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“Most babies aren’t planned.”
I understood what he was trying to do, inject some reason into the conversation, but it was too late for that.
“Yeah, and the woman makes the choice to struggle her whole life just to raise that kid while the man gets to go off and do whatever the fuck he wants. Do me a favor and let me make that decision on my own.”
“It’s not just your baby,” he growled.
“Yeah, maybe not, but it’s my body, and I’m the one who’s gonna end up doing everything for this kid. I barely have time for myself as it is. Between work and Ava Rose, my schedule is packed. What am I supposed to do when you decide being a daddy isn’t for you?”
He sucked in a breath, and I knew I had overstepped.
“I would never, ever fucking abandon my child, Madison.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But even if you don’t, you won’t be the one getting up for middle of the night feedings, ear infections, and all that other shit that babies come with, are you? No, it’ll be me.”
“We can make this work, Maddie. I’m here for you.”
I barked out another laugh and shook my head in disbelief. He was here for me. This man, who sat there with a stony expression while I cried genuine tears in front of him, would be here for me.
“You mean like you were there for me the other night? I’d rather be alone.”
“One fight and suddenly I’m a deadbeat piece of shit dad?”
That wasn’t Jamie. Logically, I knew that. But facts were facts.
“You know what, Jamie? I don’t know. I thought I knew you, but the way you flip your emotions makes me wonder. Loving and warm one second and ice cold the next. That sounds like someone who could decide seven months into this pregnancy that fatherhood isn’t for him. And I’d be left holding the baby on my own, sacrificing my own goals and dreams for a goddamn fairytale.”
“I wouldn’t. You know me better than that.”
“Fuck you, Jamie. I thought I knew you better but even now you just don’t understand, and worse, you’re not even trying. When I make up my mind, maybe I’ll let you know.”
I tapped that end call button so fiercely I thought I’d break the screen, and when I didn’t get any satisfaction from it, I smashed the damn phone onto the mattress as hard as I could.
Jamie didn’t get it because he didn’t have to. No matter what he said, he could walk away whenever he wanted. He said he wouldn’t, and I knew that wasn’t who Jamie was, but I’ll bet my mother thought the same thing about my father. I’ll bet she thought, this will be the time it lasts, every time she found herself knocked up by another loser. But you know what? Those hopes and thoughts always ended at the clinic when reality set in.
Jameson: Maddie call me back.
I sighed when the phone buzzed against my thigh, looked at the screen and shook my head. I needed to make this decision on my own. If I was gonna have this kid, it would be because I wanted him or her, because I was ready for the struggle of single motherhood, not because I had some fantasy that I’d get my own happy ending.
Jameson: Maddie, please. We need to talk about this.
“Talk,” I shouted at the screen, “yeah right.” Jamie didn’t want to talk. He wanted to convince me, to persuade me, to promise me that we were a team, that we could do this together. He wanted to give me a false sense of security until it was too late for me to back out, and I wasn’t having it.
Hell no, I wasn’t.
Jameson: We’re not done with this conversation.
No, we weren’t. But there would be no conversation until I had time to think, to figure out what I would do.
I sighed and looked around my bedroom. It was lavish with Egyptian cotton sheets and a duvet that was the softest thing that had ever touched my skin, but the room was basically an empty vessel. There were no personal touches, no photos or little knickknacks decorating the room. It was, in effect, a nice hotel room.
This was not the room of a woman ready to bring a kid into the world.
Moments like this made me wish I had made more of an effort to make friends. I hadn’t planned on being in Glitz this long, not that I had friends in California, but I could use a real friend right now.
And I didn’t mean Jamie.
There was Maisie. I could talk to her and she would squeal with excitement at the idea of another baby, but she would also tell me to keep the baby and raise it on my own. She would go in hard on the girl power thing, encouraging me until I foolishly believed having this baby was the right choice when I knew it wasn’t.
