He nods once. “I know.”
We end up sitting in silence. Not the comfortable kind. Not the kind that means everything’s okay. The kind where every breath feels too loud and every movement feels like a mistake.
Kade perches on the edge of the chair opposite me, forearms resting on his thighs, hands loosely clasped. He doesn’t look at me at first. I stare at the mug between my palms, watching steam curl upward like it’s trying to escape.
Eventually, he clears his throat.
“How are you doing?”
The question is tentative, careful, like he’s afraid the wrong word might cause me to explode.
I swallow. “I’m fine.”
He nods, accepting it even though we both know it’s a half-truth. “And . . . the pregnancy?”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Tiring. Emotional. Weird.” I give a small shrug. “Normal, I guess.”
“I’m always wondering,” he admits quietly. “Yah know, how you’re feeling, if everything’s going well.”
“You only had to text,” I whisper bitterly.
“Yeah, and I was always going to.” He sighs heavily. “That’s a lie. I convinced myself you were better off without me. Both of you. After everything, I didn’t think I deserved a family. I still don’t.”
I don’t respond because I don’t have the energy to stroke his ego anymore. To convince him he’s deserving when I’m not even sure he is.
He huffs out a breath, almost a laugh. “I Googled it.”
I glance up despite myself.
“While you were in the kitchen,” he adds. “Apparently, it’s about the size of an avocado now.”
My lips twitch before I can stop them. “Tom said that earlier.”
“Yeah?” His eyes soften just a fraction.
“We’ve made some good friends,” I tell him. “They’re all excited about the baby.”
“That’s good. You’ve found a support network. It says it’s important,” he mutters, holding up his phone to explain his sudden fountain of knowledge.
Another stretch of silence falls, and I realise just how far apart we’ve grown. This is the same man I’ve told everything to for the last few years. The same man who’s seen me completely naked and done unspeakable things to my body. And here we are, struggling to make conversation.
“It feels real,” he says quietly. “Seeing the scan picture, seeing you growing.”
“Yeah,” I agree, “It’s happening, whether we’re ready or not.”
He nods slowly. “Did you get bad sickness?”
“A little. In the first few weeks. I thought maybe it was the stress of everything . . .” I trail off.
“And you did the test,” he says, like he’s trying to think back to those days when he was never around.
“Yeah. You were crashed out in the office.”
A look of shame washes over him, and he stares down into his drink. “And you didn’t think you could tell me?”
I shrug. “It was just another thing,” I mutter. “Another thing I didn’t want to bother you with.”
“Eden,” he whispers, his frown marring his brow, “you were never a bother. You could have told me everything.”
