A part she would forever own. I could never compete against a baby, and I shouldn’t have to. “I don’t want to be second best, and I don’t deserve it.” My voice broke, and I steadied it. “You know I don’t.”
“You’ll never be second best, Lake. I never loved Tiffany a fraction of the amount I love you.”
“I’m talking about the baby.”
With that, defeat crossed his face. It hurt me more than it should’ve. I wanted to be mad, to make him suffer and tear out his heart like he had mine but he’d already suffered. His heart hurt, too. I didn’t want that for him. He was having a baby and it should’ve been the happiest news of his life.
He reached into his pocket and showed me the mood ring. “I found this on your dresser. I was going to give it to you at the airport the way I’d planned to years ago, before I was arrested.”
I took the ring and inspected it, though there wasn’t much to see. It didn’t change colors just by holding the band. “It was in your things from the courthouse,” I said. “I thought maybe . . . maybe it was for me.”
“Maddy had one growing up. She loved jewelry. I got it off a woman in the bar that night we rode around in the truck.”
I dropped my hand to my side. “I’m sorry I took it.”
