I reach for his hand, holding on to it because I need something to ground me. My heart is like a jackhammer in my chest and there’s a ringing in my ears. I almost can’t bring myself to look into his eyes but I do, blown away as always by the sight of them.
“I’m pregnant, Matteo.”
The words leave me and then the room goes very, very quiet.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. I watch his face the way I used to watch him across a courtroom, looking for the tell, the micro-expression, the single thread I could pull.
There’s nothing. Just stillness so complete it frightens me a little.
One second.
Two.
Five.
His jaw tightens—not the controlled tick I’ve seen a hundred times when he’s managing his temper. This is different. This is the tension of a man who is holding his entire body together by sheer will and isn’t sure how much longer he can do it.
“Matteo—”
“Don’t.” His voice comes out low. Stripped of its usual cadence. Just the one word, and then silence again.
I stay very still. I’ve learned, with him, that stillness is sometimes the only language that reaches him.
He exhales through his nose. Long and slow, like he’s counting. His eyes drop to my stomach—just for a second, barely a glance—and then he looks away, jaw working. He turns slightly to the side, not enough to leave, just enough that I can’t see his full face. His hand comes up and drags once over his mouth.
I think about Sara. I know he’s thinking about Sara.
A woman who looked at the same equation and chose the exit. Who decided that a baby plus this life plus this man didn’t add up to something she wanted.
And he had let her go. Quietly. Without punishment. Without a single act of the violence he was so capable of. He had simply opened his hands and watched her walk away.
He’s waiting for me to do the same thing.
The realization sits in my chest like something warm and slightly painful.
“Hey.” I get up from the bed. He doesn’t turn back to me but he doesn’t step away either, which I decide to take as an invitation. I move around to face him, tipping my head to look up at him. His eyes find mine slowly, like it costs him something.
There it is. Underneath all that stillness.
Fear. Bare and unguarded and completely unlike him.
“I’m not her,” I say quietly.
Something moves across his face. Quick, like a door opening and closing in a strong wind.
“You don’t know what you’re?—”
“I’m not her, Matteo.” I say it again, firmer this time, because he needs to hear it twice. “I’m not going to Atlanta. I’m not leaving. I’m not going to look at you and this life and decide it’s too much. Do you understand me?”
He stares at me for a long moment. Then, very quietly—so quietly I almost miss it:
“How far along?”
“Two months.” I watch his face. “The doctor says the baby is healthy.”
Another silence. But this one is different. Softer at the edges.
“Two months,” he repeats, like he’s doing the same arithmetic I did lying on that hotel ceiling. Like he’s working out exactly which night.
