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“Nope.”
“But why?” It didn’t make sense. Out of all the houses to choose from, why had he bought ours? It wasn’t because he’d loved it, he’d gutted the entire thing.
“Wanted it,” he said with a shrug.
“This is so weird,” I murmured under my breath.
Michael laughed, the sound anything but joyful. “I guess so.”
“You’re living in my house.” I ran my hand over the new concrete countertop.
“Rhett’s sleepin’.” He took a sip of his beer. “Start talkin’.”
“What?” I snatched my hand back from the counter.
“Where you been?”
“I—well, everywhere, really.”
“Cut the shit, Emilia,” he barked. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Arizona,” I replied quickly. “We went to Arizona.”
“Huh,” he murmured thoughtfully.
“I got in to Arizona State, remember?” I said, swallowing hard at the memory.
“Yeah, I remember.”
I struggled to find something to say. I’d planned everything out on the long trip to Oregon, but suddenly none of it seemed right, not when he was standing there, fully grown, with a beer in his hand.
I knew how to talk to the boy I knew before, I didn’t know how to talk to this man.
“Well?” he snapped. “Say what you wanna say. Explain this shit to me.”
I decided to start at the beginning.
“I found out I was pregnant the morning after we got home from the river,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “And my mom found out about an hour later because she was nosy and she always knew everything.”
“Not everythin’,” he muttered.
I conceded that with a nod. “They freaked out.” I glanced around the kitchen again, this time thankful that it didn’t look like anything from my memories. “Long story short, they said they wouldn’t pay for college unless I put the baby up for adoption and cut off all communication with you.”
“Bullshit,” he argued, setting his beer down.
“I swear to God.”
“You had a full fuckin’ ride at U of O.”
I stared at him wide eyed. “I had asportsscholarship,” I reminded him. “Which I couldn’t exactly follow through with while pregnant.”
“Then why not have an abortion?” he asked easily, picking his beer back up. It wasn’t accusatory, just curious.
“Because,” I sputtered, shaking my head. “Because.”
“Far as I remember, you were pro-choice.”
“I still am,” I ground out. “But it wasn’t something I considered then.”
