Page 62 of Everything But Mine

“Then why?” I snap.

“I came to tell you.” His voice breaks open. “That’s why I got on the fucking plane. I was ready to drag you back if I had to. I was so scared we were going to lose him, Amanda.”

I stare at him, waiting for the part that makes this okay.

“But then I saw you.” He pauses. Long enough for the guilt to fill the air.

“You were smiling. Working. Going out. Doing your thing like you were in a movie set in Italy. But it wasn’t real. Not underneath. I saw it in your eyes. You were barely holding on. If someone asked you to feel one more thing, you’d shatter.”

My breath catches, hating that he saw right through me.

The glassiness in Diego’s eyes recedes, and he tightens the corners of his mouth into a sad smile. “Sometimes you forget it’s not just Eric that knows you like the back of his hand.” He squeezes the hand holding my waist. “You couldn’t come back and be his lifeline,” he says gently. “Not then. You were bleeding out, too. And if he’d seen it… If he’d seen what he’d done to you in person, day after day? We would have lost him.” He lets that sit. And I breathe that truth in. “So I kept my mouth shut. For once in my fucking life. And I let you heal.” Diego wears his emotions in every expression for everyone to read. Now, he darts his eyes to hide his tears. “I told myself I was protecting both of you. Maybe I was mistaken. I don’t know. But I taped him back together the only way I knew how. So you had the time you needed. Because I knew then, and I know now. He’ll only heal himself for you.”

I want anger to take over, but it’s impossible when his choices are eating him.

“You came back a force,” Diego says quietly. “You reminded him he was still worth something.”

I shake my head. “You shouldn’t say that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“No,” I say, blinking hard. “You’re making it sound like I’m supposed to fix him.”

He shakes his head. “I’m saying you’re the only one he never gave up on. Even when he gave up on everything else.”

I step away from him and head back to the table, where Eric is smiling at Val, of all people. Diego grabs my wrist, pulls me back in his arms, and sways. As if dancing can help tame this fear.

“You can’t tell him you know,” he says quietly. “You can’t pity him. You can’t let it change the way you look at him.”

“It doesn’t,” I say, barely keeping myself from raising my voice.

He gives me a long look. “Doesn’t it? Then tell me this. Will you still raise the baby with him?”

“Of course! He’s still Eric, Diego. He’s still⁠—”

“Yours?” His left brow raises like a gavel.

I flinch. No, he isn’t mine. When he could’ve been, he didn’t choose me. And that still hurts, but I want what I can get. This home, this strange little family we’re trying to form, is real to me. And I want it too badly to shy away from it.

“I know he’s not mine,” I say. “He’s made that clear. Over and over again.”

Diego exhales, and his mouth curls downward, as if that’s the saddest thing he’s heard all night. “You think he isn’t yours.”

My mouth opens. Closes. I can’t do this.

“You need to talk to him,” he says. “About that night.”

“I already did,” I snap. “I was there, Diego. I saw him fall in the river, remember?”

He shakes his head. “No,” he says, retreating away from me as if I’d shoved him. “I’m talking about another night. The night you’re most afraid to bring up.”

I shake my head now. “I don’t want to think about that night. I told him I would come back, but I would never talk about that night.”

“Don’t be a child, Amanda.” Silence folds over us with the end of the song. Then he says, softer now, “You’re about to raise your own kid with that man. You owe him a sit-down. A real one.”

I want to say I don’t owe Eric shit. That I already came back for him. It’s not true, though. I walked into his apartment, and he gave me a home. I needed a partner, and somehow, he gave me more than that—without asking for anything back.

“He’ll never demand it,” Diego says. “He’s terrified that if he asks too much, he’ll lose you. I’m not, though. So I’ll say it. If you value this family of three, you owe a conversation to the father you’ve chosen for your child.”