“Of what?”
“Being a dad?”
The question catches me off guard, but I swallow and choose the truth. “I’m terrified.”
He nods, as if he understands. “You were scared back then too,” he says.
I release a heavy sigh, the ocean to my right blurring as we round another bend. It’s not that I want to forget that time in my life, in fact my punishment should be the constant reminders, but I just don’t know how many times I can apologize for the same thing without it breaking me.
“Yeah,” I agree. “I was, and you hate me for it.”
Zale shifts in his seat, not looking at me anymore. “Well, you didn’t just leave her,” he says, voice tight. “You left me too.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“You were like…everywhere that summer,” he continues. “At my competitions, at the house, teaching me, yelling at me when I wiped out. And then suddenly I found out my sister was pregnant, that she lost her baby, that she wanted to die—” his voice cracks and he takes a pause to recollect himself. “And you were nowhere to be found except for on my television, winning gold, while I was watching my family fall apart in real time.”
I swallow, a painful lump forming in my throat. Before now, I never considered the weight that my decisions left on Zale’s shoulders. How I not only ruined his sister's life, but also a part of his.
“She went through hell,” he says.
“I know.”
“She needed you.”
My chest tightens and I take deep breaths to chase away the growing discomfort.
“I know.”
“I needed you,” he mutters. “And you weren’t there.”
The words land like a punch to my gut and I can’t hold back my frustration anymore. He already hates me anyway, there’s no point keeping it all to myself.
“I live with that every day, Zale,” I say. “You think I don’t? You think I don’t imagine what our life could’ve been like if I’d just stayed?”
He doesn’t answer, so I pull over and turn to face him because this conversation needs our full attention.
“What if I’d stayed and I’d convinced her to see a doctor the minute she felt the pains she was feeling? What if that couldhave saved our baby? What ifIcould have saved our baby?” I blurt out.
He watches me, a crease growing between his brows, but I don’t give him a chance to speak.
“I’m terrified to even ask your sister about it because I don’t know if she can talk about her, or if it hurts too much to think about,” I say, my own voice breaking, but I don’t care. “I can’t fix what I did, Zale,” I continue. “But I can try to make up for it every day for the rest of my life.”
He’s quiet for a moment, glancing out the window deep in thought. “What do you want to ask her?”
“What?”
“The baby,” he says, looking at me again. “What do you want to know about her?”
I shrug. “Well, for starters, I want to know if she gave her a name.”
“Gabriella,” he answers without missing a beat.
“W-what?”
“She named your daughter after you,” he says, staring straight ahead. “Her name was Gabriella.”
My chest caves in like someone’s driving a sledgehammer straight through my ribs. My vision blurs instantly as my tears spill over, and my breath becomes laboured and painful.
