His head came up. Red eyes, wrecked face.
“All of it. Everything. I’m done.”
“Andrea...”
“Shut up and let me finish.” I took a breath. “I’ve known for a while. I think I’ve known since Whitebrook, maybe since you told me the truth on those porch steps. I understood why you did it. Your mother was dying, or you thought she was, and you made a terrible choice under impossible pressure. You shouldhave told me. You should have let me help. But I understood the why, even when I hated the how.”
My voice was shaking. I didn’t care.
“And I’ve been watching you for months. Every morning you showed up. Every time you didn’t push when I said no. Every time you chose patience over pride. I kept waiting for you to slip, to do something that proved I was right to keep my guard up, and you never did. You just kept being there.”
His hands tightened around mine.
“I believe you when you say you won’t do it again. I believe you because the man who sat in a car on my grandmother’s lawn for twelve hours is not the same man who walked past my desk with Lorraine on his arm. You’re not him anymore. I’ve known that for a while too. I was just too scared to say it.”
I listened to Alex’s heartbeat through the monitor speaker, strong and even.
“I sat in this bed for twenty minutes thinking our son was coming too early. Thinking about him being born into the middle of all this bullshit between us, all the walls I built, the hurt I was holding onto like some kind of trophy. And I decided I didn’t want that for him. I want him born into a world where his parents are okay. Where we’re not circling each other pretending we’re something less than what we are.”
I looked back at him. “I love you. I’ve been in love with you for a while and I was too stubborn to say it. So there it is.”
He stood up from the chair, leaned over the bed, put his forehead against mine. I could feel him breathing, shaky, his hand on the side of my face, his thumb tracing my cheekbone. His eyes were closed, lashes wet.
“I love you,” he said, rough, barely there. “So much it scares the hell out of me.”
“Yeah well. Join the club.”
He laughed, broken, wet, and I pulled him closer by the back of his neck and kissed him. In the hospital room with monitors beeping, our son’s heartbeat whooshing through the speaker, his tears against my cheeks. He kissed me back carefully, his hand cradling my face, and I felt the last wall come down. Not a crash. Just a quiet settling, like something that had been leaning finally deciding to lie flat.
A nurse poked her head in, saw us, and quietly backed out. I snorted against his mouth.
“We have an audience.”
“Don’t care.”
He sat back down but didn’t let go of my hand. I lay in the hospital bed with the monitors humming and the contractions still rolling through every few minutes, duller now but present.
“So,” I said. “Anything you want to tell me?”
He took a beat before he answered. “There are things happening with the pack.”
“I know.”
He looked at me.
“You’ve been tense for weeks, Finneas. You check your phone and then put it face down. You had six missed calls the other night that you thought I didn’t notice.” I squeezed his hand. “You’re doing it again. The thing where you carry shit alone because you think you’re protecting me.”
“Andrea...”
“That’s how we got here in the first place. That’s how we ended up broken. You decided to handle your mother alone and it blew up in both our faces. I just told you I love you. Don’t make me regret it by pulling the same crap.”
He looked down at our hands. “You’re right.”
“I know I’m right. So tell me. Tonight. All of it.”
“I will.”
“Promise me.”
