He sighs into the phone. “I don’t know.”
The hair on the back of my neck rises. “What’s going on?”
“Deirdre dropped by my place three times yesterday. Each time she had some ridiculous excuse, but I know it’s bullshit. She’s spying on me, Kiki.”
Well, there it is. The sign I asked the universe for, in cruel and immediate technicolor.
Deirdre isn’t bluffing.
“I told her that you and I agreed to put space between you and Theo for a while,” Eddie continues, the frustration roughening his voice. “But she doesn’t believe me, which is—“ Hecuts himself off with a hard exhale, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You know what? Never mind. This isn’t your problem to carry.”
But it is my problem, Eddie, because I caused it.
“How are you?” he asks, his voice gentler now.
But I’m not up for a chat. Not when my world is ending.
I sink against the arm of the couch, too tired to stand any longer. “I’m really beat. Can we talk later?”
“Yeah, of course. Just know that I miss you. Get some rest, beautiful.”
Beautiful? God. Could he be further from the truth?
“Okay,” I whisper. “Have a good night.”
I end the call and stare at the phone for a moment, before pitching it across the room.
It lands with a soft thump on the chair, completely unharmed. Guess I’m lucky it didn’t shatter, considering I don’t have the funds to buy a new one.
Time to weigh my options, not that I have a plethora of them.
I can tell Eddie the truth and beat Deirdre to the punch, laying it all out for him exactly the way Mr. Howard did for me. I know precisely what Eddie will do. He’ll get angry—and rightfully so. Then he’ll fight.
He’ll retain a lawyer, drag Deirdre into court, and the two of them will spend the next God knows how long dredging up every ounce of dirt and resentment they can find on one another. There will be no more easy co-parenting, no more familiarity, no more goodwill left to cushion the hard parts.
Just a war zone. A bloodbath wearing legal stationery.
And Theo standing in the middle of it.
Eddie and Deirdre might survive, but Theo’s six. He deserves better than to become the target at the center of a witch hunt that started because of me.
That’s one version of the future. A version I can’t abide.
The other version is one I barely let myself start wanting.
Me and Eddie together, a house full of noise, sawdust, and laughter. A few years from now, the three of us in the yard while snow falls around us in fat, lazy clumps. Maybe even a new baby bundled on my hip.
A life that feels soft instead of brutal, and a love that lasts forever.
But a darker thought slithers right behind it.
What if Eddie fights for me now, and then turns around one day and hates me for the damage I caused? What if after all the bloodletting—after all the money and rage and wreckage—he looks at me the way everyone else in Sparkwood does and realizes I was never worth the cost?
What if he regrets knowing me? Blames me for ruining his life?
If I stay, I ruin all of them.
If I leave, I only ruin us.
