“Like general lessons and camps, which you don’t enjoy?”
The faintest smile appeared on his lips, a desperate single flash, before it was gone again. “At least home would be with you.”
“I’d be travelling too,” I admitted. “I go where the job takes me, and it’s not like you could pick up and come with me. It’s a lot of late nights, long days. I was barely home last year.”
The more I talked, the more I hated every word coming out of my mouth. Every syllable felt like another nail in the coffin, and I found myself turning desperate to see a bright side of it all,to find a way this works. Couldn’t we stay here? Squirrel away in the Highlands together? Ignore the world completely and just be…us?
“So, both of us travelling for work, hoping our time at home overlaps. Praying for even a few days together,” he summarized, my heart sinking painfully. He must’ve read the pain on my face, because he lowered his voice an octave or two, a gentle whisper as he said, “I’m playing it out.”
“I know. I just hate it,” I admitted. I swallowed down my fear, trying to make us face the secret I’d been holding back from him. “And then there’s the other thing.”
His face slacked, like he braced himself for another hit he couldn’t take. “What?”
“Do you want kids?” I asked.
I already knew the answer, I’d seen it on his face at Archie’s when he was playing with their children. He’d said he’d imagined having a big family like his own. He wanted the chaos and the noise and the screaming and the sticky hands.
“You don’t?” His voice cracked, and all I could do was shake my head in response. His shoulders fell, and I felt my heart shatter in my chest. “I mean, it wouldn’t be for years, and I’m sure we could find a way around the modelling. There are options.”
I shook my head again. “No, it’s not about my career.”
“It doesn’t have to be this big deal,” he reasoned. “I could change my mind.”
He could change his mind, but I never would.
I looked down at my plate. The bites of the sandwich I’d managed to swallow now felt like lead in my stomach. I needed something to take the edge off this conversation. Wine. A cigarette. A line of coke. Anything to change the way I felt, to take this heavy weight off my shoulders.
How do I explain?
How do I tell him?
How couldn’t he judge me?
I’d never told anyone, but I owed him this explanation. If we were considering this thing between us to become a long-term relationship, if we were playing it out, undergoing the postmortem while the patient was still breathing, then he needed to know.
“I already have a kid.”
eighteen
JONAH
Bigger Than the Whole Sky - Taylor Swift
Each one of those five words struck me right in the centre of my chest, leaving me winded.
“What?” My fingers gripped at the counter, trying to find the strength to stand.
“My ex,” she said. “We had a kid together.”
I searched her face for answers to the questions racing around my head. All I found was a stony resolve, a wall she’d built to protect herself.
With a deep breath, I tried to help her take it down. Brick by brick. “When? I mean…you’ve never mentioned them?” I asked, almost stuttering for a clear response. Did she think that already having a kid was a dealbreaker? “How old? You know, I’m great with kids, it’s not a prob?—”
“That’s not how it is.” She shook her head. “She stays with her father. I don’t have contact. Having another…it’s not an option.”
My brows crumpled together, trying to solve the puzzle. That wasn’t the Kit I knew, who gave up without a fight.
“How?” I asked.
