“I would have been there for you, for him,” he said, softer now. “You never gave me a chance.”
Finn stood abruptly and started pacing. “I’ve pictured having a family a million different ways,” he muttered. “Like something for later. But I still hoped that one day…”
He shook his head, jaw clenched. “All this time I had one. A son. And I didn’t even know.”
He turned to look at her.
“Do you have any idea what that’s like?” he asked. “To find out your kid’s been walking around without you, wondering where his dad was or if he even cared?”
He dragged a hand down his face.
“I don’t know what he likes or dislikes. Not his favorite food. His favorite color. I don’t know him.”
His voice broke, and he turned away from her, swallowing hard.
“I don’t know him.”
The silence stretched between them.
Lainey didn’t move.
She couldn’t.
Her stomach roiled. Her throat burned. She wanted to speak. Wanted to explain. But nothing she said could possibly make any of this okay.
He was kind of right. She had stolen moments from him. Told herself she was protecting her son by not seeking Finn out after he didn’t answer her letters. But part of her had just been scared. Thinking he didn’t want them or would leave her all over again.
Lainey swallowed hard. “You left me that night,” she said quietly. “You snuck out. No note. No goodbye. I stayed at that motel for hours before they kicked me out. Then I sat outside waiting for you until it got dark, until I finally took a taxi home.”
Her voice cracked. “When I found out I was pregnant, I was already at school.”
She stood, her knees trembling, and took a step toward him.
He didn’t turn around, didn’t move. She could see the tension in his shoulders. His hands were balled into fists.
“I never wanted to shut you out,” she whispered. “But when I never heard back from you, I thought maybe I was just a girl you slept with before heading off for the next thing.”
She paused. “I didn’t want Luke to have his heart broken the way mine had been.”
For a long few minutes, Finn didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Lainey stood frozen, her heart pounding. She braced herself for blame, for anger, for the final shattering of whatever was left between them.
Then he turned.
His eyes found hers, stormy brown eyes full of confusion, regret.
“You think I would’ve just walked away if I’d known?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t know what to think. You never came back or called. I waited for you, Finn.”
“I wasn’t coming back,” he replied, shaking his head. “I thought I was doing the right thing by you. You had dreams. College. A whole life to build. I had nothing figured out. I didn’t want to hold you back.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “I thought I was doing the right thing by you.”
Lainey swallowed hard. “I didn’t need space. I wanted to make it work with you. We could have made it even with you deployed and me going to school. I wrote to you as soon as I found out I was pregnant.”
“You wrote letters?”
