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“Can I talk to you for a second?” Jackson leans down to whisper in my ear. I nod and heft myself up, walking back into my room.
“What’s going on? What was that text?”
Jackson shakes his head. “It’s a work thing. But I wanted to come back here later tonight. I wanted to talk.”
Dread sinks into me. “About what?” Visions of Jackson breaking it off with me come to mind, and I feel my stomach turn.
“We need to talk about the baby.” He says, laying his hand on my stomach.
I narrow my eyes at him. “What about it?” We’ve been good in terms of the adoption since we met with Colton and Amanda. We haven’t really talked about it since, and I figured we were finally on the same page.
Maybe I was wrong.
“I don’t have time to get into it right now. Can I come over when I’m done?”
“I don’t know, Jackson. We haven’t really talked at all since your mom’s funeral. You kind of just came back and we’re acting like everything is okay. But now you’re working all the time, and now you want to come and talk about the baby? What’s going on? There’s something you’re not telling me.” My brow furrows as panic fills me. This is how my life is. When everything seems right, something goes wrong. Is it me? Is it work? Hormones overtake me and I feel like my life is spiraling.
His eyes, which have been strained since he saw Easton’s text, now soften. Walking up to me, he grabs onto my chin and tilts my head up. “I’ve been dealing with work shit since right after the funeral, so we haven’t had time to talk. I’m sorry about that. I was a fucking dick to you, and you didn’t deserve that. I just… didn’t want to deal with people.Couldn’t talk to people. You feel me?”
I look in his eyes and see the truth in them. There’s no lies or hesitations or any doubts in his gaze. I think about how he was after Logan died and how it was like pulling teeth trying to get him to talk.
How far he’s come since then? Phenomenal. He might not want to talk in front of other people, but he talks to me. That’s all that matters.
“I feel you.” I whisper.
“You make my world worth living, Cara. I’m not good with words and I’m not an emotional person, but I don’t want you to doubt your place in my life.”
How he can read me like an open book is beyond me. But it’s times like this that makes me think… maybe we were meant to be all along.
“We haven’t really talked about the baby since the night my mom died.”
“I know.” I looks down at my feet, brushing my toes against the worn rug. I don’t know what to tell him, because I feel like I’ve made a decision, but I’m still not one hundred percent certain on it. I don’t want to say anything until I know for sure.
“This baby… this baby isours.A part of me and a part of you. Colton and Amanda are great people, but can you really look your baby in the eyes and say goodbye to him? Give him to total strangers that you don’t know? Have any kind of connection to? Take it from someone who lost their baby sister. There is no getting your baby back once he’s gone.He’ll be gone, Cara.”
Tears spring to my eyes and I can’t stop the sniffles that take over. “This is so hard.” I rub my eyes. “How do I choose something this big all by myself?”
“You’re not by yourself! I’m here.” He pounds his fist into his chest. The words that he doesn’t want to say speak loud and clear.
See me. Listen to me.
I hear you, Jackson.
“I know you’re here! You’ve been here for months, but that’s the whole thing, Jackson! What happens when you don’t want to be here anymore? Leave me here alone, with the baby I can’t take care of? It doesn’t matter if you promise you’ll stay. I don’t care if you say you’re going to be here forever, so has everyone else in my life. This house I’m living in, do you see anyone living in it with me? My mom, dad, stepdad, Logan? Anyone? No. Everyone leaves me. What makes you so different? Do you see where I’m coming from? Do you see my hesitations in keeping this baby with the life I live, when he could go and live with a perfect family?”
“But they’re not his family! We are!” He roars in my face.
I drop to the bed, my face falling in my hands as tears fall down my face. I know.I know.But I can’t stop the niggling in my gut that’s telling I can’t do this. That these people can do what I can’t
Provide.
“I just don’t know if I can do this.” I cry.
He kneels in front of me, taking my hands off my face and looking me in the eyes. “You have to do this, because I’m not letting you give my baby up.” The assuredness in his voice takes me back.
He’s not going down without a fight.
24
