AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Because you scared the living shit out of me, Kate!” he says, climbing to his feet. “That’s why!” He storms off toward the elevators.
My jaw is open wide as he stabs the button to go downstairs. “Asshole.”
“Your husband loves you an awful lot,” says the woman across from me. She’s older, worn-looking, andknitting. Not someone I’m especially inclined to take advice from. “You’re mad, but do you have any idea how many women just wish their man loved them that much?”
My arms remain folded. There’s so much to correct in that statement I don’t even know where to begin. “That wasn’t love. That was blame.”
She shakes her head. “I promise you, sugar,” she says, going back to her work, “that was love.”
I have no intention of taking the counsel of a woman who looks like a character from a Steinbeck novel. And it wasn’t love. It was duty. He takes responsibility for me as if I’m a child, which is fucking ridiculous. Yeah, I did some things I shouldn’t have. But does that negate every success? The near-perfect score on my ACT, the full scholarship undergrad and Wharton for grad school? Am I going to have to live down my mistakes forever?
I watch the elevators with growing impatience until he finally reemerges. The five minutes he spent somewhere pouting was five minutes too long, and now I’m as fired up as he is.
I march toward him. His arms fold, ready for battle.
“I cannot believe you’re making such a big deal of this,” I snap. “I’m a grown woman and just because I messed up once doesn’t mean I’m some child who requires constant care—”
He steps into my space, backs me to the wall, and kisses me with his hands in my hair, my body tucked into his. “You. Scared. Me,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I think you’re a child or incompetent. You fucking scared me because that’s what happens when you care about someone and theydisappear.”
There’s this sweet, aching thing in my chest, rising and rising. He’s acting like this is a relationship and I like it.Jesus. I like it and Ican’tlike it.
I’ve been asleep at the wheel over the past month. I’ve allowed our casual, no-strings relationship to turn into something else entirely, something that will really fucking hurt when it ends—and itdoeshave to end.
He’s waiting for a response. My mouth opens, then closes. I’m spared by the appearance of Rachel’s husband, grinning broadly, still dressed in scrubs.
I met him only briefly when he ran through the lobby in a panic earlier, but he comes straight over and throws his arms around me. “It’s a girl,” he says with a smile that splits his face from side to side. “Jane Katherine. Jane after Rachel’s aunt, and Katherine after you. God only knows what would have happened if you hadn’t gone after her.” His voice breaks, and Beck and I both pretend we haven’t heard it.
“I didn’t do anything,” I reply. “I’m just glad it worked out okay.”
“Congrats, man,” Beck says, clapping him on the back. “When can we see her?”
Gus swallows, recovering. “They’re just giving her a bath, but I’ll come out in a few and grab you when they’re done?”
I force myself to smile, but my knees lock. I’ve got no fucking intention of going back there, in the same place where they took my daughter.
When Gus walks away, I frown at Beck. “Why’d you make it sound like we’d both go? You know I can’t do that.”
“What?That’s...They just named their kid after you.”
“I know,” I say, moving toward the elevators. “But I’m still not going. I’ll see you later.”
He shouts my name, but I keep walking.
Our little game of pretend has gone way too far.
36
KATE
I’m back in the hospital. The same room, the same blue curtain dividing my bed from the one beside mine, the same pretty nurse with the foreign name and cheerful demeanor. But Caleb’s there. He wasn’t there, the first time, but somehow he’s fixed things. He’s here, and I’m not alone.
The small bundle he holds is tightly wrapped and tiny, but I already know how she’ll feel in my arms.
“She’s alive?” I scramble upright to see her more clearly. “She’s okay?”
I reach out, desperate for that solid, warm weight. Eager to see her looking up at me with Hannah’s eyes.
But the bundle is cold, and the eyes that look up at me do not belong to my daughter. They are the eyes of someone else’s child, with an emptiness to them that terrifies me.
