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“That’s fine,” she says.
I want to pull her closer. I want to tell her I’m sorry. I want to kiss her and hold her and tell her how scared I am of losing her after losing everything else. It feels like my whole life is slipping through my fingers—my mom is on her death bed. My dad is an ass who only sees me as a means to an end. And now this.
I don’t do any of those things. I let her walk away because if I do anything now, I’ll look needy. I’ll look crazy.
And I’m neither of those things.
I’m just scared.
When I get to my car, she’s almost reached hers.
“Natalie,” I say. She looks up at me and I duck into the car to retrieve the flowers I got her. I jog over to her. “Here,” I say and hold out the roses.
“Thanks,” she says and takes them from me, and the exchange is tainted with my shitty behavior. When she gets into her car, I walk back to mine, feeling like a dog with his tail between his legs.
The flowers were meant to be a nice surprise to show her how special she is to me. Instead, I’ve made an ass of myself by confronting her about her brother-in-law, and she’s angry with me.
When I pull out into the road, I let out a groan of frustration.
Sam is her brother-in-law. He’s family. And nothing will happen with family, right? But it bothers me that she sees him. I don’t know for a fact that nothing will happen between them. He’s too comfortable around her, and I just don’t like it.
I’m terrified of what will happen when she chooses someone else—it doesn’t even have to be him—over me.
It’s happened before, and I don’t know if I have what it takes to deal with that right now.
But she’s not Nicole, right? She can’t be like my ex.
This is Natalie. She would never do something to hurt me.
Right?
Chapter 26
Natalie
Morning sickness is a bitch. There’s no nice way of saying it. It’s like my body behaved itself until I got with the picture, and now that I know I’m pregnant, I’m throwing up every minute of the day without warning.
I stay home from work, calling in sick when the morning starts with me retching my guts out into the toilet before I take Kylie to school.
I tell her it’s a stomach bug when she sees me throwing up twice before we get in the car.
“If it doesn’t get better soon, I’ll go to the doctor, baby,” I promise. “But it’s nothing serious. I’m going right back home and getting in bed, okay?”
“You’re not going to die, are you?” Kylie asks.
I park in front of the school and twist in my seat, looking her dead in the eye.
“I’m not going to die.”
“Just checking,” she says and smiles, but she looks unsure.
“Sometimes, we get sick, right? Like when you had that cold a few weeks ago. We get sick, and then we get better again. I’ll get better again. I called in sick. I’m taking care of myself.”
“Okay,” she says and kisses my cheek. “Love you.”
“I love you too, honey. Have a good day, and don’t worry, okay?”
She nods and runs into the school building without looking back as if her troubles are already forgotten.
