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Well, she had been a little bit nauseous, but she was making him believe that it was because of pregnancy stuff, when in fact it was squarely her marinating in the consequences of her own actions.

“I’m going to forgive you for not telling me.”

Her jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

“You should have told me.”

“You, more than anyone else in the world, should understand why I didn’t feel that a man contributing DNA to a pregnancy gave him the right to know anything.”

“But I’m not just anyone.”

“No, you’re not just anyone. For half of my life you were one of the most important, dependable people that I knew. And then you just left. And not only did you just leave, then you and I had…a relationship-changing experience and you sent me away. Like I was just one of the many women you’ve slept with. Like it didn’t matter that it was me.”

His expression looked dark then. “Of course it mattered that it was you. That’s why I had to send you away, and quickly. I don’t have anything to offer you emotionally. It was the right decision.”

“It wasn’t the right decision. You hurt me.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I did want to spare you from more hurt in the future. I am not your hero, Esme, and I never have been. Not in the way that I think it comforts you to believe I could be.”

“You don’t know me well enough to make that decision. You don’t know me well enough to make assumptions about me.”

“Then you can assume that you don’t know me well enough to tell me what you wish you would’ve gotten from me. And what I could’ve given.”

He had her there. That was annoying.

“I’m not weak.” She said that partly for herself. A reminder, yet again.

“Of course you’re not. You survived up to this point.”

“I don’t need you to do this because you think it might be the right thing to do.”

“That’s not why I’m doing it. You decided to keep the baby. Why are you doing it?”

“Because I—” An ache started at the base of her throat and spread down to her chest. “Because I can raise this baby. I have the resources. Because I can protect a child. Because I can be better than my own parents. Because I can be, then I think I will be and should be.”

“It didn’t occur to you that maybe I would have the same feeling?”

“No,” she said. “I was mad at you. So I didn’t think about your feelings. I don’t care about them, actually. Because you have legitimately put me through some real shit.”

“We’re going to get married.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that her brain almost couldn’t process what he meant. Couldn’t accept it. He said it so matter-of-factly that she was sure he hadn’t actually said it at all.

So she didn’t respond. You couldn’t dignify hallucinations or insanity with responses.

“I said we are getting married,” he repeated.

“No,” she said. “Try again.”

He looked thunderous. Like the version of Adonis she’d known on the streets. Dark, dangerous. Ready to kill anyone and anything if need be. “Excuse me?”

“I totally let you off the hook by not dignifying that with a response, and you’re going to say it again? No. Go back. Be sane.”

“I’m perfectly sane. We have the opportunity to give our child something normal—”

She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. It was a cruel cackle of laughter, and she wouldn’t have called it back in if she could. “A normal life? You and me? We don’t know anything about normal. We don’t know anything about family. How are we going to be able to give a child something that we don’t know anything about?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice hard. “But you can’t possibly think that you’re going to do it better without me.”