“What difference does it make? Especially now?”
“Talking to the man you love about how you feel would make it easier for?—”
“For what? For him to lie and withhold the truth from me or die in an accident?”
I shake my head. “I can’t be with him,” I say, impatience lacing my tone. “How can I be with him, Kandace? Tell me? When he’s not truthful with me? He knows every time he puts on a racing suit my heart jumps into my damn throat and he still lied to me by taking me to that damn museum?
“How can I be with someone like that?”
There’s a long pause before she answers. “It sucks. I know,” she confirms. “But what if he was trying to protect you?”
I frown.
She pushes out a breath. “When Brian and I were dating, he lied to me about something.”
“About what?”
She hesitates. “His depression. He was diagnosed before we met and in therapy and treatment, but when I opened up to him about my sister, he thought telling me would cause a burden I didn’t need. So, he tried to keep it from me. Eventually, the truth came out.”
“As it always does,” I say around a sigh.
“We became stronger as a couple from it. He learned he can lean on me and that he doesn’t need to always be my rock. Sometimes I can be his because we’re a team.”
The words ‘a team’ ricochet through me. My dad often referred to our family as that, a team or a unit.
A knock on the door stops my train of thought.
“I’ll get it,” Kandace calls out.
It’s Mrs. Townsend, ready to head out to my appointment with Dr. Dupas.
A pang of guilt hits my chest as I eye Mrs. Townsend while we make the ten-minute walk. She’s been so great. Never once making me feel like a burden or impatient with me for hurting her son. Because I know the distance between us is hurting him.
“How do you not hate me?” I ask her the moment Kandace steps out of the waiting room to use the bathroom.
She frowns, cocking her head to the side. “The thought never crossed my mind.”
There’s an honesty in her voice that I can’t deny. Besides, Mrs. Townsend doesn’t come across as the type that would be nice just to spare my feelings.
“I don’t know, if someone kicked my son out of his own home, I might be a little bitter,” I say, honestly.
I run my hands over my belly just thinking about someone hurting my baby.
Mrs. Townsend chuckles. “That’s your home,” she counters. “Travis knows that and respects and loves you enough to give you the space you need. Plus, he knows he’s wrong for not disclosing the whole truth to you.”
She tosses the magazine she’d been reading back onto the glass coffee table.
“It wasn’t the nicest way to break up,” I admit. “You should be livid with me.”
I realize my words don’t make much sense. I think a part of me would feel relieved if she were even a little angry with me.
“Did Travis ever tell you that I was married before I met his father?” she asks.
I lift my head to look at her. I clear my throat.
“I’ve listened to some of your old podcasts,” I admit. “It really helped me a lot in organizing my finances.”
She smiles. “You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear so many women are still being helped from those podcasts.” She turns toward me, holding out her hands. “May I?”
