My mind flashes to the smile she gave me after I told her that I would do my best to communicate clearly with her. Such a simple fucking ask.
“I…” I clear my throat. “I read an opinion piece about three years ago now that finally convinced me to do it, though I’d been thinking about it for a while. The article made many thoughtful points about how men should have more involvement in the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and how there’s a movement of couples who are choosing to be childfree. The author talked about how they came to that decision for themselves and it honestly was such a… relief. A relief to see that someone else felt the same way I did. I love kids, hell I am a kid, but I’ve never felt the desire to have my own.”
Cole stares at me. For a really long time. Without saying a single word.
“Say something, Colette. Are you upset? I thought you didn’t want?—”
“How’d you come across that article?” she interrupts.
Fuck.
I look over her shoulder, scrunching up my face as I pretend to think about it. “A friend of mine posted it to their Instagram story, I think.”
“Hmm.” Her eyes are searching. Sheknows,but she doesn’t know how to ask. Finally she comes up with, “Does this friend have red hair and happen to be sitting in your lap right this very second?”
I nod.
“You got a vasectomy for me?” Her voice is quiet. Uncertain.
I nod again.
“What if you had met someone else?” she whispers. “What if you changed your mind? What if I had met someone else?”
She’s shaking her head now, frantic and a bit panicked.
“Hey, hey. Shhh, it’s okay.” I run my hands up her back, over her shoulders until I’m cupping her neck. My thumbs firmly hold the side of her face, fingers pressing against the base of herskull. She’s looking up, but I can see her eyes beginning to water. “Look at me, Cole.”
After blinking a few times, she finally makes eye contact, a single tear tracing down her cheek. “Don’t cry, Red. It’s fine, really.” I take a deep breath before admitting, “There was never anyone else. I wasn’t going to change my mind. If you had met someone else I would want to know you were happy. If you were, I would regret walking away from you when we were eighteen for the rest of my life. But that would be my problem to deal with, okay?”
“I’m overwhelmed,” she admits. “We hated each other. We?—”
“I never hated you.”
Cole lets out a sob at that, burying her face into my neck.
“Sweetheart, it’s okay.” I continue to rub soothing strokes up and down her back. “We’re good, we’re here. Yeah? It’s okay.”
She pushes back, tears streaming down her face. “I just need a minute,” she says, and then she’s gone, through the backdoor and into the cabin.
Before I can register what’s happening, before I can pull her back onto my lap, she’s simply gone.
I follow Cole into the house, wanting to respect her space but also wanting to make sure she knows I’m here if she needs me. I find her starfished on the king bed in the only bedroom in this cabin.
“There’s only one bed,” she mutters. Her eyes are closed, but she must sense me standing in the doorway.
“I figured we were past the point of sleeping in separate rooms, but I can take the couch if you need me to.”
She shakes her head side to side. “Can I ask you something weird?”
“Nothing can top me admitting I got a vasectomy for someone I wasn’t even speaking to at the time,” I joke.
“True…” She gives me a soft smile, opening her eyes to find me. “Will you—it helps sometimes to have like a weighted blanket, but we don’t have one of those here so can you…”
Cole gestures down toward her body in a limp way, as if it’s taking a lot of effort just to raise her arm.
“You want me to be your weighted blanket, Colette?” She nods, so I crawl onto the bed, over the top of her, lowering myself slowly so she’s getting some of my weight on her but not all of it.
I can feel Cole relax underneath me. “It’s stupid.”
