“A few months before we…” Michael had the good grace to stop himself before he made it sound like our breakup was a mutual decision. “It’s been over a year now, I suppose. She called me, crying. She was up to her same old shit, but this time she wound up knocked up without a place to stay. She wanted me to send money so she could get a place of her own. If it been the first time—or even the tenth—she had called me with a request like that, I might have helped her but I was over it. I told her that if she needed me to, I’d have a lawyer draw up documents so I could take care of the baby until she got her life in order.”
“If you had told me, I wouldn't have made you choose between me and the baby,” I protested. “I know I'm young, but I'm not heartless. I could have helped you.”
“I know that, Danny. You have a huge heart, and you would have been so damn good with him.” He flashed a sad smile and cleared his throat. “And if that was the end of it, maybe things would've been different.”
He let out a loud sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. He muttered something under his breath as he shook his head.
“Instead of starting to work on herself, things got even worse after that,” he continued. “Less than a month later, she called me from jail. She'd gotten picked up for possession with intent to deliver. Apparently, her idea of getting her life in order was finding a dealer who didn’t mind taking advantage of a pregnant woman who had no other options.”
“But she did,” I insisted. I clenched my jaw to keep from telling him what a selfish idiot his sister was. If she didn’t want a kid, she shouldn’t have been out fucking around. I wasn’t even going to ask if the baby’s sperm donor was a boyfriend or a paying client. I didn’t know her, hadn’t known she existed until moments ago, so it wasn’t my place to pass judgment on her. “She had to know that wasn’t a smart decision. Why would she take risks like that with a baby on the way?”
“She's never been the type to think logically. She feels like the entire world owes her something and the easiest way to make the most money is what she’ll keep doing.” It was hard to believe the two of them were raised by the same parents. Michael was loyal and a hard worker. Then again, no one could claim he’d been logical, either, when it came to handling this entire mess.
“So anyway, she was sitting in a jail up north, pregnant, with no way to make bail before her court date. Do you know how hard it was for me to stand by my refusal to give her any more money?” His eyes were glassy and unfocused as he stared straight ahead. “Even now, there are times when I wonder if I did the right thing. I look at Henry and wonder if he would've been enough for her to change.”
“You can't beat yourself up. And it’s not fair to Henry to expect his mother to totally straighten out her life just because he came along. Chances are, he’d have been worse off if you had just given her the money and she kept doing what she was doing.”
I threaded my fingers through Michael's, only sparing a fleeting thought for whether Blake would be okay with me sitting here comforting him. As soon as I had a chance, I was going to call him and let them know about this turn of events. I didn't want to hide anything from him but, right now, it felt like Michael needed a friend.
“I know that, but I feel like I'm always going to have these nagging doubts in the back my head,” he admitted. “And I'm not sure I'll ever forgive myself for what I did to you.”
“Why didn’t you trust me with this?” This was the question I needed answered in order to gain closure and move on with my life without any regrets. Michael and I hadn’t been at the point of planning a wedding or talking about starting a family, but he knew I loved kids. If he’d just told me what was going on, I could've helped him.
“It's not an excuse, but the only explanation I can offer is that I wasn't exactly thinking straight. I was trying to do right by everyone and I failed. Knowing that Henry would be a part of my life, I didn't feel like I could be the partner you needed so it was easier to let you go.”
I ran over what he’d told me. Him getting irritable about me being too needy started around the same time as his sister’s first call. Fuck. If I’d known, maybe we could have worked on finding a compromise.
No. I wasn’t even going to go there. I was happy with my life now, and there was no point in playing the what-if game.
I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. I wanted to scream at him for treating me like our relationship was a transaction. I wanted to hate him for letting me think my love for him had been reduced to a payoff deposited into my bank account.
But seeing the raw anguish in his eyes, I believed him. When I set aside my battered heart, I could admit that his actions were out of character for him.
“All you had to do was tell me the truth,” I whispered. “Do you have any clue how much it hurt to have you throw money at me and walk away? It made me feel like I was disposable.”
“No, sweetheart. You were far from it. And losing you is a mistake I'll regret for a long time to come.” His voice cracked. He rested his forearms on his knees. His head fell forward as if holding it up was too much effort. “Looking back, I can count all the different ways I could've made better decisions. But then part of me feels like it I couldn't do right by you, and if I could hurt you this badly, I never really deserved you.”
“You have to stop beating yourself up,” I insisted. “What's done is done, and I think both of us know that we were never going to be one another's forever person. I didn’t deserve you making it seem like I was the reason for our breakup, but I’m not going to hold it against you. Life’s too short for that, and honestly, you did me a favor.”
“How’s that?”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I wasn't surprised to see a text message from Carson asking if the two of us had killed one another. I chuckled and pushed myself up off the ground. Once I was upright, I offered a hand to help him up. “If we don't get back there soon, I'm pretty sure they're going to come looking for us.”
“You're probably right. And I need to grab Henry's diaper bag out of the car,” he said as he brushed some dirt off the back of his pants.
Our fingers brushed as we walked side-by-side, and I couldn’t help but notice the lack of the zing him touching me used to send through my entire body. Michael was once my entire world, but now I only hoped we could eventually be friends again.
“It's so weird seeing you do the dad thing,” I teased. “Don't take this the wrong way, but I can’t see you doing spit up and poopy diapers.”
“No offense taken. It wasn’t exactly something I dreamed of having in my life, but I wouldn’t trade that little guy for the world.”
My chest ached seeing how his face lit up when he talked about Henry. Someday, I hoped to have my own family to gush over. I didn’t even care about the nastier parts of parenting as long as I was raising a family with the man I loved. When I closed my eyes and imagined that future for myself, it was Blake’s face I saw smiling back at me.
We were almost back to the Community Center when Michael realized I hadn't answered his question. “So, are you going to tell me how me being the complete dick turned out as a favor to you?”
“I will,” I promised him. “We’ll catch up more later. I need to get inside for family pictures.”
Michael's expression turned dark. I hadn't meant to shine a spotlight on the fact that he was no longer family. I gripped his shoulder, pulling him in for a hug. He looked like he needed it. “Hey, we'll talk later. I promise.”
