He doesn’t speak.
Not until we pull up to the curb.
I reach for the door handle, but he grabs my wrist. Not hard, just enough to make me stop.
His voice is hoarse. “Is this really what you want?”
I turn, eyes shining with unshed tears. “It’s not about what I want, Liam. It’s about what I need. And I need to protect them. Even if that means protecting them from you.” I pause. “You need therapy, Liam. And you need to figure out your shit.”
He lets go of me like I burned him.
I climb out, slamming the door shut behind me. My suitcase thuds onto the sidewalk.
And just like that I walk away again.
But this time, I don’t look back.
Because if I do, I won’t survive it.
24
My life returns to what it was before.
Routine. Predictable. Quiet.
I wake up at dawn in my little apartment above Connie’s garage, my body already queasy from the moment my eyes open. Morning sickness has become my alarm clock. It’s merciless, consistent, and entirely inescapable. I throw up. I rinse my mouth. I braid my hair with trembling fingers and head out into the rising sun like nothing’s wrong.
At the ranch, the world is earthy and raw and alive. There’s no room for self-pity here. Cattle don’t care if your heart is broken. Fences don’t fix themselves. I mend, haul, shovel, sweat. The physical work is brutal but necessary. It keeps me from thinking too much. Most days.
But the nights?
The nights are a different story.
When the sun disappears and the ache settles into my bones, when I crawl into that narrow bed with no one but myself and my swollen, shifting thoughts… I fall apart.
I cry myself to sleep more nights than I can count.
Not sobbing, just quiet, exhausted weeping. The kind that leaves your pillow damp and your throat raw. The kind that steals your breath in the dark when no one’s watching.
And every time my hands drift to my stomach, I whisper the same thing.I’m sorry.
One day, when the sickness is worse than usual, I finally break down and tell my mom.
She clutches her chest with both hands when I say the word pregnant. Her eyes shine, her voice thick with joy and disbelief.
“Oh, sweetheart. Twins?” she says, smiling through the emotion. “That’s the most beautiful surprise.”
But I don’t smile back. I crumple. Right there at the kitchen table, I break. Sobbing so hard I can’t breathe, my body shaking with the grief I’ve tried so hard to swallow.
“I miss him so much, Mom,” I gasp. “I don’t want to, but I do.”
She pulls me into her arms without hesitation, rocking me like I’m still small. Like the pain isn’t bigger than both of us.
“You did the right thing, hun,” she whispers into my hair. “You set boundaries. You gave him a chance to step up. And if he can’t accept that then you and these babies are better off without him.”
I want to believe her. I do. But nothing feelsbetterright now. Just empty.
One month goes by.
