“What?” Jack asked from the doorway, his face pale. “Revenge? What baby?”
“Shit.” Maya looked like she’d just stepped in a pile of it. “I’m sorry. I meant—”
Ann blew out a breath. She hadn’t planned on telling him about the miscarriage. Ever. What good would it do but hurt him and her all over again?
“Maya, can you give us a minute?” Ann asked.
“And some space,” Jack added. “Tell the guys and Riley I’ll pay you back later.”
“Sure, sure.” Maya darted out of the room and closed the door.
Ann and Jack watched each other while the sounds of their friends leaving reached them. After a second car departed, she sat on the bed, not sure where to start.
“Ann?” He stood, his arms crossed. Defensive, worried, upset. “Is there a baby?”
“Yes and no.” She sighed. “It happened so long ago.”
“So you’re not pregnant now.”
“No.” She watched him carefully.
“Tell me. I need to know.”
She understood as much as she didn’t want to. “We used to be careful, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“But a few times we weren’t. One day I got really bad cramps. I thought I was having my period, but it turned out I wasn’t. I went to a clinic and found out. You know, the one we went to for the condoms? I should have just told my mom we were having sex and gone on the pill. But I was embarrassed.”
“I know.” He sounded so sad.
She blinked to clear her eyes. “Well, my bleeding was heavy. Too heavy for a period. I’d had a miscarriage. The baby wasn’t ever really there.”
“You didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to, but then there you were at lunch with Selena Thorpe.”
He blanched and sagged against a nearby wall. “Jesus Christ. That happened on the day we broke up?”
“Close enough. I’d lost the baby I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying. It hurt, but not as much as you’d think. We weren’t ready. I know I wasn’t. It was a relief, to tell you the truth. But yeah, it was sad. I wanted to tell you the next day, but you dumped me. It was a shock.”
“Shit. You thought I’d been sleeping with Selena. God, you must have hated me.”
“I didn’t know what had happened. It was all so confusing. The world just kind of fell apart in twenty-four hours.”
He just stared at her, silent. Then in a small voice he asked, “Did your parents ever find out?”
She shook her head. “Just Riley and Maya. I needed their support. I couldn’t tell you, of course. And my mom… It would have killed me to have her so disappointed in me. She loved you. Dad did too. But I mean, I was their little girl.”
In a hoarse voice, he said, “I get it. I do.” He stared at her, and she didn’t know how to feel.
On the one hand, revealing her secrets relieved her. But on the other, she hated seeing his pain. “I’m so sorry, Jack.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No. And it’s not yours either.” She left the bed to reach out to him. She stroked his cold fingers. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
“I guess not.”
