A soft knock at the door is a welcome surprise.
“Yeah?” He sits up, fussing with the blankets for no other reason than nerves.
Addison pops her head through the cracked door. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No. Come on in.”
She approaches the bed with a shy bite of her lip. “Can I sit?”
Can she join him? Is she kidding? He’s never wanted anything more. He gives her a nod, and she takes up the space beside him with bent knees, tucking her bare feet under the blanket.
“Emma is asleep, and I…told her, but I’m not sure she really understands why it happened,” she admits, fiddling with her empty ring finger. “I don’t either, really.”
He doesn’t think she’s purposely trying to draw attention there, but that’s what happens all the same. “You took it off.”
“I should have sooner. I was afraid that if he came back, he’d see it gone and be angry, but I’m not afraid anymore. At least, not about that.”
“How are you? Really?” The thing about hard conversations is that he’s never been good at them in the slightest. He is talented at avoiding them. He would often get lost in the air if he could, letting the clouds clear his mind rather than facing any hard truths. Maybe that’s why his own marriage ended.
“Still bleeding. If you want the gruesome truth. Not as badly, though, so at least there’s that. I’m not sure how to feel, and even that…not knowing which emotion to go with, feels wrong somehow.”
“I don’t think there’s any right or wrong way to handle this.”
She is quiet for a long moment, leaning her head back against the pillows, before she speaks. “I didn’t get pregnant because I wanted to, Wyatt. Both times. It was expected of me. It was the natural course of things. Get married. Have babies. Repopulate a broken world. It was my duty as a wife.” She runs a hand over her face with a wince at that last sentence. “Stupid. Stupid. I love Emma more than anything left on this planet, but I couldn’t be happy about this baby. I kept pretending I wasn’t pregnant. It felt too risky to get attached, all things considered, and so I didn’t let myself. I ignored it. Maybe if I hadn’t…”
“You can’t go down all these rabbit holes.”
“I cried for hours while you were gone, but now I feel relieved that I won’t be bringing another child into this world only to risk losing it the same way we saw Jeff and his daughter get tackled by the herd. That’s what’s waiting out here for anyone brand new. Maybe what happened today was a gift by comparison. Am I horrible to feel that way?”
“You’re not horrible. I’m just sorry you were here alone.”
“It’s better Emma wasn’t here.”
“Hey.” He offers her his hand, palm up. His nerves calm when she takes it. “I know that, but I still wish I’d been with you.”
Her lower lip wobbles as she leans toward him to rest her head on his shoulder. “Me too.”
“You’re gonna be alright, sweetheart.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. You are.”
“Can I stay here a while?”
“Long as you need.”
He isn’t a cuddler, but lifts his arm anyway in tentative encouragement.
She doesn’t know how to nestle any more than he knows how to hold someone, but they fight for it anyway when she presses against his chest. It’s intimate in a way he thought only existed for other people.
“Relax, I only bite if you ask me to,” she says, no doubt feeling the tension in his body, he can’t shake. “Did my poorly timed and highly inappropriate joke calm you at all? I can try another if you like?”
“Keep going, and I’ll fire you,” he deadpans.
“You’ll rehire me.”
“I will not.”
