"Beth told me about these, too." He picked up the rose, held it out to me almost shyly. "Apparently, I've been leaving them on your doorstep every morning?"
"You have." My voice came out thick.
"I'd like to keep doing that. If that's okay."
I took the rose, brought it to my nose, and breathed in its delicate scent. "It's more than okay."
He helped me settle onto the blanket, then lowered himself carefully beside me, wincing only slightly. The basket revealed crusty bread, soft cheese, sliced apples, and two real glasses that he must have brought from the kitchen.
"It's not French toast," he said, gesturing at the spread with a self-deprecating smile. "But I managed not to burn or break anything."
"The bar is literally on the floor, and you're still proud of clearing it."
"I’d like to think of it as exceeding very reasonable expectations."
We ate in comfortable silence, the weak autumn sun warming our faces despite the chill in the air. I watched him struggle one-handed with the cheese knife, refusing to help until he finally, triumphantly, managed to cut a slice.
"Victory," he announced.
"Very impressive."
"I thought so." He handed me the cheese on a piece of bread, his fingers brushing mine. The contact sent warmth flooding up my arm.
"Can I ask you something?" he said after a moment.
"Anything."
"Tell me about your marriage. The real story." He met my eyes steadily. "Not the polite version. I want to know what you went through."
I took a deep breath. This was the part I hated talking about, the part that still made me feel broken and inadequate, even now.
"Seven years," I started. "Seven years of trying to have a baby."
"Charlotte—"
"No, let me. I want to tell you." I set down my bread, suddenly not hungry. "It started with hope. We were young, in love, ready to build a family. But then months passed. Then years. Then the doctors got involved."
He was quiet, but his hand found mine on the blanket.
"Fertility treatments are brutal," I continued. "Injections that leave bruises. Hormones that turn you into a stranger. Two-week waits that feel like suspended grief, because you're just waiting to find out if this time, this time, your body finally did what it was supposed to do."
"Charlotte." His voice was rough.
"And then the test comes back negative. Again. And you fall apart. Again. And then you pick yourself up and do it all over again, because what else can you do?"
A tear slipped down my cheek. He reached over and brushed it away with his thumb, the gesture so tender it made me cry harder.
"Our marriage became a medical procedure," I said. "We stopped being partners and became two people managing a shared disappointment. And then…" I laughed, bitter with pain. "Then she showed up on my doorstep. Pregnant. Without even trying."
"The affair."
"He chose fatherhood with her over the broken thing we'd become." I met his eyes. "And for a long time, I believed him. I believed I was defective. That I wasn't enough."
Miles grabbed my hand and looked me straight in the eyes. "He was wrong."
"I know that now."
"No." His grip on my hand tightened. "I need you to hear this. You are not defective. You are not broken. You’ll always be enough, especially for me.” His voice was fierce, almost angry. "That man's failure wasn't a reflection of you. It was a failure of his own courage. He couldn't handle real life, much less the messy, hard, beautiful thing that is love."
