“What?” Snow’s eyes widen.
“I was happy. I knew we’d never talked about anything concerning our future, but so much about you and our timetogether felt right that when I learned you were pregnant, and I thought it was mine, I was excited. The thought of having a family with you?” My lips twitch. “When I learned you were four months along, I realized you’d hidden something from me and that trust I thought we had really wasn’t there.”
“No, Xander.” Snow leans against the table suddenly. “It is there! I… I know it looks like it wasn’t, but I was so scared of losing you.”
“But you still couldn’t tell me. Was it something I did that gave the impression that my care and feelings for you came with clauses attached? That I would be so cold as to turn my back on you?”
“No,” Snow replies. “But Xander, it wasn’t about you.” Her lips press into a thin line. “It was about me. And Caleb.”
My head tilts and I remain silent, waiting for her explanation.
“You have been such a gentleman. Some days, I couldn’t believe you were real. Everything about you is like a dream. Your kindness. Your attentiveness. Your romantic touch on everything. Even the way you pour your heart out. You’re a good man, I believe that. But me?” She laughs dryly. “I came right off the back of a toxic relationship where everything flipped so suddenly at the drop of a hat, where kindness was a tool just to get me to sign a lease or into bed. You’re not like Caleb, and maybe it was shitty of me to tar you with the same brush, but you can’t fault me for being scared because as nice as you were, history taught me that the possibility remained.”
In that moment, my perspective shifts.
While my hurt is justified, my way of viewing Snow’s outlook on things is flawed in the same way that I grew panicked whileAuriela was in the hospital at death’s door, and the way I couldn’t operate on Snow.
Trust in my skill and the skill of others didn’t prevent me from being scared that history was repeating itself.
I can’t fault Snow for having the same fear.
“I understand.”
Her eyes dart up to meet mine. “You… you do?”
“I do.”
“I…” Abandoning her mug, she wrings her hands together. “Are you angry?”
“No, Snow. I’m not angry.”
Her eyelids flutter. “At the hospital, you sounded angry.”
“We’re not in the hospital now.”
“You could lose your job.”
“Snow. Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“I tell you I understand and your instinctual reaction is to try and provoke anger in me, as if you can persuade me that actually, I’m wrong and I shouldn’t understand.”
“I’m not trying to provoke you,” she says stiffly.
“Aren’t you? It’s like a defense mechanism, isn’t it? Being understood is foreign so you look for ways to prove me wrong, as if there’s information I hadn’t considered yet. I’m well awareof my work situation but I’m now aware of your thought process. I’m not saying it stops the hurt. But I understand.”
“But why?” She squints at me. “How can you just… hear all of that and understand?”
“Were you lying to me?”
“No.”
“Then why wouldn’t I understand? It’s what we do when listening to people you care about. You listened and understood me, didn’t you?”
Snow nods slowly.
“Then this is the same thing.”
