I’ve had time to think and calm down.
Hopefully, Snow has as well.
As the water bubbles to a boil in the kettle, I watch Snow in the reflection of the glass cabinet holding my plates.
Her head is down while she runs her fingers through Rustle’s fur as she spreads across the table.
Willow lounges next to her while Tiger weaves around her ankles, then decides enough is enough and flops down on the floor next to her.
She’s pale.
The shadows under her eyes are darker than before and her form seems smaller than before.
My chest aches.
As much as I want to reach out to her and comfort her, we have to be honest with each other first.
With two mugs of tea, I approach the table and place one in front of her, then I sit across from her.
She wraps her hands around the mug and blows lightly on the top but she doesn’t look up at me.
Instead, she remains focused on the drink.
The silence stretches out between us until my churning stomach can’t take it any more. “Not to be blunt, but I need to know why you lied to me.”
Snow doesn’t move at first.
She continues to stare down at her drink while her lips purse as if they’re preventing something from escaping her mouth, then she lightly shakes her head and tucks some of her hair behind her ear.
“Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t entirely intentional?”
“Is that the truth?”
She finally looks up at me. “At first, it was.”
I grit my teeth. “No more lies. Please. Just tell me the truth.”
Something about her deflates and she slumps back in her seat. “I was scared. I got the news after I’d scraped everything about Caleb out of the living room and the kitchen of my apartment, only to find out that he’d put a baby inside me. We’d gotten drunk some months back at my birthday and I was lonely. He was sweet. I was a fool. He just wanted laid and now I have this.”
Her hand drops under the table, presumably onto her belly.
I drink slowly.
“I needed help at first. I was panicked, so I called my friend, but I somehow ended up helping her through her issues, and then she hung up on me and I felt so alone. I didn’t fully know how I felt about you other than the fact that I didn’t want to mess anything up. We’d just slept together, Christmas was coming, and I wanted one good thing this year, that’s all. I didn’t want to lose you and I knew that dropping a baby out of the blue would scare you off. It would scare anyone off. So…” She inhales deeply and the next words rush out of her. “I put it out of my mind and forgot about it so I could focus on you. On us.”
I continue to drink, fighting the urge to interrupt her with my feelings so that she gets out everything she needs to.
“And then it just… got bigger. I realized I was falling for you, and you were being so kind and attentive.” She leans forward and sinks one hand back into Rustle’s fur. “It was addicting. After Caleb, being treated like a desirable human was addicting. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I loved being here. I even lovedour secret. It was like everything I ever wished for was coming true and I just wanted to keep it all in this little bubble until after Christmas and New Year’s. That’s all. I wasn’t lying to hurt you. I was scared.” She pauses and her eyes close briefly. “I still am.”
When she opens her eyes, she finally looks right at me. “I didn’t hide it because I thought you would be a bad father, but I did think you wouldn’t want anything to do with another man’s baby. Or me. I mean we’ve been dating, if you want to call it that, since before Thanksgiving. That’s no time at all. A baby’s huge, and I just wanted to enjoy you for a while longer before my life truly changed.”
She lays it out in a rush, some words tripping over one another, but her points are clear and it sounds like she’s truly being honest.
“But,” she continues before I can speak, “my reasoning doesn’t change the impact of my actions. Even if you understand what I did and why I did it, that doesn’t change that it hurt you.”
My lips part but the words catch on the back of my throat, so I swallow and glance down at my half-drunk tea. “You’re right,” I say softly. “I… in some regard, I thought I had earned your trust. I thought we had passed over a boundary because I trusted you. I let you into my life, I told you about Claire, and I no longer cared about my job because you made me feel like I was alive again. And then to find out…”
I shake my head. “For a moment, in the theater, I thought the baby was mine and I was happy.”
