A sudden desperation to reassure her washes over me. I can’t imagine how she must feel if she thinks I ignored her. If she thinks I didn’t care. I will find every damn person from her postal carrier to mine and make them pay if she thought for one second I didn’t want her or our son. Starting with Sunny Mayfield.
“What are you talking about? I know you wanted a clean break. That you thought it’d be easier for us both to go our separate ways if we had no means of communication. But I couldn’t forget the night that you promised to send me a photo of the two of us one night when we’d been drinking. I’d hoped that you’d remember it eventually and give in, even if you had to send it without a return address.”
Her green eyes widen slightly, and I wonder if she actually forgot that. Hell, I almost did, and our hangovers were brutal the next day. I’ve tried not to hold it against her. Too much.
“So I gave Sunny my address just in case you ever asked for it. I checked my goddamn mail every single day from the second I got home, but I got nothing. Not a postcard. Not a letter. Not an unsigned photo, even though I stupidly thought you’d send one like you promised.”
She swallows hard. “I meant to… It’s just, in the beginning, it was too hard. I wasn’t ready.”
Does that mean what I think it means? Because all this time, I thought I left that summer, just like she wanted me to, and while all I’ve done for the past eight months is look back, I figured she’d moved far the fuck on.
“Did you ever even ask Sunny? Did you mention me at all? Think about me at all before you knew you were pregnant?”
“Of course!” she cries then quickly lowers her voice “Of course I did, Knox. I thought about you every day damn, even before I knew.”
Overwhelming relief washes over me.
“That doesn’t matter right now. It doesn’t matter anymore. I did break down. I did ask Sunny for your information. But she’s an asshole and told me I had to wait a month before she’d give it to me. A month to determine if I was really hurting or if I”—she pauses, pink filling her cheeks—“or if I just missed all the really great sex.”
I kinda love and hate Sunny Mayfield right now. “And after that month, what? It was all the…what’d you call it? ‘Really great sex’?”
“After that month, I cursed sex while curled up beside the toilet, waiting for the subsequent wave of morning sickness to hit me.”
Right. Just another reminder of everything I missed. “I wish I could have been there,” I reply, my voice soft. “I would’ve been if I’d known.”
“It didn’t last long. The morning sickness, I mean. Once I felt okay, Sunny couldn’t find your address,” she informs me, sadness filling her eyes. “I chalked it up to serendipity. The universe didn’t want you to know. That’s what I told myself.”
“The universe is a bitch. And I know she’s your best friend, but so is Sunny.”
“Yeah, I might’ve cursed her out a time or two. But that was that. I didn’t have a way to contact you. So it didn’t matter.”
I blow out a breath. “Amelia, it mattered. Trust me. It fucking mattered.”
“I know that now. God, I’ve imagined this moment going so many ways, but I don’t think I ever actually thought it would happen. It felt like roadblock after roadblock when it came to finding you.”
I frown. “I thought you said your grandmother figured it out.”
She rests her head against her pillow, yawning. I should let her get some rest. But should went out the window the second I stepped into this room.
“She did. Or, well, she thought she did anyways. Grams knew of your family. Of course she did. But she couldn’t find any listing information for your home, so we assumed your family was unlisted. She eventually found the mailing address for your dad’s company. It didn’t even cross my mind that there were two of you, even though she had told me. Pregnancy brain or something. Anyway, I was about six months along when I finally wrote to you….” She trails off, and if it weren’t for the bundle in my arms, I’d reach across and take her hand.
“I never got get a letter from you,” I repeat. “I swear it. I would’ve been here in a heartbeat if I’d known. I never would have left you to go through this alone.”
I never should have left in the first place. Not that I tell her that. Not yet.
She exhales, sending a loose tendril flying up. Then it settles onto her cheek. “Well. That’s a bummer. I kind of poured my heart out in that letter. When I never heard from you, I figured…”
“You figured I didn’t care. That I wanted nothing to do with either of you.” The words are a knife to my gut. How could she think that? After everything we shared last summer, even if it was supposed to be purely physical, I thought she knew me. How could she think I’d be the guy to abandon her, to not accept responsibility?
Her eyes fill with pain. That same pain burns deep at the thought of her doing this on her own. That she thought I’d gotten her pregnant then abandoned her when she needed me the most. I’m fucking sick to my stomach thinking about it. The acid burning in my belly seeps into my blood, and that sickness twists into fury. For about the tenth time tonight, I want to slam my fists into something until they bleed, hurting on the outside as much as I do in my core.
“We had a plan and we stuck to it. Leave it up to fate.”
I scoff. “It was a dumb plan and you know it. We both do. We were more than friends when I left here last summer, Amelia.”
She turns her watery attention to Branson. “I know. It was a stupid plan. But it doesn’t matter anymore. This little guy just had different plans for us. It’s not your fault, Knox, any more than it’s mine.”
Not my fault? Of course it’s not my fucking fault. I want to rail, yet I know I can’t. If we’re going to get past this (which I really fucking want to) and move on (again, really fucking want to), then I have to maintain my composure and deal with the fact that I wasn’t here, but I also have to make sure I’m never away from either of them again.
Instead of following that train of thought, I wonder what the hell happened with her mysterious letter. If she sent it to the company, there’s no way it should’ve gotten lost. I mean, sure, the interns in the mailroom might be slow at their jobs, but missing mail has never been a thing. If it’s addressed to Knox Wellington, it comes across one of two desks. Mine or…
Oh. Shit.
When it dawns on me, I nearly burst into laughter. Confusion crosses Amelia’s face though. I don’t know how this story turned into a mix of both Shakespearean tragedy and comedy, but I hope beyond measure we haven’t screwed up the possibility of happily ever after.
“You said three months ago, right?”
She nods, and I trace back, doing the math in my head.
“God fucking dammit.”
Her lips quirk up into a smile. “What was that you said about watching that mouth?”
The fact that she’s joking with me is a damn good sign. I glance down at my son then look back to her with a grin. “Hey, it’s not like he can repeat the words any time soon. I have some time to tame my tongue.”