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I blow out a quiet breath and, rubbing Halo’s dark curls, I ask, “When you, uh, told my brother that you were pregnant, what was his reaction?”
Again she takes a few seconds to answer but this time it’s because she has a small smile on her lips. “Well, he already knew.”
“What?”
“He already knew something was up before I ever told him.”
“Really? You never told me that.”
She shrugs. “Yeah, he already knew. And he somehow also knew that I was freaking out and I was. I had half a mind to never tell him and just run away.”
“You did not.” I completely turn toward her then. “Really?”
“Yup.” She chuckles. “I wanted to keep it a secret, you know. I wanted to, I don’t know, punish him for everything that he had done. I mean, I hated him so much back then and it wasn’t supposed to happen. So I thought I’d just never tell him.”
So maybe I’m not that crazy after all.
Maybe my need for revenge — as ugly as it is — isn’t so unjustified.
“So then,” I try to keep my voice calm and not show my enthusiasm at this, “what made you change your mind?”
Finally, she turns to me, her blue eyes full of emotions and love. “He did.”
“What?”
“I just… I could sense it, see. Just the way he knew that I was freaking out even though I still wanted her,” she glances down at Halo, “I knew that he wanted her too. He wanted her badly. In fact he wasn’t even freaking out. He was so sure since day one. About everything. About being there for me, for her. Doing everything that he could to make things okay for me — us — and she wasn’t even born yet. And I… I didn’t think that I could do it. I didn’t think that I could take that away from him. He just had so much to give, something that I never could’ve expected until I got pregnant with our baby girl. So yeah, as much as I wanted to hate him and punish him and teach him a lesson, I just couldn’t do it this way. I couldn’t take his baby girl away from him.”
My eyes sting.
Silent tears are running down my cheeks and my heart is aching.
In fact my heart is aching more than it’s been for the past week.
Because that’s exactly how he is, isn’t he?
For all his flaws and all his mistakes and all the ways that we’re wrong for each other, he’s perfect for her. His baby girl. In fact that was one of the things that attracted me to him at the very beginning, wasn’t it? That he helped raise his baby sister. That he was there for her, so protective over her, so safe and secure.
And I know he’s going to do the same, be the same, with our baby.
If I ever told him about it.
Which I’m not going to.
It’s something that I’ve been going back and forth on this entire week.
My initial plan was just to start an affair with him and once, unbeknownst to him, I’d accomplished my goal, I would’ve broken up with him and simply left. It wouldn’t be hard; I’m getting married soon anyway, and I was going to pass the baby off as Ezra’s.
Now that he knows what we’re doing, it still doesn’t mean that my plan has changed. I can still not tell him and cut things off when I get pregnant and go live the rest of my life with Ezra.
It’s cruel and immoral and God, it makes me sick every time I think about it.
But I need to do it.
For myself.
I’m extremely happy for Callie and my brother, but they’re an exception. I’m not. We are not. So I need to do everything that I can to exact my revenge and move on. So for now, I’m only focusing on one thing and one day at a time.
Meaning: I need to bake, bake, bake.
Or rather frost, frost, frost.
And I think I’m doing a good job of it until I hear Callie’s gasp. “Don’t. Stop it, Ledger. These are not for you.”
I don’t even think about. I whirl around.
And somehow there he is.
Standing at the island. His dark eyes on me.
On my hands specifically. One on Halo’s diapered bottom and the other on her sweet-smelling head.
This is the first time I’m seeing him since that night and for some reason, he still looks so large. Like he did in my room, standing by the wall, demanding truth from me. Demanding that I give him everything.
And it was so tempting to do that.
So tempting to give in to the urge and lay everything at his feet.
And that urge has only grown stronger and more incessant as the days passed. Probably because even though we haven’t seen each other in a week, we have talked.
