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“I guess what I’m trying to say is—would you like to startdating? Like officially?”
I feel like I am back in high school, before making all of my wealth, asking a girl to prom, and feeling my heart pound against my eardrums as I wait for her answer and hope that she doesn’t turn me down.
“I care about you, Seraphine, and I think that I am finally ready to try my hand at love again.” As soon as I even make reference to the “L” word, Seraphine looks panicked. She starts to cry and immediately gets to her feet. I don’t know what I have said or done to provoke such a sudden reaction from her, but this is definitelynotgood.
“I’m sorry,” she says as she starts to walk away toward the door. “I need to leave.”
“Wait!” I call after her, getting up to follow her into the hall.
Lilly still hasn’t fallen asleep yet, and her little frame peers out of her bedroom doorway to see what all the commotion is about.
“I’m sorry if I said something wrong,” I say. I don’t really even know what I am apologizing for, to be honest. Maybe I read this whole situation with her wrong. Maybe she doesn’t have the same kind of feelings about me, and I’ve embarrassed her or made her feel pressured. I am dead awful at dealing with this emotional stuff.
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just need to go home,” she says through her tears.
“Let me at least drive you then,” I say, grabbing my coat. I have no idea what's going on, and no idea how I have upset her so much. But I'm certainly not going to let her walk all the way back home in the dark and cold. Not a short walk. But even the simple gesture of giving her a ride seems like more than she wants right now.
“No, it's fine. I don't need a ride—I don’twanta ride, thank you. I prefer to walk. I want to clear my head.”
I stand there in a bit of a stupor as I watch her leave. There's not really anything that I can do to stop her, and I won’t force her to let me give her a ride home. I just wish that I knew what it was that scared her off and made her run out the door. I instantly regret having opened up and sharing my feelings with her. If I hadn't said anything, then things would still be fine. I was a fool to think that this could work out in any other way.
“Dad?” Lilly calls meekly from her door.
I sigh with disappointment because this is theexactreason that I didn’t want to get close to anyone to begin with. I didn’t want Lilly getting hurt. Poor girl has been through more than enough in her short life already.
“Everything is fine, Lillybean,” I say as I turn around and give her a fake smile of reassurance. She can tell it’s not true, so I need to elaborate.
I walk down the hall and sweep her back up into her bedroom to go back to sleep.
“Seraphine was overwhelmed after such a nice night, I think,” I explain. It’s the only somewhat honest explanation that I can come up with. “She’ll be back to normal tomorrow, I’m sure.”
“Do you think that she will come back?” Lilly asks with glassy eyes.
“Yes, of course, she will come back.”
Chapter Thirteen
Seraphine
Everything had been going so perfectly tonight but now it is all one big, hot mess.
I feelexactlythe same way that Lilly and Chad do, but Ican’t.
I’ve been lying about my pregnancy for weeks now, and I don’t know how much longer I will be able to pull it off. I’m already starting to show—which seems a bit early and definitely sooner than I expected to be—but thankfully the winter clothes that I have been wearing have been bulky enough to hide it. But winter won’t last forever, and at some point, not even all of the bulky clothes will hide my growing belly.
I was so touched by what Chad and Lilly both said to me, and I feel it so intensely too, but how can I face Chad and agree to “date” him after having kept such ahugesecret from him? What was I even thinking? My entire plan was flawed from the start. It isn’t as though I was going to suddenly be able to disappear, have the baby, and then reappear as if nothing had happened. And there is basically no chance at all that I can hide an entire pregnancy, birth, and baby in this small town—from mybossno less, and from the man who is obviously starting to care about me in the same way that I care about him. This whole thing is a complete disaster.
I walk all the way back to my cottage, and by the time I get there, I am winded, tired, and freezing cold. Walking back wasn’t the best idea either. I seem to be full of poor decisions lately.
Running out of Chad’s house just now is one of them. How am I ever going to face him at work on Monday after that?
Almost as soon as I walk into my home, a text message pops through my phone. It’s Chad, making sure that I got home okay and apologizing again for being too “forward”. I don’t even have the emotional energy to talk to him right now since I have already dug myself into a formidable hole. I send back a quick text to let him know that I made it home safely so that he doesn’t show up at my door, and then I turn my ringer off.
I strip off my winter coat and scarf, kick my boots to the corner of the hallway, and go in to start up my pellet stove that Chad helped me install before the temperature dropped. Then, I sit down in a chair with another cup of tea and run my fingers over my growing belly.
“What in the hell am I going to do?” I ask aloud in the empty room.
If Chad knew that I was pregnant, and if he knew that I waslyingto him, he wouldn’t want to date me. In fact, my current state is going to likely be the reason that he winds up hating me, and it’s all too late for me to turn back now. I’ve already lied. I’ve already hidden this and kept it a secret. I’ve already made a big mistake.
