He slowly moved his head from side to side, face wet. “No. I know. I knew it earlier. When Nate left and you came undone.”
“And that made it okay to go cheat on me with someone else?”
“No. It wasn’t okay. I’m just telling you why. I’m telling you how I felt. Knowing you loved someone else. Terrified that our marriage was over. That I’d pushed you into someone else’s arms because of my own guilt and stupidity. I’m hurting, too, Krissa. Just so you know.”
She sniffled in a quivery breath through her nose, then out, mouth pressed together to keep her lips from trembling. Her hands came together over her mouth and nose in an inverted V as she stared at him.
“I know. And I loved you, Derek. But—God help me—I want you to hurt, too.”
Only a horrible person would want that. Then she straightened her shoulders. She was not a horrible person. She was human. She was wounded, in pain, betrayed and heartbroken. Some day she might forgive Derek. But right now she’d admit she wanted him to hurt as much as she did.
Chapter 30
She went to stay with Cameron. Her parents had more room in their huge mansion where she could probably stay and not even see them for an entire week, but she couldn’t go there. Couldn’t bear to feel her mother’s censure and blame for her failed marriage. She already knew her mother had been horrified at catching her and Nate together that day, had been convinced Krissa was cheating on her husband.
And Krissa had a lump of guilt deep inside her that shehadbeen cheating on her husband.
Cameron’s house was noisy and crazy with two toddlers and a baby, although Cameron had just gone back to work. For two hours every morning, a whirlwind of frantic activity took place when Cam and Eric got the kids up, got them dressed, made breakfast, packed bags and exploded out the door.
“I’m exhausted before I even get to work,” Cam complained to Krissa one morning as she ran to change. They’d been on their way out the door when somehow one of the boys had tripped and fallen in the driveway. His nose started bleeding and he’d been crying so Cameron had scooped him up to comfort him and he’d bled all over her silk blouse.
Krissa took Benjamin to the bathroom to clean him up and get the bleeding stopped while Eric loaded Alex and Emma into the van. The least she could do while she stayed there was help. She tried to do what she could.
When everyone had left for the day and the house was blissfully quiet, she got into a routine of cleaning up the dishesCam always left in the sink and on the counter, knowing how much it would mean to Cam to come home and not have to worry about that at the end of the day. She threw in loads of laundry, started dinner for them. She had to keep busy.
She worked. She’d retrieved her computer and her files and books from the house, set up a cramped tiny office in a storage room above Cam’s garage where she slept on a futon. She scoured the newspaper looking for cheap apartments. She had money coming in, but damn, rent was expensive. She’d need to work harder on expanding her business.
So she threw her heartbroken self into approaching new clients, spent all her time working, e-mailing and researching when she wasn’t doing training. She needed to stay busy to keep from going crazy thinking about the mess her life was in and how much she missed Nate.
He’d been there every day with her, ready to listen to her talk about a client, celebrate a success, comfort her when things went wrong. They’d talked and laughed in the kitchen as they made dinner, and one afternoon as she peeled carrots alone in Cam’s tiny kitchen, a wave of loneliness swept over her so intense she almost dropped to her knees. She clutched the edge of the counter, took deep breaths, pain ripping at her insides.
She’d get over it. Of course she would. It would just take time.
Sometimes she tortured herself wondering what her life would be like. Would she be alone forever? Would she never have the family she’d always wanted? She’d thought she’d been so close, had agonized over having a baby and meanwhile her marriage had been disintegrating around her.
After two weeks at Cam’s place, Krissa found an apartment in Summerland. It was tiny, but cute, on the second floor of a two-story white wood building near the beach. Her neighbors included a surfer dude who reminded her of Nate and Derek ten years ago, two girls who looked barely old enough to live on their own and a young newly married couple sickeningly in looooove. No, it wasn’t sickening. It was sweet. But depressing.
She had nothing, but Derek told her to take whatever she wanted from the house. She wanted nothing, but needed to survive, so Eric and a friend of his with a truck helped her load up some basic furniture and dishes and move it into the apartment. Derek thankfully had been out at the time, probably deliberately.
The apartment building had a small pool, a pretty turquoise blue surrounded by bare concrete and some cheap plastic chairs, but sometimes in the afternoon she’d take her laptop down there and sit in the sun to work. She missed living beside the ocean. The vast, seemingly endless expanse of water had always served to put her own tiny problems in perspective. The little pool just didn’t have the same effect. Although it was water, and the sun sparkling off the gentle ripples, all the mingling shades of turquoise, aqua and azure, did have a soothing effect.
When her second month’s rent was due and she realized she’d been living there a month already, the passage of time surprised her. Each day blended into the next in a blur of automation. Thankfully she kept detailed notes in her day planner or she’d never know when to show up at her clients’ offices for meetings or workshops. One full month of living alone. Cooking meals for one wasn’t the same as preparing food for others, enjoying their pleasure from it. One full month of breakfasts, lunches, dinners. One full month of…
It was then she realized the one monthly thing that hadn’t happened since she’d lived there.
She hadn’t had a period.
She froze over her checkbook. Put a hand to her stomach. How long had it been?
Her last period had been the day Nate had comforted her on the beach. That was—she thought back—over two months ago. Her periods had always been wonky, but…not that much.
Shaking inside, she got to her feet and went into the tiny bathroom, opened the cupboard doors beneath the sink. She used to buy pregnancy tests in bulk, but did she still have…yes. There was one.
She didn’t need to read the instructions. She’d used so many of them, she knew exactly what to do, but her trembling hands made handling the tester clumsy.
She waited. Five minutes took forever. She sat on the side of the bathtub, drumming her fingers in a hollow beat. She checked her watch. Drummed her fingers. Checked her watch. Time.
She looked at the tester. Blinked.
