Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82163 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82163 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“Sure,” she finally says, taking a sip of her water . I don’t even know how to start this conversation. “We should start.” She laughs nervously, and I love the sound of it. It literally gives me butterflies. “Well, I’m pregnant.”
I nod at her. “So I’ve heard,” I say tightly, and I have to squeeze my hands together when I ask her this next question.
“Am I the father?” I figure might as well just get it out of the way. If she says no then my heart is broken for a whole other reason. If she says yes, then my heart also breaks.
“Of course, you’re the father,” she mumbles. “I can’t even believe you are asking me this.”
“Well, how was I supposed to actually know,” I answer back to her question and then my head hangs down and the tears come to me. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask as she looks at me with her own tears in her eyes. She opens her mouth to say something but nothing comes out. “How could you keep this from me?”
She shakes her head furiously. “I wasn’t keeping it from you,” she denies.
“But you were,” I point out to her. “You didn’t come to me.” I get up now, the anger almost ripping through me.
She just looks at me. “It really wasn’t like that,” she says softly
“Really?” I put my hands on my hips. “So me finding out through the grapevine is not you keeping it from me?” I run my hands through my hair, and I want to pull it out. How can she do this to me? I just can’t understand how she could do it.
“I just didn’t know how to…” she finally says, and she uses her index finger to wipe away the tears that have escaped her beautiful eyes.
“Here is a thought? How about you pick up the phone and call me?” I pretend to put the phone to my ear. I put my head back and close my eyes. “When did you find out?”
“I was six weeks,” she says softly, and my heart sinks hearing it. I was really hoping she would tell me she just found out.
“Wow,” I can’t help but snap at her.
“And nowhere in the nine weeks after did you think that maybe I deserved to know?” She tries to say something, but everything I’m feeling is just raw. It’s a guilt I never thought I would feel again. “Nowhere did you think maybe I wanted to know?” The tightness in my chest is so strong that it’s making it so hard to breathe. “That’s my child.” I point at her.
“It’s our child,” she corrects me.
“Technically, it’s just your child.” I sit down, but then my legs start to shake again, so I get up and start to pace the room. “You know, since you didn’t think I deserved to be included.” I’m so hurt by this. Hurt I’m in the situation again. Hurt I wasn’t there again. Hurt she didn’t think better of me. “Did you for one second think about how I would feel? Think, hey, maybe I should call Tristan and tell him he’s having another child?” My voice cracks when I ask her the question, and all she can do is roll her lips as the tears continue to pour down her face. “You, out of everyone, know what I went through with Penelope.” The tears now pour down my face. My whole body is shaking with pain and anger. “I missed everything, all the firsts.”
“Tristan,” she says my name in a plea, or maybe to shut me up, but she has to know how much this means to me. “You can be as involved as you want to be,” she assures me and I glare at her now.
“How involved I want to be?” I ask her the question, hoping I didn’t hear it right.
“Yes. This must be a shock to you.”
“A shock to me?” I look at her. “A shock. It’s so much more than that.” I swallow down the rage that wants to come up. “I can’t even put into words what I’m feeling right now,” I tell her, and tears come out of my eyes. I don’t even bother wiping them off at this point. “You have no idea the guilt I carry.” The sob wants to escape, but I push it down. “The guilt that I try to make up for every day.” I shake my head. “I missed all the firsts,” I say, the guilt coming to the surface. “The guilt that eats away at me every time I sit down, and my mind wonders about her, hopefully feeling like I didn’t desert her. Or that she thought I didn’t fucking care.” The thought guts me. “First heartbeat, first picture, first breath. First cry, first smile.” I’m gutted again. “First time she crawled. The first time she took a step. The first time she fell and got hurt, I wasn’t there for her. I missed it all. It was ripped away from me.” I can’t help the broken way my voice is. “And I vowed to myself that the next time it happened. The next time I had a child, it would be different. I was not going to miss anything.”