I nod once. “Willow.” My voice comes out flat, colder than I mean. But maybe that’s safer.
She nods at the babies and chuckles self-consciously. “I still can’t believe I’m going to…birth three of these.” When I don’t answer, she shifts her weight between her legs and sighs, relaxing into a stance that doesn’t look normal but like a last resort. “Are you following me too?”
Too?The question annoys me, like she’s trying to slip that the others are still interested in her. I know that, and I don’t care. I won’t let myself be close to her. I know that families are constructs only some people get. I’m not one of those people. This whole situation has made that more clear than ever. I won’t delude myself that those are my babies or that she wants to be with me. “No,” I say wryly, swallowing and lifting my chin. Her eyebrows touch in confusion, and I add sarcastically, “I work here.”
“Right.” She smirks, her beautifully peach lips flattening into a line of annoyance, and she twists her body back to the NICU and then glances past me, down the hallway, like she’s already measuring the distance to the exit. “Well, I just didn’t know you worked near the NICU,” she mutters, trailing off, like the sentence is too bulky.
I keep my hands in my pockets because if I don’t, they’ll do something reckless, like reach for her. “I don’t, really. I just come here sometimes.”
Her eyebrows lift, and she waits politely for me to expand, but I don’t. I’m trapped by my own anxieties, unable to connect even if I wanted to. I can never tell that I want to until it’s too late. Finally, she exhales. “Hey, so, I know this is random, but Declan booked this Lamaze class for me this weekend?” She rubs her forehead with her sweatshirt and squints at me. “And Sean is going to come too, so it’ll be all of us and—” Her eyes flick toward me, hesitant but defiant. “You could come. If you want.”
“I don’t,” I say softly.
Any hope in her expression crashes, and her head jerks up like I’ve struck her. “Well. Good to see you.” Polite, clipped. She’s already moving past me, my presence so stifling she has to leave.
Before I can stop myself, I blurt out after her retreating form, “I know what you think is going to happen.
She freezes in the hallway, her head haloed like an angel. She turns around slowly, and her hand flies to her stomach like I’m a threat. “What?”
My throat tightens, but I’ve already cracked the door open. Might as well let it hit the wall. “Happily ever after, right?” My eyes dart to the ground and back to her. She’s staring at me, unmoving, like she’s afraid to scare me away. “Maybe you don’t know who you want it with, but you’re willing to try me out. But the thing is I’m not really built for that, Willow. I have…baggage.”
Her eyes soften, confusion giving way to something else. Concern, maybe. Pity. I can’t stand pity. “We all have baggage, Rowan. That doesn’t mean you don’t get to be happy.”
“No, that doesn’t meanyoudon’t get to be happy. My baggage isn’t meant for other people. I grew up in foster care—like, really grew up in foster care. Not one of those saintly adoption stories. Justgaffaftergaffand my things in bin bags. Nobody stuck.” My jaw locks. “I learned not to keep things or people.”
“You can unlearn that,” she says.
“I told myself that I’d never—” My voice cracks. I clear my throat, but it doesn’t fix the raw edge. “Never let anyone lie to me and tell me I belong again. Never expect to belong to anyone. Belonging means losing someone later.”
Willow laughs a wry, sentimental laugh, and I know it’s supposed to comfort me, but it sears into me. When I look at her, tears are shining along her waterline. She steps forward with just one foot, and her lips part, her hands stretching out to me. I can’t stand the thought of her telling me it’s okay or that sheunderstands.I don’t want to be validated or pitied. I just want to be swallowed up by my own admission.
“So that’s why—” she starts.
I know what she wants me to say. That’s why I’ve been cold. That’s why I’m not excited or involved. That’s why I’m not willing to pretend any of this is normal. But even admitting that is too much for me. I shake my head and drag a hand over my jaw. “That’s why what? That’s why I’m not fawning over you like those idiots? Because I’m scared?” I ask her sharply.
Her hands pull back in, retreating into hugging herself. A tight swallow moves across her throat, and she pulls her shouldersback. I can physically see her giving up on me. Just like that. I twist the knife for no reason other than the fact that wanting to be witnessed and the act of being witnessed are so different from each other. I want to be witnessed, and then as soon as I am, it’s too much.
“No, Willow, I’m notscared.Being scared would mean I already let myself believe a little, and I haven’t. Not at all. No, I’m not fawning over you like they are, because I’ve seen more than they have. Do you understand?” She meets my eyes, and I spit out, “I’m smarter than they are, so I am.”
I turn and walk away down the hallway before she can say a single word.
The hum of the machines swallows my admission for me, and I let out a sigh of relief that it’s behind me. Behind me with her and her green eyes and her unfallen tears that I could never catch and her outstretched arms that I could never hold.
“Rowan!” she calls after me, sharp enough to echo down the corridor. I keep walking, her voice echoing after me. “You’re still invited. To Lamaze. If you want.”
I don’t turn. I don’t trust myself to.
“You’re not the only one who’s been abandoned, you know!” she shouts, voice cracking this time. “I’ll be here whenever you decide you’re done with this whole wounded, cool-guy thing.”
I force myself to stop, to glance back just once. She’s standing in the dim hallway with her shoulders squared, green eyes bright with something fierce and wounded all at once. For a split second, I want to go back. To tell her I heard her. To tell her I’m sorry.
Instead, I nod once, sharp, the way soldiers salute when they don’t know what else to do, and I wave her off before turning away again.
The hum of the NICU fills in the silence I leave behind. It’s safer this way, I tell myself. She might not know it yet, but distance is the best gift I could give her.
As my steps echo, regret curls in my chest. I gave her all of my pain and didn’t leave room for hers. But Sean and Declan will be better for her. Sean will make her laugh. Declan will guard her like a fortress. They’re built for family, for warmth. I’m built for walls. For endings. For keeping watch from the cold side of the glass, like. She needs men who stay, men who can hold her pain without breaking.
Still, as I walk, the echo of her voice clings, raw and unshaken:You’re not the only one who’s been abandoned.And here I am, abandoning her again.
