Page 60 of Blueline Baby

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CHLOE

SAY IT SCARED

DECEMBER

I don’t understand why I can’t tell Jack that I love him.

He says it constantly. He says it on quick phone calls, through random texts, when we wake up in the morning, and when we go to sleep at night. He’ll wrap his arms around me while I’m studying at the kitchen table or standing at the sink washing dishes, and he’ll whisper it into my ear. He whispers it into my lips before he kisses me.

And how have I responded to this? I’ve said I know. Once, memorably, I said thank you. I thanked the father of my unborn child for telling me he loves me. I’m doomed.

It isn’t that I don’t love him. That’s the part that’s driving me insane. I do. I’ve known for months. I just can’t get the words to leave my body, and I’m beginning to think there’s a structural defect somewhere inside of me.

Tonight, Jack’s team is up 2–1 seventeen minutes into the second period, and I’m sitting in the suite with Lorelei, who’s been giving me grief over this exact issue for weeks.

“You still haven’t told him,” she says.

“Told him what?”

She turns her head and looks at me.

“How can you possibly know that?” I ask.

“Because he would be unbearable, Chloe. The entire building would know in less than a minute. He’d have announced it to the press or rented a billboard.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“There’s definitely something wrong with me. He says it, and I stand there staring at him like I’m being handed a speeding ticket.” I can feel my heart rate picking up. “I’m not a cold person. I don’t think I’m cold. But he says it, and my brain goes blank. And then he lets me off the hook but I can tell it’s bothering him.”

We both stare down at the ice in silence. Finally, she lets out a long sigh.

“You know what it actually is, right? You’re not waiting to be sure about how you feel. You’ve been sure. You’re waiting until saying it out loud stops terrifying you.” She turns in her seat to look at me. “And I’m going to save you some time. It’s not going to stop scaring you tonight, and it’s not going to stop in ten years. That’s what it is when you love somebody. So you can say it scared, or you can say it never.”

Down on the ice, they’re lining up for a faceoff at the far circle. I catch myself scanning for his number before I realize I’m doing it.

Oh, I think.

Oh. I really love him.

It’s not even a dramatic realization, I’ve just been putting off acknowledging it out of sheer stubbornness.

Jack wins the faceoff clean and I’m halfway out of my seat cheering before I notice I stood up.

Lorelei smiles into her drink. “See? Told you.”

The game ends, and Jack and Dean make their way up to the suite to collect us. Jack puts his hand over my stomach and kisses me right in front of everyone, which he does constantly now, and which I gave up fighting him on sometime in mid-November.

“Let’s go to dinner,” he says.

“Jack, I’m wearing your jersey and a pair of maternity leggings I’ve worn two days in a row.”

“You look great.”

“We can go tomorrow. I’ll actually wear something nicer.”