“Yeah, man. We’ve both made sacrifices over the past few months so that we can both keep doing what we love but also love each other.” He leans closer to the screen. “Because that’s what you do when youlovesomebody, Henley. You compromise and sacrifice and do everything possible to keep them in your life.”
My jaw is so tight right now that I think I might crack a fucking tooth. “And what if she doesn’t feel the same way? What if she doesn’t want both?”
“Did you ask her that?”
“No.”
“Then you’re fucking assuming, and you know what happens when you assume, right?”
“You make an ass out of you and me,” Elliot answers for him, shaking his head. “I had a law professor that said that all the fucking time.” He spells the word out phonetically. “Ass-u-me.”
I flash him my best deadpan stare. “Thank you for that enlightening explanation.”
“Well, it’s the fucking truth,” Fletcher adds. “You know, there’s something my therapist said to me that completely changed how I look at love now.”
“Okay…”
“He said we don’t fall in love with the other person as much as we fall in love with who that person allows us to be.”Fuck. “So let meask you this: Did Elodie allow you to be a version of yourself that you liked, Henley?”
I don’t even have to think about my answer. “Yes.”
The woman opened up my eyes to so much that I can’t even form my thoughts into words.
I know, shocking.
“Then that sounds like a person you should try to hold onto, no matter what obstacles stand in your way.”
***
“You nervous?” Elliot straightens the papers in front of him, sitting on my right at the conference table in his family’s law office.
“No.”
“Then stop shaking the table.”
“I’m not.”
He reaches down and pushes my leg into the ground, forcing my knee to stop bouncing up and down. “Yes, you are.”
A knock at the door interrupts my next reply, and Meghan walks in, looking freshly tanned and smiling from ear to ear. “Ms. Cooke is here,” Wendy, the front receptionist announces after Meghan walks past her.
“Thanks, Wendy.”
“Of course. Let me know if you need anything.” Wendy leaves just as Meghan takes a seat across from me.
“Hi, Henley,” she says, far too cheerily for my liking given the nature of this meeting.
“Um, hello.” Confusion swirls through my head as I take in the woman sitting across from me, wondering what the hell I ever saw in her that made me pursue her that night.
I can see the features in her face that our daughter inherited—her nose, her lips, and the shape of her eyes, but that’s it. There’s no warmth radiating from her, no empathy in her voice, and she certainly doesn’t seem conflicted about handing over her parental rights to her child.
Elliot clears his throat. “Good morning, Ms. Cooke.”
“Please just call me Meghan.”
Elliot nods. “Meghan. As my paralegal, Fiona, explained on the phone, we wanted to meet with you today for you to sign over all legal rights to your daughter, Remington Jane Clark.”
“Yup.”
