“Absolutely not.” I cut him off. “You are not going to use your past against me. I was there. I watched it all go down just as surely as I watched you leave. You came back to my house two months ago and, what? Couldn’t help revisiting a woman who gave herself to you a million times? Because that’s all I am, right? A memory of the hurt and pain you endured in this town?”
“You were never the hurt and pain.”
I shake my head with a half laugh. “No, that was what I got as a consolation prize.”
His jaw is set, and I can see him working through it all. I’m forever giving him lectures, but this is going to stop. He is never going to change, and I am always going to want more. How can we be civil? How can we find a middle ground when we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum? It’s only going to hurt us both and the baby that is going to come into this world.
God, the baby.
My heart aches, and I want to cry.
When did he stop being the kind, sweet guy who would talk about the life we were going to have, including children, and turn into this cynical bastard?
“Hurting you then and now is the last thing I want.”
“Then maybe you should keep your mouth shut when I’m around—or, better yet, stay away from me, Declan. I can’t handle more heartache.”
With that, I get in my car, leaving him behind, and fighting back tears the entire way home.
“Why are you really here, Syd?” my sister, Sierra asks.
My nephews are running around, pretending to shoot each other, as I sit on the deck, staring out at the rolling hills, not even remembering the ride over.
“I needed to get away.”
I needed to forget the man who is in the town that has been my home. It’s been three days since that dinner, and I haven’t seen him since, but I still feel him.
My heart is heavy, my chest is tight, and I have this urge to go to him, tell him everything, and pray we can at least be friends, but I know better. He doesn’t want me, and he definitely doesn’t want a child.
“Because Declan is there?”
She knows me too well. “It’s hard being anywhere in his vicinity.”
“I can imagine. If I had to be in the same town as Alex and not be his wife, I don’t know if I could do it.”
She and Alex are the poster children for the perfect marriage. They met in college, she made him work ridiculously hard to prove his worth, and they married once they were sure they could last. I would’ve married Declan at eighteen.
“He doesn’t want me, just like every other guy.” She takes my hand and then slaps me on the back of the head with her free one. “Oww, what the hell was that for?”
“For being an idiot. If you came here for me to coddle you and tell you how Dad was stupid and he really did love us and all that shit, then you have lost your mind. Declan isn’t like every guy because none of them are the same. And he is nothing like the sperm donor.”
Sierra is older than I am, and when our father left, it was different for her. Where I was crushed, feeling abandoned and unloved, she really didn’t care. To her, Dad wasn’t good enough for us. Any man who chose to leave could just move on. I didn’t feel that way.
I resented my mother for pushing him away for a while. I thought that, if she didn’t fight with him all the time, he would’ve stayed. I was young, stupid, and naïve.
Sierra, though, she never shed a tear over him leaving. Where I’ve cried enough to fill another pond.
“When did you join team Declan?”
“Never. I’ve been team anything. I know that you both were stupid and young. Yeah, it would’ve been great if things worked out, but you were kids!”
“We were in our twenties! I loved him, Sierra. I loved him, and I still fucking love him!”
“Mouth!” She hisses as she looks for the kids.
“Sorry.”
She shifts in her seat and then squeezes my hand. “He left you, and it broke your heart, but look at what you’ve done with your life. You’re smart, successful, and you run two businesses in that damn town.”
I know she’s right, but there’s a part of me that is still hollow. It’s like the old tree on our farm that’s still standing. The outside trunk looks tall and secure, but the inside is empty.
Except for the life that’s growing.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out.
Sierra’s jaw drops, eyes not blinking for a few seconds, and I wait. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yup.”
“But … you don’t even … I mean … are you dating someone?”
I shake my head and then look down at my feet. “No, it’s Declan’s.”
I hear the air push from her lips. “Declan? Wow. Okay. How? When?”
Seems she can only manage one word at a time.
“When he came home a few months ago, we saw each other at the pond. It just … happened.”
“That fucking pond.”
My eyes find my sister’s, and I nod. “That pond.”
“We should fill it in.”
“Doesn’t do much good now.”
Sierra bobs her head slowly. “Did you tell him?”
And there’s the crux of it all. “No, I saw him, heard him say some things, and left.”
She leans back in her chair, looking a little less combative and a lot more sympathetic than before. “What did he say?”
Tears form in my eyes as I relay the conversation that I can’t stop hearing in my head.
“I will never be a father, and I make damn sure of that because it’s the last thing I want.”
Only that isn’t what happened. He didn’t make sure of anything when we had sex. He didn’t wear a condom, and apparently, the .01% chance of my birth control failing decided
