We make our way over to find thereisa lighter next to one. I hold it out to Ava. “Want to do the honors?”
“Gladly.”
As the letter catches fire atop the grates of the grill, I push all thoughts of who I was and what I might have done aside. Based on everything I know about who I used to be, there’s no way I’d have cheated on her. I feel it in my heart. Just as surely as I feel the three words inching their way toward the tip of my tongue.
But I don’t say them. Not yet.
When I do, I feel it will somehow solidify us together forever, and that requires me to be a thousand percent sure. So even though I’m close, I wait. I wait for the one thing—a sign perhaps—that will push me that last mile. Send me tumbling over the cliff. Catapult me into oblivion.
It's coming. I know it is. I can see it in her eyes. Like mirrors, they reflect the depths of everything I feel for her.
Chapter Forty-Five
Ava
“Is she kicking?” Leah asks, staring at my ever-growing bump as I press a palm to the side of it.
“Want to feel?”
It’s not the first time I’ve let others touch my belly. In fact, I love it. I celebrate being pregnant every chance I get. And at twenty-eight weeks now, there’s no hiding it. Not that I’d want to. I don’t even get mad when virtual strangers ask to touch my tummy. Because I’m having a baby.
I close my eyes and repeat the words in my head.I’m having a baby.
If the constant kicks, rolls, and hiccups didn’t remind me, I’d have a hard time believing it’s true.
The best part, I’m having her with Trevor. We’re going to be a family.
The past few months have been some of the best of my life. True to his word, he hasn’t gotten spooked. He hasn’t run away. He’s been the perfect, most attentive husband. He brings me flowers. Takes me on romantic dates. Rubs my feet. Fetches takeout whenever I have a craving. And he never fails to tellme how beautiful I am, even when I feel like I’m approaching beached whale status.
Sometimes it feels like we’re this young couple still getting to know each other. Still just dating. You know, if you take away the huge melon-size lump squishing between us when we make love, the house we’ve made into a home for our impending arrival, and the fact that I’m wearing the man’s rings even though he still doesn’t remember giving either of them to me.
It’s been almost six months since his accident, and there’s still no sign of his memory returning. Occasionally, little things will happen that let me know the old Trevor is still in there somewhere. An inflection to his voice. The way he cocks his head when working out a problem. When he absently sings along to an old song he used to love. But I no longer mourn the man he once was. Because I like us exactly the way we are.
I love us. I love him.
I don’t say it much. He knows it’s true. But repeating it puts pressure on him, pressure he doesn’t need. And even though he hasn’t said it, I’m almost positive he feels the same way.
I get the feeling he’s holding out because of me. Because I told him to wait. Maybe he thinks I need some sort of grand gesture. I don’t. But I’m patient because actions speak louder than words. And his actions—the way he looks at me, whispers to me, touches me… hell, the way hereveresme—all speak… no,screamto the level of his feelings. While the old Trevor would say the words every time we spoke, it was more like a habit, something you say in greeting and when you part. Something you say because you’re married and you’re supposed to.
I get the feeling the man I’m with now will only say them when he feels them to the very depths of his soul.
“She’s really moving around in there,” Leah says, amusement dancing in her eyes. “Don’t you just want to sit around all day with your hands on your stomach?”
I chuckle. “You have no idea.”
Because, yes, all I want to do is feel this new incredible life growing inside me.
What’s even better are the times when Trevor’s arms are around me and he feels her too. And there are a lot of those times. I’ve come to know that despite the lack of his spoken words, he not only loves me, he loves her. The way she kicks when he pokes a finger into my belly. The rhythmic motions of her hiccups. How he still looks at and touches the myriad of ultrasound pictures attached to our refrigerator.
Yes, Trevor Criss loves his girls, all right.
Jordan stops moving and Leah’s hand falls away. “You look really happy, Ava.”
“That’s because Iamreally happy.”
It’s a concept that still stuns me considering that five months, three weeks, and two days ago, I thought my husband was dead and my life was over.
And now… now I’m getting everything I ever dreamed of.
