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  I went ahead and ate without him. He took a shower while I cleaned up the kitchen, and was back in the bedroom as I put the last dish away. The time alone had given me enough courage to face him. I won’t lie, I was still scared and felt a little intimidated, but I wasn’t about to let the night pass without finding out why he was acting the way he was.

  The door wasn’t locked when I turned the knob. As soon as the door was opened all the way, I walked in and saw him turn to face me. I caught him just before he put his boxers on, and I couldn’t seem to do anything but look between his legs. I had never seen him naked before. If I had, there’s no way we could have gone that long without taking things to the next step. He was gorgeous as he stood in front of me, stripped bare, in only his birthday suit. I had nearly forgotten why I went in there in the first place.

  “Can I help you?” he asked as he slid his boxer shorts over his legs, finally covering up and allowing my brain to start processing things normally again.

  “What is going on with you, Link?” I meant to sound demanding, like I was there to demand answers from him. But I didn’t. Instead, I sounded sad and pleading, like I needed answers before I could take my next breath.

  “Me?” He pointed at his chest and I nodded.

  “Yes. You haven’t even asked about the doctor’s appointment.”

  “Why would I ask about an appointment for a baby that’s not mine?”

  I was stunned at his question. I had no idea why he would even ask that, as if he just now realized that we hadn’t conceived this child together. I stared at him for a long moment, waiting for him to elaborate on his question, but he didn’t.

  “Is it finally bothering you that it isn’t your baby?”

  My stomach fell to the floor waiting for his response. I didn’t want to hear him tell me what I feared he’d say, but I needed to. I should have known the other shoe would eventually drop. Who just takes on a baby with a girl they’ve only known for a few months? It just doesn’t happen. I knew it would all crumble around me sooner or later. I guess it was just sooner than I thought. And I hadn’t expected it to be so out of the blue like it was.

  Instead of speaking, he shook his head and looked to the floor like he couldn’t form words. Maybe he was just trying to not hurt my feelings. Maybe he didn’t know the answer. I didn’t know what was going through his head because he wasn’t talking to me, nor was he looking at me. I couldn’t even read his facial expressions. I wanted to cry but held it together.

  “You can’t blame me for this. You’re treating me like I’m some horrible person when you’ve known from the very beginning. You were there at the last appointment when we saw the ultrasound. You kept the picture. That’s what doesn’t make any sense to me. Were you just playing house and now you don’t want to anymore? All of those things we had talked about a couple weeks ago mean nothing to you now?”

  “To be honest with you, the fact that your baby isn’t mine has never bothered me. It’s not like we had some intense relationship before you got pregnant and I was somehow hoping it was mine. But after deciding to take this on with you, and being here with you, and having you become so much of my life like you have, I couldn’t help but become excited about this baby and a future we could have together.”

  “Well, you’re not exactly acting like it right now,” I fought back.

  “You tell me how I should act after finding out about your message to him. How should I feel after finding out that while I was gone, getting you things for the baby, you’re messaging that asshole, telling him that you’d go running back to him whenever he said the word? You clearly have no disregard for me or my feelings. But yet you want me to stick by your side through it all and play the part of the happy father-to-be. A little fucked-up, don’t ya think?”

  My brave front diminished. It crumbled at my feet in a pile of rubble. The tears flowed relentlessly, giving away my fear. He was right. I had done that. But he didn’t know the whole story.

  “Please, let me explain.”

  “Explain what? You left your phone in my car last night and when I noticed it, I went to call Jeri to let her know you didn’t have it in case she tried calling you. Your Facebook app popped up and the draft was there. I saw it with my own eyes. I read your words. I read how you professed your undying love to him and told him that if he wanted you to, you’d leave me and run back to him in a heartbeat. So, again, what is there to explain?”

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even think. All I could do was crumple to the ground in a sobbing mess. I wanted him to come to me, wrap his arms around me and tell me everything would be okay. But he didn’t. Instead, he just walked away, leaving me in a heap on the floor in front of the bed.

  What happened to my self-respect? Where did my integrity go? Why was I crying over some guy I barely knew? Yes, I had feelings for him. Deep feelings that had grown from a good friendship. He was the only person that had been there for me the entire time ever since I first met him. He was my confidant, my rock, my go-to person. When had I become this person? The person that pushes all the good people away and chases after the ones that no longer want them. When did I turn into the weak girl that sits on the floor and cries instead of going after what she wants? The answer to those questions didn’t matter. It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t suddenly make me some strong person that would pull herself off the floor and give Link a tongue lashing. Not only is that person long gone, but the person I had become knew Link wouldn’t have deserved it anyway. He didn’t do anything wrong. I had. I had gone behind his back and wrote that letter to Billy. And he would have gotten it if I hadn’t been blocked from sending it. I called him, too. Link didn’t make me do either of those things. I did them all on my own. And he was right—I did them while he was out at the store, picking things up for me. Things for my pregnancy and things for the baby. I deserved more than him just walking away while I cried. I deserved to be alone.

