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She was curled up on her bed, her back to the door, and couldn’t see him as he entered the room. She felt the bed depress behind her and tensed even further, bracing herself for what was to come.
She expected angry demands, furious questions . . . but what she got was a gentle hand on her back and a quiet, achingly tender voice with a simple invitation. “Please. Won’t you tell me what happened?”
“I got pregnant,” she said, after a long, fraught silence as she debated what to tell him and how much. “I had a boy. A beautiful baby boy. I named him Fletcher. He was perfect. I had him for nearly two months. My parents had sent me to my aunt in Edinburgh, and they were all trying to pressure me into giving him up. They kept reminding me of my future, of college. But I refused to give him up. I knew it would be hard, but I fully intended to keep my baby and go to medical school when he was older. He was mine, my perfect boy, and I loved him.”
His hand never paused in its gentle stroking of her back, and it encouraged her to reveal more. Secrets, long held, pouring from her in a soft, halting voice.
“My pregnancy was difficult, complicated. I was young and stupid, and I didn’t take care of myself the way I should have. He was born two weeks early . . . there were complications, and they were on the verge of performing a C-section. But after a long labor, he was born naturally. He was so small and needed respiratory support. I was terrified I would lose him, but he was such a fighter. After he gained another half a kilogram and his lungs strengthened, they allowed me to take him home.
“He was fine. He was healthy. And he grew like a weed. He knew me, knew my voice. The day before he died . . . I swear, he smiled.” The sweet memory made her smile. Her aunt—a mean-spirited woman who had made no secret of the fact that she resented having Tina and Fletcher in her home—had dismissed the movement of his mouth as gas, but Tina had known it was a smile. A perfect, precious smile. “He died for no reason. Of nothing. Sudden infant death syndrome, they said. How is that an explanation? How does that tell me why my baby died?”
She turned over to face him, scooting up until she sat with her back against the headboard. Harris’s eyes were stark, his face strained and pale.
“He looked like you, you know?” she whispered, and this time he flinched, his face going from pale to ashen.
He had known it was coming, of course, known since the moment she’d confessed to once having a baby. It explained why she’d held on to her hatred of him for so long. It explained why, even though she’d allowed him to touch her and love her, she had continued to keep him at a distance.
He had known it was coming, and yet her words still felt like a punch to the gut.
No. To the scrotum.
The burst of pain was indescribable and crippling and nothing compared to the agony he could see in her eyes, on her face; hear in her voice; and sense in the very still way she held herself.
“You were on the pill,” he heard himself saying, his voice sounding lifeless and the words making him cringe. It felt like exactly the wrong thing to say right now. Like an accusation.
“I was a stupid, naive girl who thought that going on the pill just hours before a sexual encounter would somehow magically prevent pregnancy,” she said, her words bitter and self-deprecating.
She had been eighteen, young, and inexperienced; Harris should have worn a condom; he should have protected her from the painful consequences. But he hadn’t exactly been himself. He was shocked that he’d even thought to ask her about protection. It was a wonder he’d been able to perform at all. Truth be told—the state he’d been in—he very much doubted he would have managed to maintain an erection with anyone other than Tina. He had been wanting to get into her panties for months and—despite that—still managed to cheapen what should have been a special moment for her with that fucking unremembered bet. His worst, and fastest, sexual performance ever, and it had resulted in a pregnancy. Had resulted in a baby. A son . . . who had looked like him. He swallowed down an anguished sob at the thought.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. The most inadequate two words in the English language. No matter how heartfelt, they were nowhere near enough to express his absolute remorse and anguish at the pain he had caused her. At the incomparable loss they had both experienced.
