I’m torn between panic and disbelief, the shock of what I just learned buzzing through me.
“If I hadn’t come,” I say, my voice raw. “If I hadn’t seen that picture… would you have ever told me?”
Emma sits on the edge of the couch, straight-backed, arms hugged tight around her middle. “I would have. I was going to, the night we went to the game. But you pushed me away.”
I can’t sit. My body feels too wired, too tight, like my skin doesn’t fit. I pace around the small space, feeling too big, like a bull in a china shop.
“Why did you leave, Emma?” I finally ask.
She lets out a shaky sigh and chews her bottom lip, eyes fixed on her hands like she’s afraid to look at me.
“I found out I was pregnant right after graduation,” she says quietly. “You were packing for college… getting ready for pre-season. You were finally getting your shot, Liam. Everything you’d worked for was right in front of you. And I?—”
She swallows hard.
“I wasn’t ready to be a mom. Not even close. And I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”
She goes quiet, her voice hitching. “I made an appointment. I thought I could go through with it, but when I got there, I just panicked.”
“You couldn’t do it,” I say gently.
She shakes her head, eyes shiny, and finally meets my eyes. “No. I couldn’t. I saw the ultrasound, and everything inside me changed. But after that… I didn’t know how to tell you. You’d been through so much already. I didn’t want to drag you into it; I didn’t want you to feel trapped, thwarted, or resentful. I just wanted you to play hockey, get your degree, and go to the NHL. I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to choose between your dreams and… me. Us.”
My jaw tightens.
“So you made the choice for both of us,” I say, and the hurt in my voice is impossible to hide.
She flinches a little. “I thought it was for the best?—”
“For who?” I press. “Emma, we could have figured something out. We always did.”
“Maybe,” she whispers, eyes dropping to the floor. But something about the way she says it tells me there’s more.
I cross my arms, waiting. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She looks up, “I never even told Talia this. The day after the clinic, I went to your mom’s. I was a mess, and I just… needed to talk to someone. So I told her.”
My eyes narrow. She doesn’t have to tell me more. I can imagine just how that conversation went.
Emma’s breath shudders. “She… She called me a whore, Liam. Said I’d ruin your life. She screamed at me. Told me to go jump in front of a bus. Or better yet, get on a bus and never come back. So I did. I bought a ticket and rode it all the way to California, to Talia.”
I stare at her, stunned. “You listened to my mom?” I ask, and I can hear the disdain dripping from my tone. “My mom, who was drunk twenty out of twenty-four hours a day? Who had a different boyfriend every other week? Who let those boyfriends beat the shit out of her only son? You let that woman tell you what to do or how to feel?”
Emma wipes the tears streaking down her cheeks.“She said you’d end up hating me for fucking up your career plans. That you’d never forgive me for trapping you.”
“You should have told me, Emma,” I say as I move closer and sit down beside her on the couch. “You should have let me decide what I wanted, how I felt.”
“I know,” she says through her tears.
“Did I ever make you feel like I didn’t love you?” I ask. “Did I ever give you any indication that I wouldn’t have wanted a family with you?”
“Not at eighteen,” she says.
“Fuck that,” I say. “Emma. Seriously. Did I not make it clear that I wanted to make a life with you?”
She groans, a pitiful sound. “It doesn’t matter now, Liam. Not when Laddie and Talia are gone. That’s all that matters right now.”
I just sit there, head in my hands, trying to take it all in. The reason she left. The secrets. All the lost years.
