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“To think.” I raised a trembling hand to tuck my hair behind her ears, but he got to it first. His fingers barely grazed the sensitive skin of my earlobe, but it was enough to send electricity through my bones.
“You’re shaking. Did you eat today?” he asked, and I nodded. I’d kept down some crackers and an orange popsicle. With his hands on me, I was having trouble finding my words, so I stepped out of his grasp.
“Are you going to tell me why you’ve been avoiding me?” The way his words came out like a joke should have eased me, but the rigid set of his shoulders belied his amusement. He was pissed, and I was quickly losing my nerve.
“I’m sorry, Jason. I…I’ve been having a hard time and didn’t know how to tell you.”
“What, Gem? You’re freaking me out.”
I rushed out an explanation. “I haven’t been feeling well. I’ve been sick every day, that part was true. But it isn’t the flu that’s making me sick. I’m…” I lifted my gaze to his, hoping my growing smile would quell his anger. “I’m pregnant.”
He blinked.
Took two steps back.
Blinked again.
“You’re what?”
“I’m pregnant.”
He shook his head like he had water in his ears. “I don’t—why–why didn’t you tell me? How long have you known?”
This wasn’t exactly the reaction I’d been expecting, but I could understand. I was shocked too. “I really did go to the doctor. That day you made me soup and grilled cheese. I found out then.”
“And you didn’t tell me.” He lifted a finger first at me then at himself, his voice growing not in warmth but in a quiet fury that had my smile dropping. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid. I—”
“Afraid of me? So, you lied to me instead. Jesus.” He dragged his hands through his hair and down his face. “Gem, I don’t get it.”
“I felt like I was being suffocated. Like I was being forced to do things I wasn’t ready for.”
“I’m forcing you?” His voice rose another octave. “I’m forcing you? To do what? Because as it stands now, I’m not forcing you to do anything. You’re the one forcingme.”
I blanched, my arms dropping to my sides, and for a split second, something that looked like regret crossed Jason’s features. But it was gone before I could be sure.
We stared at each other for a moment, and when I didn’t say anything else, he spun away from me, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. His shoulders rose and fell with deep breaths I could see even through his coat. “You lied to me. You knew for two weeks and didn’t tell me. How could you not tell me?”
I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see with his back to me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how and—”
“I’m sorry too,” he snapped. “I need to go.”
“What? No. Jason.”
He shook me off as he headed to the door.
“Please, listen to me. I had stuff to deal with. It had nothing to do with you.”
He whipped his face around to frown down at me. “It’s not you, it’s me… That’s what you’re going with? I didn’t think you were such a cliché.”
I gasped, pressing one hand to my chest, where my heart broke underneath my ribs, and one to my stomach, where my baby—our baby—was growing. And then he walked out the door.
I stared at it for a few minutes, too stunned to move, too dazed to cry.
Jason had changed, bent so far from his straight and narrow, and maybe this was too much, too far. I had asked him to bend so much, he finally broke.
And all my worst fears were about to come true. I was pregnant, unprepared and ill-equipped to become a parent, and the perfect world Jason and I had built together ended with the slam of the door.
