“Shut up. All of you.” Zoe points as everyone in the circle giggles like someone just said vagina and we’re six years old.
“Maybe you should lock your doors.” I laugh.
Zoe narrows her eyes at me. “The kid can pick a lock. Hence the fact” —she looks at a still very pissed off Caiden— “he saw me and Vin playing horsey and cowboy last night.”
All of our combined laughter echoes off the stained glass and beamed ceilings.
“Okay now. Everyone stop,” Aunt Liz tries to get everyone in order.
“Grow up,” Zoe mutters.
Vin comes over and puts his arm around his wife, an arrogant smirk on his face.
“Chelsea,” Dean says, and I look over my shoulder.
My heart shudders and almost stops, the breath leaving my body.
He’s holding out the ultrasound picture with half the contents of my purse packed back in, the rest still scattered on the ground.
“What’s that?” Aunt Liz asks and then her eyes widen. She finds my mom a few people back. She points, and my mom steps up, grabbing it from Dean’s hand.
“Chelsea!” she scolds me. “Is this…is this yours?” She holds it up and everyone gasps around me, their eyes pinging between the ultrasound and me. They want answers.
I stare into Dean’s eyes. “Yes.”
His head falls back between his shoulder blades and his hands fly up to cover his face. There’s no happiness in his body language.
It’s silent for a moment and after a minute he holds his hand out. “Can I see that Barb?”
To my surprise, my mom hands it to him.
He looks it over. “We need to talk.” His tone is clipped and his face holds no emotion.
My mom holds out her arm at him as he approaches me. “Not with that sour look on your face. You will not do to her what you did to her five years ago.”
Dean’s feet stop, his eyes turning darker than I’ve ever seen. His gaze flicks to my mother. “Good thing this isn’t five years ago then.” He takes her arm and moves it to the side of her.
“I…”
“Not here,” he says to me.
“Dean.” Zoe grabs his arm.
He pulls his arm free.
“You’ve known this entire week.” He towers over me and I meet his stormy eyes.
“I have,” I say in a quiet voice.
“Oh, Chels,” Sky sighs and I catch her and Zoe sharing a look.
Dean stands there, tucks the ultrasound in the pocket of his suit jacket. “We’re going to talk now.”
I walk up the aisle and through the doors, standing in the lobby area. Dean makes sure to shut the doors behind us.
“When are you ever going to forgive me?” He sits down at the pew on the wall, his head in his hands.
“I did forgive you.”
“You clearly didn’t. You refuse to talk about what happened. I’ve tried so many times to get you to talk about it. And now this…”
I throw my hands up in the air. “Why would we talk about it? So we can feel the pain again or should I say so I’ll feel the pain. You’ll probably just deal with it on your own like last time.”
He leans back like I slapped him. “I was fucked up then. I was an alcoholic. I wanted to talk to you about the miscarriage because I wanted everything from our past out in the open. A clean slate for a fresh start. Now you’re pregnant again and hide it from me? Just like the first time.”
My eyes close, losing the fight against my tears. “I didn’t know I was pregnant the first time.”
“You expect me to believe that now?”
“You expect me to feel bad for hiding it from you? I sat in that hospital when they told me that I’d been pregnant and I didn’t even know it. I was the one who bled alone in a sterile room. No one to hold my hand, no one but a fucking nurse to tell me I’d be okay. And then for the doctor to tell me…” I stop because saying it out loud means this baby inside of me is in jeopardy of my body rejecting it and I can’t deal with that and this right now.
“What? What possible reason could there be for you not telling me about this baby?” He stands and stalks toward me. “You have to let me in Chelsea. This will never work otherwise.”
I cross my arms over my body and shake my head. “While you were drinking with your buddies or passed out on the couch, a nurse I didn’t even know wrapped her arms around my shoulders as a doctor told me that I might never have children. I have a mutated gene and my body can’t turn folic acid into folate. I was eighteen and I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Just that I might never be a mother and you weren’t there. You weren’t there!”
He steps into me, but I push him away. He fights, his arms around me and I sob into his shoulders.
After a minute, I collect myself and finish telling him what he needs to know. “The chances of this baby making it is only fifty percent. That’s why I didn’t tell you. Because more than likely I’ll end up in the hospital bed again.”
Dean steps back, his arms falling off me. “Alone?” he asks.
I shrug.
“You still think I’d do that—ignore your texts and calls. You still see me as a monster.”
I shake my head, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me.
“You can deny it all you want, but your actions and your lies this entire week say different.” He slowly backs away from me.
“A tiger doesn’t change its stripes,” I whisper.
A condescending huff erupts out of him. “How original.” He keeps stepping backward away from me.
“Do you think you’ll ever truly forgive me?” he asks, now a good distance from me.
“I do forgive you.”
“Keep putting that on repeat and maybe you’ll believe it one day.”
I swipe the tears from my cheeks. “What do you want from me?” I almost yell, my mixed up emotions getting the best of me.
“I don’t know anymore.” He looks as heartbroken as I feel right now.
My anger comes fast and furious. “How fitting. Just go then.” I point to the doors of the church.
Dean stares at the door. “I’m not sure what more I can do to prove it to you.”
“Maybe you can’t.”
“You’re giving up on us?”
I shrug. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe this thing between us was a disaster from the beginning.”
“You believe that?” he asks.
I shrug again.
“Say it, Chelsea. You say the word and I’m out. But you can bet your ass I’ll be a part of that kid’s life.” He points to my stomach. “But I’ll leave yours if you think you’d be happier that way.”
I swallow and cast my gaze to the floor. “Do what you want, Dean.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“Maybe we need some space. This whole thing is crazy. I mean in a couple month’s time, we’re supposed to erase the past and get back together and have a baby? This isn’t a Lifetime movie. Things don’t end up in a perfectly wrapped box.”
He stands there, his eyes not leaving mine for an uncomfortable moment. “Tell Skylar and Beckett congratulations.” He walks toward the doors.