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JAKE
IstoodfrozenoutsideOlivia’s hospital room, unable to make myself move.
She’spregnant?
I found myself staring at the latch of her door, which hadn’t caught when the doctor had pulled it closed. I was about to knock when I heard their voices drifting through the crack. The wordpregnanthad caught me and held me where I stood.
How could she be pregnant?
I mean, it was obvious how. The two of us had been hooking up for over a month. But somehow, this was an outcome I had never even imagined.
I braced myself with a hand on the wall and tried to catch my breath.
I had been meaning to go in there, to try to talk to her. The doctors had finished with me, and I’d been discharged, but I didn’t want to leave the hospital without another conversation. I didn’t want to leave things the way they had been between us. It didn’t feel right. I still had some hope for making up with her, even if things couldn’t be the way they had been.
And maybe theycouldbe the way they had been. I had no idea how angry she was, but it did seem like there was a chance. We’d been mad at one another before, and we had always gotten past it. The chemistry that existed between the two of us was more powerful than these arguments.
At least, I liked to think it was. Maybe I have always been wrong.
One thing was for sure. Knowing she was pregnant, I couldn’t exactly go in there and tell her what I felt. I couldn’t tell her I wanted to support her. I wanted to be there for her and the baby, but Olivia had repeatedly shown me how she responded to help being offered whenever it hadn’t been asked for.
She’s only going to think I’m trying to control her again. She’s going to think I’m trying to order her around and that I think I know better than she does.
After all, I wasn’t even supposed to know she was pregnant. If she didn’t tell me, didn’t that mean she didn’t want my help?
It was clear from the conversation she’d only just found out herself, so maybe she was still planning to tell me. But I couldn’t be sure. And until I knew, it didn’t feel right to march in there and announce my knowledge of the situation. I knew Olivia too well for that. She’d throw me out on my ass for the audacity of it.
I sank down on a nearby bench, my head spinning.
What if she never confided in me about this? I knew how angry she was with me right now. Maybe she didn’t want to let me back into her life.
But it was my baby too. Iwantedto be involved!
The urge surprised me. I’d never wanted a child. I’d never wanted a family. I hadn’t expected I would want those things if the opportunity presented itself. But here we were, and instead of wanting to run for the hills the way I’d always imagined, I found myself longing to put my arms around Olivia and tell her that we’d deal with this together—as a unit.
Was it the fact that it washer? Was that the only reason I felt so different about this than I’d ever expected to?
I didn’t think it was some long-dormant desire for a baby suddenly manifesting.
If I walked through that door right now, she would be angry. She would tell me off for eavesdropping on her private conversation with her doctor, and she’d be right to feel upset about it—but it wasn’t my fault the door had been cracked, and I hadn’tmeantto hear what they were saying.
I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but my innocence had never kept her from getting angry at me for harmless things.
Not that everything she’d ever accused me of was harmless. If I was honest with myself, I did understand her accusations about my trying to shut her out of things when we were younger. I had done that. And I understood, too, why she felt the same way about how I had treated her since we’d begun working on Michael Sanders’ movie.
She would tell me I was doing the same thing if I walked into her hospital room and told her I would take care of her and our baby. That was the problem I was facing now. It would be exactly like what had happened with the plane—she’d tell me I was making a plan without considering whether she might have a better idea.
Maybe I was.
What better idea could there be than for us to face this together? We could move beyond our issues. We could be there for our child.
Couldn’t we?
Maybe we couldn’t. Maybe I was expecting too much of us.
I rose and turned away from the door to her room. I wasn’t going to be able to go in there right now. That much was clear. I would have to try talking to her later once things were a bit more settled in my mind.
I wandered down the hall with no clear idea where I was going until I reached the bank of elevators.