  I pulled myself from the floor and began grabbing my belongings from the dresser and closet. I piled it all in the middle of the bed and went across the house to the small laundry room where I knew there were a few boxes left over from moving in. By time I got back to the bedroom, Link had half of my pile of clothes thrown around the room. He spun around when I made it through the doorway.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in shock of the mess he made.

  “Why are you doing this…”

  I knew he had trouble calling me by my name. He felt confused on what name to use. Ever since I decided to have everyone call me Danielle, he just hadn’t called me anything. He completely avoided calling me by either name. It hadn’t bothered me until that moment. That moment when his voice trailed off in the absence of a name.

  “Doing what, Link?” I asked with annoyance in my voice.

  “Are you just planning on running away? Hiding from the problem like you always do?”

  “You don’t want me here! You won’t let me explain!”

  “Not wanting to hear your excuses and wanting you to leave are two different things. I want you to accept responsibility for your actions. You never do that. Then I want us to try to figure this thing out. You don’t have to run every time something hard comes your way. You deal with it. You take responsibility and you deal with it,” he lectured me.

  “FINE!” I yelled at him with only a foot between our bodies. “I admit it. I called him, but I couldn’t reach him. I messaged him, but it wouldn’t go through. I told him I loved him. I begged him to take me back. I said I’d leave you if he wanted me back. How the hell does me saying that to your face make anything better?” I cried. I cried so hard I almost couldn’t finish my words. My sobs broke up the syllables, but it didn’t seem to faze him.

  “I don’t need to hear you admit it. I already know that’s what you did. I want to hear why you did it. But I don’t need excuses. I don’t need to hear you explain to make me feel better. I need to hear why you did it… the real reason why.”

  The
re was no difference to me. I wanted to explain earlier, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Now he was telling me he wanted me to tell him why? What was the difference between explaining and telling him why?

  “After you touched me that night… after we had done that together, I dreamt about him. I felt guilty for something and I thought it was because I let you touch me while I was carrying his child. So I wanted to reach out to him. Because of the guilt.”

  “Excuses! I don’t want to hear that! I want to hear why you did it!” His face was red with anger as he spewed his words at me. I shied away from him. Not because I was fearful of him, but because I didn’t know how to handle his anger. I had never seen him act that way before. I wasn’t used to the tone he was using with me.

  If it had been Billy, I would have known just what to do. But not with Link.

  “What’s the difference? I’m telling you why,” I cried.

  He shook his head and looked toward the ceiling, rubbing his face with his hands. “You’re giving me excuses. Inadvertently blaming me for why you did it. It wasn’t my fault. Me showing you how I feel about you doesn’t translate into you stabbing me in the back as soon as I turn around.” He had calmed down, and that terrified me even more.

  “I’m not saying it was your fault. I’m taking full responsibility for what I did.”

  “Maybe you are, but you’re still casting some blame onto me. The very first thing that came out of your mouth was, ‘after you touched me that night.’ You could have woken up the next morning, after having whatever wet dream you had of him, and made a conscious decision to not reach out to him. But you didn’t. You knew what you were doing, and I just want to hear you tell me why.”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way. I hadn’t realized what I had done until he spelled it out for me. I was, in a way, blaming him. And that was wrong. Because it wasn’t his fault at all. He hadn’t done anything wrong.

  I stood still in the middle of the room, staring at the floor, trying to figure out the answers. There was a reason why I wrote that message, but I couldn’t figure it out. He took a few steps toward me while I stood in complete silence. I was zoned out until his hands came to the sides of my face and made me look at him.

  “Just tell me why so we can figure this out,” he pleaded.

  I blinked a few times, allowing the words to come out without putting any thought into them. I knew the only way I would be able to find the truth is if I just let it come on its own. So, I let the truth out without trying to manipulate it.

  “I was scared. I began feeling things for you and it felt wrong. I loved Billy. I have always loved Billy. There was no one before him, and I never imagined anyone after him. But I feel something for you. And it scared me. It still scares me. I don’t want to hurt you. That was never my intention.”

  “If he had gotten your message and responded, and told you to pack up your things and go to him to be a family… would you have? Would you have really left me to be with him?”

  I didn’t think, I just answered. “Yes.”

  He let go of my face and backed away. “Then you don’t feel anything for me.”

  “I do!” I yelled, pleading. I went for him, but he kept backing away. “I do feel things for you. But I love him–I loved him. I can’t change that. I can’t change the fact that I’m carrying his child in me. It is what it is. But I’m not lying when I say I feel something for you.”

  His full lips went thin, pressed into a straight line across his stoic face. I knew what he was doing. He was steeling himself for something that was going to hurt. I wanted to turn to stone so it wouldn’t hurt me because I could tell from his cautious breaths that it was going to hurt me so badly.

