I can’t put Avery through that.
Anxiety filled every crevice of his chest with white-hot staticky pain. He lifted a hand to rub at his chest to relieve the pressure, but it didn’t help. He was no stranger to this type of pain, the kind that came from losing the love of his life. Because that’s what Ava was and what she always would be to him. But his responsibility as a parent came before any desires he had for himself.
“Want to talk about it?” Matt’s question interrupted his spiraling.
The two of them were standing in the hospital cafeteria. How Owen walked there without realizing, he’d never know.
He met his best friend’s concerned gaze. His friend who stood by him after the first time he lost Ava, who stepped in to be an uncle to his son, whose loyalty never wavered. Owen’s heart squeezed painfully in his chest, begging him not to listen to his head. Matt would understand where he was coming from, of anyone. And right now, he needed Matt’s objectivity to tell him he was making the right decision.
“I have to end things with Ava.”
Chapter 33
The Past
Summer sat in Matt’s vacated seat and busied herself with her phone instead of acknowledging Ava. Avery snuggled closer to Ava with his eyes closed, oblivious to the awkward tension between the two of them. They hadn’t been alone since their fight at the cabin weeks ago.
Avery’s breathing evened out, his back rising and falling rhythmically.
“I think he’s asleep,” Ava whispered, a fond smile on her face as she gazed down at him.
She chanced a glance at Summer sitting on Avery’s other side who steadfastly ignored her.
“Are you still mad at me?” Ava ventured after several beats of silence. She hated the silence between them. It caused her chest to tighten with even more anxiety given the situation.
Summer looked up from her phone and frowned at Ava.
“I don't know,” Summer sighed. Her shoulders slumped in resignation.
Ava debated what she could say to smooth things over between them. She missed her best friend, and since she was planning to stay, she had to make things right with her. So she decided to go with the truth.
“Almost exactly ten years ago, I was pregnant,” Ava whispered.
Summer’s head snapped up, her mouth dropping open in surprise.
“It was the summer I started my internship at the Grand Bohemian. Owen had just graduated and was about to start culinary school, I still had two more years of college left. That was the first full summer I didn't spend here in Cedar Falls.”
Summer nodded. “I remember. Owen was grumpy the whole summer without you here.”
Ava smiled sadly, remembering how hard their separation had been on Owen that summer. How the short visits he made on her weekends off were filled with an almost desperate longing in the moments they spent together.
“That summer I was so busy. Between working long hours at the hotel trying to impress the managers and going out at night with my coworkers, I was running on little sleep and a lot of stress. I didn’t even notice the missed periods.”
Summer nodded, but stayed silent, willing her to continue.
“When I finally managed to come up those two weeks in August that summer, I had time to breathe and knew something wasn’t right. We took the pregnancy test together. He was so excited by the prospect. Before we even saw the results he was planning our future together in Cedar Falls, talking about me leaving college and staying here permanently. He was so happy. But I was terrified.”
Ava looked down at Avery and smoothed a hand down his hair. She dreaded telling Summer this next part.
“You have to remember what my mom was like. Always talking about not relying on a man to take care of me. How much she hated living in this town raising three small kids with my dad before they divorced. Always pushing me in school and my career to excel. And when Owen brought up leaving Columbia to raise a baby, all I could think about was how I was a failure. How I'd disappoint my parents. I was only twenty.”
Ava blinked back the unexpected tears that sprang up with the memory.
“And then the test came back positive.”
“Oh, Birdie,” Summer whispered.
Ava choked down the emotion clogging her throat and pushed through the rest of the story.
