“But you were.” His voice bounces off the wall and back at me. “You were pregnant with my child, and you left and built a life withhiminstead, and you have never once—in ten years—reached out. You never once in ten years tried to see if I was alive. Never once?—”
“I had his baby!” My voice breaks open on the words and my eyes finally flash up to his. “Or at least I thought it was his baby! Don’t you think I felt like a useless fucking whore, just like everyone said I’d turn out to be? I had to get a fucking paternitytest because he tricked me into thinking I’d slept with him. I was so fucking steeped in shame.”
His eyes go dark. I only realize as I say it that he didn’t have that particular piece of the puzzle yet, but I’m on a roll now and I can’t stop. It all has to be said.
“Plus, I thought you’d already left for Harvard. I had nothing— No money and no family. Just a man I trusted who said he’d take care of us. And you’re sitting here telling me I should have—what? Whatexactlyshould I have done, Caleb?”
“You should have trusted me.” Caleb’s voice is raw now, the control fully gone. His eyes reflect the anguish in his voice. “You should have told me you were pregnant and trusted me. You don’t think I couldn’t have gotten over it, even if hewasthe father?”
That question punches a hole through my guts, but he keeps going. “I never left, Harper, just on the off chance youmightcome back someday. I was too terrified that I’d miss you. I didn’t go to Harvard. I spent my whole life waiting, stuck—because I would’ve sworn I’d known you more intimately than any person can know another. And how could youjust leaveme like that?”
“I didn’t know that.” Tears burn my eyes and I don’t fight them. “I just knew you were finally getting the life that meant so much to you and your mom. It was her dying wish for you to go there—and for me to leave you alone so you could. Think about it. I was trailer park trash from Grass Valley with a drunk for a mother and no future. I wasnotgoing to take you down with me.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make!” he says vehemently.
“It was the only choice I had!”
“No.” He stands up, and the water from his feet tracks across the tile as he puts distance between himself and the hot tub’s edge, like he needs to move or he’ll combust. Or maybe he just needs to get away fromme.
“No,” he shakes his head, “you made the choice that felt safest and you called it noble. It’s the same thing you’ve been doing your whole life.” He turns back to look at me. “Running instead of fighting to stay somewhere where you might actually have to fuckingfeelsomething.”
The words hit too close to home. I stand up too and hold out a shaking finger. “Don’t youdare.”
“You ran.” His voice has gone quiet in a way that’s worse than shouting. “You ran ten years ago and you’ve kept running for the ten years since. I’m not sure you know how to stop. But at some point, Harper, you have to just—stand there.Inthe actual thing. Without looking for the door.”
His hands drop to his sides. “That’s what grief is. There’s no exit. Sometimes you just have to stand and let yourself feel it, even when it’s washing over you in waves so high you don’t think you’ll be able to survive.”
Is he talking about what it was like after his mom passed? He had no one. I should have been there by his side, helping him.
But I wasn’t. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
I can defend my reasons all day long, and how I believed Z’s lies, but that means I’m nothearinghim or validating the pain he went through.
We were both fucked by life, and if I keep demanding furiously,no my suffering was worse, what pain-Olympics am I really winning?
“I’m standing here,” I say, whole body shaking. “I’m standing here right now, aren’t I? I came out of my room. I came out here, which is the hardest fucking thing I’ve done since admitting I share my son with you, and you’re yelling at me for not doing it sooner?—”
“Then fight with me.” He steps close, close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to hold his eyes. His voice is low and rough and not at all patient anymore. “That’s what you said you needed,right? So stop pulling your punches. I’m right here. Let me have it.”
So I do.
“Youletme go!” I shout, tears unleashed as I shove him hard in the chest.
It’s an unreasonable accusation. And unfair, especially now that I know Helen died that day.
But I still don’t stop.
“You didn’t come after me. I’m sure you thought you were respecting my choices or some noble bullshit, but the truth is you let me go and I needed younotto.”
Something detonates behind his eyes.
“You think I didn’t try?” His voice comes out rough and wrecked as he takes hold of my wrists where I’m still shoving at his chest. “You think I didn’t spend six months calling every number I had for you? You think I went off to Harvard and just—what, moved on? I showed up at your mother’s trailer, Harper.Three times.”
I wince. Oh God. He went toDarlene’s.
“She told me you were gone and she didn’t know where you were, and that I should stop coming around because it was upsetting her.”
I stare at him through my tears.