  “It will always be him. I was the one that stood by your side, lying to our families about being the father of your baby. I lied to my own family and let them down when I told them that I had unprotected sex with you, while we weren’t even dating, and got you pregnant. I worked my ass off to get this house ready so we’d have a place to stay. I’ve agreed to every stipulation our families put on us… all for you. I didn’t have to. There’s no blood between me and that baby. I didn’t have to stick it out. I could’ve told you to deal with the consequences of your actions all on your own. But I didn’t. And I didn’t have to.

  “Yet the real father, the real love of your life, shut you out. He told you to never call him again. He told you to have an abortion—to kill the baby that you constantly and ever so lovingly refer to as his. He’s blocked your number so you can’t call him. He’s blocked you on Facebook so you can’t message him. Hell, I wouldn’t doubt it if he’s moved so you can’t even go see him. But it’ll always be him. You have two guys—one that has done nothing but stand by your side, and another that’s done everything in his power to erase you from his life, and you will always choose him.”

  Hearing it said like that made me cry harder than I had ever cried before. My nasal passages closed up and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My eyes felt swollen in their sockets—like they were going to pop out of my skull at any given moment. My throat felt like I had been screaming all day as I tried my best to hold in my sobs, like the silent sobs were scratching at my throat from the inside, trying to claw their way out. And my jaw ached from being squeezed shut so tightly.

  I began to move about the room, unclear of what I was actually doing. I started picking up my clothes off the floor and throwing them into the cardboard box I had gotten. Link stayed still as I moved around him, picking up the few belongings I had and haphazardly placing them away in the box on the floor. I went to the closet and mindlessly pulled clothes from the hangers, not caring if they were mine or his.

  Link’s hand came around me, stopping me from pulling more shirts from hangers until I stilled against his chest. I could feel his heart pounding against my back. I could feel the heat of his bare chest against me and I nearly crumpled to the floor again. His arms went around me, slowing my descent to the ground in the small closet.

  “What are you doing?” he calmly asked in my ear.

  “I have to leave.”

  He let out a slow sigh before asking, “Where are you going?”

  I knew he was expecting me to tell him I was going back to Billy. It was probably what he had feared since coming home from work. No. He more than likely feared it since agreeing to go along with my lie of him being the father, and it was amplified when he read the message I had typed out to Billy. I couldn’t blame him for that fear.

  “I just want to disappear. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to be anywhere. Everyone’s life was better without me in it. I ruined my mom’s life, Jack’s life, Jeri’s life. I ruined it again when I came back. I ruined John’s life and Billy’s life. I’m ruining yours now. I just want to go. I want to disappear. I just want to die.”

  He spun me around and cradled my head in his hands, staring me in the eyes. His blue irises were dark, almost the color of the midnight sky. I didn’t want to sound suicidal, but I didn’t know how else to describe how I felt. I didn’t have any intentions of killing myself, I just didn’t want to live anymore.

  “I’m sure in the fucked-up life your mother had, you brought some light to her. You didn’t ruin her life, your father did. You certainly didn’t ruin Jack’s or your grandparents’ lives either. They loved you so much. I know because they told me all the time. The selfish actions of your parents gave them the grief they had to live with for fourteen years, not you. You coming home didn’t ruin Jeri. It’s given her a reason to live again. And I’m sure John loved you very much. I’m sure if he were still alive, he’d agree with me that you in no way, shape, or form ruined his life. As for Billy, he’s ruining it all on his own. Turning his back on you and his kid will prove to be the biggest mistake of his life. And that was his decision, not yours.”

  It was painstakingly obvious that he left himself out. He couldn’t deny that I was ruining his life. He couldn’t even lie to make me feel better. And that wa
s the one that hurt me the most. I knew what he said about everyone else was true, but he silently admitted that I was right when it came to him.

  “I can’t be here to ruin your life any more than I already have.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  I didn’t know how to answer him, so I just stared at him until he continued.

  “What am I telling my family? What am I going to tell them about this baby?”

  “Whatever you want to,” I gave in, defeated.

  “What do you want?” His voice rose again.

  “I don’t care anymore.”

  “DAMMIT!” he yelled. “What. Do. You. Want?”

  “I want you to love me!”

  He stared at me with disbelief in his eyes. I had to think about what I had said to him, not really knowing what had come out of my mouth. He yelled at me and I just answered with no thought behind it. I just told the truth. And the truth scared me as much as it seemed to scare him.

  “Why do you want that?” He sounded breathless.

  I knew what he was asking, but I didn’t have an answer for him. I wasn’t some kid desperately searching for love, I knew that much. I just couldn’t seem to find the words to explain why I needed it from him. It wasn’t for validation or anything like that. I knew all of the things it wasn’t for, but I couldn’t figure out the one reason to answer his question.

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you don’t know why you want me to love you, then how can you know that’s what you want from me?”

  “I want you to love me to validate what I’m doing here. I need to know that we’re not just playing house. That you really want this with me. That you really want this baby. And for us to be a family. I want you to love me so that I can feel better about what I’ve asked you to do for me. And I want you to love me so I won’t have to fight so hard against the feelings I have for you.” My last reason came out in a whisper. I felt vulnerable admitting that out loud.