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Protecting herself.
From me.
The truth tears me up inside.
I don’t fight for her to come closer.
I don’t deserve to.
“A few days ago, Svena came to my office with a pregnancy test…”
Asia drops to her haunches, her arms over her knees.
I spring to my feet and take one step toward her.
She flings her hands out. “Don’t. Don’t you dare come near me.”
“Asia…”
“What did she tell you?” She opens her mouth wide and gasps for breath. “What did she freaking tell you, Hansley?”
I wince. Regret and pain pile on top of my head.
It feels like pulling teeth.
Like slamming my own foot with a pickaxe.
I hate seeing her hurt.
Hate knowing that I’m the one who’s dragging her through this torture.
I whisper the words that changed everything. “She told me that I was the father.”
Thirty-One
Asia
The world crashes around me. Fragments of this reality, of this moment, shatter like glass. I dig my fingers into my knees. Feel the stretch of the red fabric. Feel my own body pulling apart.
Tears push at the back of my eyes, but I can’t cry.
I’m not shocked.
In a small, distant part of me, I knew this was coming.
When Svena asked if Hansley had ‘told me yet’, she’d unconsciously put her hands over her stomach. She was a first-time mother protecting her unborn child. I didn’t linger on it, but that move made an impression.
Hansley got another woman pregnant.
I don’t even know what to say.
How to feel.
Numbness is good though.
It’s better than the alternative—throwing punches at Hansley’s head in anger or pouring out every drop of water I have in my body with tears.
This isn’t the plan.
