My stomach twisted as her eyes shot to the doorway and then back to me.
“You want me to shut the door?” I asked. I waited for any indication that was what she’d been trying to tell me, but she didn’t move. “Okay, I’ll shut the door.”
I got to my feet and, ignoring Farrah’s look of astonishment, closed the door in her face. When I turned back around, Cec and Olive were still in the exact same position.
She could stay there as long as she wanted. If she needed me to sit with her, I would—all night if that’s what it took. But, I needed to check those stitches on her side, and I hated to acknowledge it, but at some point, Olive was going to start fussing to be fed and changed, and I had no idea how Cecilia would react.
“Baby,” I said, crouching down in front of her again. “You need to get out of this corner.”
She just stared at me.
“Cecilia,” I said, more firmly. “Come on.”
I reached for her arm, and was surprised as hell when she didn’t pull away, letting me tug her to her feet. Her gaze darted around the room, but she allowed me to help her onto the bed. A little progress, at least. She was no longer curled up in the corner.
Sitting down beside her, I rubbed my hands over my face. I suddenly felt weary all the way to my bones. I had no fucking clue how to help her. No idea if I should be pushing or leaving her alone. No idea what to say to snap her out of whatever had happened in the kitchen. I was at a complete loss, and I felt my throat grow tight as I dug my fingertips into my eyelids.
“You know,” I said, after the quiet became so absolute that you could hear a pin drop, “I knew it was a mistake the moment I left you. No, that’s not right. It took about an hour. I was stepping onto the plane when I realized how badly I’d fucked up.”
I glanced at her, but couldn’t meet her eyes when I realized she was watching me.
“But by then,” I continued, “my course was set. I didn’t have any choice. I’d signed a contract to go.” I huffed out a breath. “I told myself that I’d make it up to you. That as soon as I could, I’d go back home and get you. It was only three months. I convinced myself that three months was nothing if we had our whole lives together.”
When I looked at her again, her eyes seemed clearer. She was staring at me, and while the fear wasn’t gone, it was now mixed with sadness.
“I didn’t let myself think about the fact that you were pregnant,” I confessed, forcing the words out. “It didn’t feel real. So, instead, I thought about things going back to exactly how they’d been before. I was so sure you’d forgive me. I was so sure that I could fix it. The few times I did go down that road, trying to imagine what a baby would mean for us, I’d picture you meeting me at the airport, your belly sticking out and a big smile on your face.”
I laughed derisively. “It was three months,” I ground out. “It was only three goddamn months.”
I cleared my throat and fought against the urge to hit something. This was why I refused to let myself think about the past—because the guilt was impossible to live with. I froze when Cecilia’s head met my shoulder, her body leaning into mine.
“If I could relive it, I would,” I told her, kissing the top of her head. “If I could go back and change it, I would. I know I was the reason that shit went south, but fuck.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve never regretted anything the way I regret that.”
Cecilia turned and kissed my shoulder before raising her gaze to mine.
She was with me, one hundred percent, and I let out a small breath of relief. Who would’ve guessed that ripping my guts out and handing them to her would be what pulled her out of the fog she’d been in? Afraid of letting her fall back into that hole, I kept going.
“I wrote you,” I said as she pushed herself backward until she sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed. “Every day. I told you about everything that was happening, all the shit I had to deal with, the plans I’d made about how I was going to come get you and leave Eugene. About how we’d get married so you could live in San Diego with me. That you could get a job down there, or go back to school—whatever you wanted, we’d figure it out. God, I fuckin’ missed you. It was like a physical ache.” I shook my head at the memory. “But I didn’t have your address. I didn’t have anywhere to send the letters. I kept them, you know?” I met her eyes. “I held on to them, planned on giving them to you when I got back to Oregon.”
Uncomfortable with the memory, I scratched at the back of my neck and stared at the floor. “We both know how that played out. Jesus, I’m lucky I didn’t kill Leo that day. I could’ve. With my bare hands. But it was you that stopped me. The look on your face. Fuck, you hated me. The whole time I was planning on how I’d make it up to you, you were figuring out how to live without me.”
“I had to,” she whispered, making my head jerk up in surprise.
“What?” I croaked.
“I had to figure out how to live without you,” she said, her voice almost soundless. “The other choice wasn’t an option.”
“I thought you’d wait.”
“If you’d have given any indication that I should,” she said gently, “I would’ve.”
“Fuck,” I whispered. “Fuck.”
“I was never with Leo,” Cecilia said, her voice still low. “Not after you. He was just a good friend that knew seeing you was going to hurt me. He made it easier the only way he knew how.”
“By acting like the two of you were together?” I asked in disbelief.
“By making sure that you wouldn’t come back,” she clarified.
“He did that,” I confirmed. After I’d left the club that day, I’d avoided going back for almost two years. I couldn’t stand the thought of Cecilia and Leo together. Imagining it still made my guts twist.
“You broke me,” she said simply, “and I needed the space to piece myself back together again.”
“That was never my intention,” I replied. I didn’t know how to explain that I’d been immature and stupid, that I’d convinced myself everything would be okay, that somehow, I’d deluded myself into thinking that she’d still be there when I got my shit together. I honestly hadn’t even realized back then that I’d had the power to break her.
“Intention matters less than people think,” she said quietly. “I needed you.”
“I know.”
“Do you know what it was like?” she asked, her voice still quiet. “Calling your mom’s looking for you, only to find out that you’d left? You didn’t even tell me.”
“I was afraid you’d talk me out of it, and I knew it was the right thing to do,” I said hoarsely.
“No,” she hissed with a jerk of her head, the Cecilia I knew finally shining through. “The right thing would’ve been to tell me that you were leaving, but that you’d be back. The right thing would’ve been to say that we were in it together, even though you had to leave for boot camp or whatever the hell it was called. The right thing would’ve been to grow a pair and tell me to my face that you’d made a decision that was going to completely change our lives, and let me decide what I wanted to do about it.”