I missed my pierbadly.
“Ryan, we can adopt,” Nikki said a few dayslater.
I was still depressed over not being able to give her a little baseball player with adimple.
“Are yousure?”
“Yes, Ryan. I love you. You can’t helpit.”
“I feel like I’ve let you down. And yourparents.”
“Ryan, forget them. I want to be with you no matter what. We canadopt.”
We talked until the early hours of the morning about adopting a little boy first and then a little girl a few years down theline.
“Maybe they’ll have dimples,” Nikki said with a smile right before she kissed megoodnight.
I rolled over and pretended to go to sleep. Too much burned through my mind. My parents wrecked me badly enough that I couldn’t have kids. I fell asleep with the ache in my stomach and woke up withit.
FEBRUARY2007
“Ryan,” Nikki called out to me while I was studying at mydesk.
“Huh?” I mumbled and started to re-read the paragraphagain.
“Ryan, I’m leaving,” sheannounced.
“Okay, where are you heading and when will you be back?” I set my pen down and swiveled the chair around. “It’s Saturday. Let’s go out to dinner tonight. I’ve beenwanting—”
What the fuck was goingon?
Next to her feet were three bags stuffed full. Her eyes were red, and when our eyes connected, she looked away. Usually, I was the one lookingaway.
“What…What are you doing, Nikki?” I could barely get the wordsout.
I felt like my body weighed a ton as I walked over toher.
“I’m so sorry,Ryan.”
“No, it’s okay. What, um…what did I do? I can fix it.” I hurried back to my desk and shut my books. “Is it the studying? I study too much, I’m sorry. I get my degree in May, then the studying will be gone and out of theway.”
“Ryan.”
Tears ran down her face.God no! Please don’t let her leave me.Ipanicked.
“I saved some money since I proposed to you and we can use it for a down payment on a house. We can find something with a yard, and you can have a garden since you love flowers and plants. I was going to surprise you at the wedding.” She wasn’t saying anything. “I’m sorry, Nikki. Please give me another chance. Tell me how to fix this,” Ibegged.
“Ryan, you can’t fix it. You can’t havechildren.”
I winced and leaned on the back of the couch. Since the news that I couldn’t have kids, Nikki had been reassuring me she still wanted to be with me and that we couldadopt.
“But, you said we could adopt. I’m all for it. We can give a couple of kids a nice home. My degree in May will bump me up inpay—”
“Ryan, I didn’t think that it was important to me to have my own kids. I just wanted to havekids.”
“So, what’s the problem? We both want them and canadopt.”
“Ryan, it turns out that having my own kids is important to me. But also,” her voicebroke.
