Suddenly, a hot wave of panic rises in my throat. Is he here? Thom? What if he followed me to the restaurant? What if he saw what happened between Martin and me in that alleyway?
Jesus, if he stalked Martin afterward, tried to confront him?—
I clench my hands into fists at my sides.Stop it.I don’t need to overthink this. Nobody here is paying any attention to me.Nobody cares. I’m just another face in the crowd, another one of the hundred or so travelers looking to get where they need to go.
The roar of the train fills my ears as it finally pulls up before me, and I force the thought out of my mind. Thom is trying to scare me. That’s what the note was about, getting into my head. And if he knew that he had succeeded…God, I would never be able to forgive myself.
I have worked so hard for so long to get him out of my head, and I’m not going to let him worm his way back in. That’s exactly what he wants, and I am not going to give it to him.
The doors to the train slide open with a hiss and I join the crowd sweeping inside, searching for a seat and soon giving up when I see how crowded it is. That was the one upside of being pregnant; people would always be quick to give up their seats to me, but now I’m just like everyone else.
I glance back to the platform just as the train begins to pull away. And for the barest second, I’m sure that I see someone staring back at me.
I twist my neck, jerking backward to get a better look, but before I can, the train has vanished into the tunnel, casting us all into blackness.
12
MARTIN
I stareat the computer screen before me, doing my best to keep my focus. I know I shouldn’t be letting my mind wander when I’m at work, but honestly, it’s been hard to keep her out of my head these last few days.
It’s Wednesday, nearly half a week since we saw each other at the restaurant, and it feels like my brain has been stuffed full of nothing but Lila, Lila, Lila ever since. The way she looked at me when she told me that she had thought this was something more, the moan she let out as she came around my fingers, the feel of her mouth on mine all over again, it was just…it has branded itself into my brain and that, unfortunately for everyone I work with, hasn’t left much room for anything else.
She hasn’t been in touch since she took off and left me standing in that alleyway—at least, not in any meaningful way. I texted her to ask if she got home okay, and she responded with a one-wordyesand left it at that.
Which doesn’t exactly help me clear my head on all of this. Not that I think it should be her duty to make things clearer for my sake. But fuck, after nearly a year, the chemistry between us isjust as searing as it was that first night, and I don’t know what I can do to shut it out of my mind.
In fact, if anything, it was even more intense this weekend—because now, she’s the mother of my children. A bond that ties us deeper than almost anything else in the world. And it hasn’t exactly helped to keep things formal between us. Now, we’re connected in some impossibly important way, and I can’t think of anything but the way I want to be a part of her life. Part of our children’s lives.
I haven’t seen the twins, Ross and Mathilda, since they came in for their appointment the other week, and I find my mind drifting to them all the time—how they’re doing, if they’re well, what developmental milestones they might be hitting by now. They’re just over two months old, and I know they’ll be starting to really connect with the world around them, understanding themselves as entities distinct from their mother and excited to figure out just how they fit into the world.
I haven’t done the baby thing since Thomas was a child, and I thought I never would again. Shit, maybe I’m romanticizing it in my head. Those late nights, early mornings, brutal long hauls—they’re not what I’m craving right now. But the thought of being there to hold them when they wake up for a night feed, walking them around the house until they fall back asleep, it’s something I can’t seem to shake. The little, intimate moments as they learn their place in the world, and assuring them that I’ll be there for them, no matter what.
I’m sure Lila would call me if there was anything she needed, but right now, it’s not about need; it’s about want. Iwantto be there for them and for her. I feel guilty even turning up for my shifts right now, knowing that she’s likely having to handle so much onher own, probably feeling like she has no business reaching out to me after the way things ended the other night.
And I’m partly to blame for that too. I’m the one, after all, who tried to keep things strictly professional and focused on the practical support of the twins. Not like I brought up the possibility of shared custody, or even weekend visits—I talked like they were a business asset and I needed to figure out how to manage them. Not exactly the words of a doting, devoted father.
Because I never thought I would have a chance to do that again. No, more than that—I never thought I wouldwantto do that again. Watching Thomas turn into the man he is has been a wrench worse than anything else I’ve been through, even my divorce, and it’s not even close. If I involve myself in the lives of the twins, then I might have to go through all of that again. I might have to watch myself make a mess of things twice in a row, and if things turn out as badly as they did with him…
I don’t know if I would ever be able to forgive myself. But at the same time, I don’t know if I would be able to forgive myself if all I ever did for those two was sign a check and hope for the best.
It’s not in my nature. Not how I was raised. My mother’s voice rings in my ears.Family is the most important thing in the world, Martin,she would always tell me.You can make bonds in a lot of ways, but bonds by blood can never be broken.
I don’t know if I believe her, at least to the same extent I did back then. But I can feel this tug deep within me, this insistence that I find a way to be close to my twins. Fatherly instinct? Something like it. Either way, I know I can’t force myself into their lives. I lost that chance when I walked out of the hospital room on the day they were born. Lila is right to have her doubts and keep her distance, even if things seem more complicated than that.
I check the clock—another couple of hours till I can head back to my apartment. Mercifully, I don’t have any more appointments today. I’m sure that whatever patients I might have had would have clocked how distracted I was at once. I have a few forms to file away, a few patient profiles to go over, and then I’m done.
Back to that empty apartment.
Before the twins were born, that place felt like a sanctuary, a break from the rush of the rest of this city life. But now, all I can think of is how much I wish the quiet were filled by something, anything. I want to hear children’s laughter echoing through the living room, the splash of water in the bath as they get used to their nighttime routine, the burbling of a young child just learning how to put their feelings into something close to words.
But I have none of it. Nothing. I don’t even have a lot of friends I can call on—most of them I met through Martha and, no matter how amicable the divorce was, they keep in touch with her over me. I don’t blame them. I would do the same. But sometimes, the gap between my home country and this place I’ve come to call home seems to stretch out for an eternity.
All at once, my phone buzzes against my hip. My heart sinks at first, wondering if this is another call from Martha, telling me what our son has been getting up to. I know there isn’t anyone else she can talk to about this, but that doesn’t mean I want to be the one on the other end of the line every time.
But when I lift it from my pocket, I see Lila’s name staring back at me. It takes an instant to clock that it is really her calling—she’s usually texted when she has reached out to me, if I’ve heard from her at all. Is this urgent, all of a sudden? I answer at once, not wanting to keep her waiting.
“Lila?”
