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“Baby?”
“Yeah,” he says grumpily. It’s fucking adorable.
“I’m sorry about what happened with Mel.”
He stills, and his gaze grows kind of unfocused, eyes darting around, blinking like he’s trying to re-orient himself.
“Sorry, I just needed to get that out there. I want to explain.” I pause, waiting for him to nod, giving me the go-ahead.
“First off, I’m sorry I left you in the dust like that.”
He tenses, but before he can try and refute that, I add, “Obviously, the situation warranted it, but still. We’ll have a plan in place for the next time something unexpected comes up.” My voice turns thick at the thought.
But that’s life—shit happens. And while some of us can roll with the punches, some need a little more padding in place to break the fall. It is what it is. No, it can’t account for everything, but even just having a loose game plan in place can make or break it. For his sake,andmine.
I’m dealing with it okay right now, but I know once everything settles, and I’m certain Skyler’s okay, it’s going to hit me.
My daughter could’ve died tonight.
Again.
I slam my eyes shut, and have to focus on just breathing for a couple seconds.
A hand squeezes mine, and I nod.
“Nol…”
“It’s okay.” Clearing my throat, I reopen my eyes to find his gaze focused intently on mine. I give him a shaky smile, and turn my focus back on the conversation. “I fucked up by not telling you Mel knew who you were. She only knew a name, and that Sky was someone I met and fell in love with while in rehab. I—” My breath hitches and I wince. “I should’ve corrected her when she assumed you were a woman. But like I told you, I wasn’t out, and you weren’t back in my life at that point…so I took the easy way out.”
His lips tighten faintly at the corners, but he nods. “I get that.”
“It honestly didn’t even cross my mind to tell you about it, because I’d planned on telling her everything this week.”
He nods, and the knot in my chest loosens. “I know. I believe you.”
“I know it was likely a combination of everything going on, but I know that didn’t help matters, so I’m sorry.”
Skyler drops his gaze, and he says, “It was just a lot. All at once. And I didn’t have a chance to prepare.”
“Hey,” I say softly, curling two fingers under his chin, lifting his face. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I wanted to be there for you,” he says in a rush. “I feel so selfish right now. Like…like the whole time I walked here, all I could think was how selfish I was being, so I just…I kept—”
I bow my head to his, and his voice hitches, breaking off.
A part of me wants to tell him never to walk across town alone again, but I know exactly how that’ll come off, and the last thing I want to do right now is make him feel even less capable.
So for once, I manage to shove my overprotective urges to the background, and focus on what matters right here and now.
“You told me once, that you can’t control it. Right?”
A beat then, “Y-yeah.”
“So how can you possibly be selfish, when it’s out of your hands?”
He says nothing to that, and I sigh. “Sweetheart.”
“I just…” Fingers come up to my shirt, twisting the fabric over my chest. “I just didn’t want to lose my shit there, in front of you, and your family, and the hospital. I didn’t want to make it about me. It was about Abby.”
