His gaze was softening, draining of that visceral fury as I spoke.
“So many people walk around with anger in their hearts,” I whispered, my eyes going to his chest, then back up to his eyes. “And that anger is warranted, of course. Because the world hurts every single person who walks across it, in some way or another. Some worse than others. And if you want to find one, there is a reason to be angry every single day. Every single second.”
That anger was creeping up my throat, even as I spoke. It was an effort, a great fricking effort to swallow it.
“People are going to walk around with anger in their hearts and I will not blame them or judge them,” I said. “We all deal with what we’re given the best ways we know how. The ways that we know will keep us standing, keep us inhaling and exhaling. For you, that’s a lot of profanities, yelling on occasion and a lot of intense and brooding stares.” I smiled sadly. “Even death threats. Violence,” I continued, no longer smiling. “You know me, so you know that I don’t believe in this. But I accept it. Because that’s what’s got you here, right here in front of me. Exhaling.”
I lifted my hand up to trail his beard, it was soft and scratchy at the same time. It was comforting.
He jerked at the contact, the first I’d initiated between us.
“For me,” I whispered, “it’s forgiveness. Because I can’t carry the weight of anger or hate. For me, I can’t stand underneath that. I have to forgive, or I can’t move forward. I can’t exhale.” I moved forward to touch my lips to his. “And right now, I’m really fricking glad to be inhaling and exhaling.”
He was taut, shaking with his exertion to let my lips move slowly against his. To let me control this kiss. The first one I’d initiated. It was gentle. Tentative. Slow. Sweet.
It was goodbye.
I stepped back, and he let out a sound of protest at the back of his throat.
“Why’d you do that?” he demanded.
I smiled at the proximity of the past right now. It was something I needed. “I wanted to see what it felt like to kiss you,” I whispered.
He jerked again. Like I’d stuck him. His eyes were on fire with heat, with everything. “No, Sunshine, wasn’t asking why you kissed me,” he growled, hands fisted at his sides. “Askin’ why you stopped.”
My stomach dipped at the way his words caressed me. The way they demanded attention from parts of me I thought were dead.
I ached to step forward again, press my lips to his, let the kiss chase away the horror. The truth.
But I wasn’t eighteen anymore. I couldn’t do that.
I had to invite the truth. In all of its horrible glory.
“I was pregnant,” I whispered, the words barely breaking the air that was rumbling from energy between us. It was like they screamed at me, roared in the hollows of my skull. The hollows of my heart.
Through those roars, I saw Heath go still.
Go completely and utterly still.
He waited a long time. Presumably for me to speak more, or maybe for him to get himself under control. I wasn’t sure which.
But I wasn’t ready to speak more. I wasn’t sure if I could.
“Say again?” he murmured, voice shaking.
I sucked in air, and it settled in my lungs like concrete. “I was pregnant,” I whispered again, my eyes darting downward. “I didn’t tell anyone, not even Lucy. Not at first. Because you’re not supposed to tell anyone until twelve weeks. And imagine, me, following the rules in that one thing when I break all the others.” I tried to smile, but it didn’t work. So I shrugged instead. “I honestly don’t know why I didn’t tell her. Or anyone...even Craig.”
I almost choked on his name. I saw Heath’s jaw twitch from the way I uttered it.
“It wasn’t the reason he asked me, he didn’t know the, neither did I, it was too early.” I sucked in a horrible breath. “I loved him.” I chewed my lip, unable to lie to myself any more after everything that happened.
I surely couldn’t lie to Heath.
Even if that admission was acid in my soul right now.
“Maybe, I loved him,” I amended, unable to believe that statement, that feeling after everything I’d gone through.
“The part of him that he pretended to be, at least,” I said. “The part that seemed so easy and right when things between us...weren’t. I found out not long after we got engaged. Not long after we saw you that day. After you left. After my feet started to get cold. My soul started to get cold.”
I’d never admitted that to anyone. My reservations leading up to the wedding. I certainly didn’t admit it to myself. But it was time. Beyond time. I had too many secrets in my soul. I needed to let some of them out.
“I knew that I didn’t have to get married in order to have a baby,” I continued. “I didn’t have to stay with Craig. But, I’ve lived in chaos, in constant motion for so long, I knew the second I saw that plus sign that I wanted peace for my baby. That normal life that I pretty much rebelled against, since, well, ever.”
I smiled.
“Because when I think about my mom and dad, the life that they gave Lucy and me, how happy I was, I wanted to reproduce that. If I hadn’t have met you, I would’ve been so certain about that. But there was hesitation, when I was holding a stick telling me I was carrying another man’s child...there was you.” My voice was a broken whisper and I didn’t have the courage to meet Heath’s eyes so I continued to look at the floor.
“If it was just me...” I trailed off. “I don’t let myself torture myself with those ‘ifs,’” I rasped. “Because then I would think about if I didn’t lose...” I choked, literally choked on the words right as they were coming from my throat.
If I didn’t lose my baby.
“Polly,” Heath said, the word seemingly yanked from him, torn from his very throat it was full of that much pain.
Pain for me.
More pain.
That’s what we were now.
I held up my hand. “I need to finish,” I whispered.
“You need to fucking look at me,” he demanded.
I sucked in a breath, counting the scuffs in the hardwood. “I can’t,” I said to the floor. “I can’t because I see myself in your eyes, I see my pain in your eyes and I’m scared I might not be able to stand if I see that.”
Whether he had been respecting the distance I put between us, or maybe he’d just been unable to move until now I wasn’t sure.
All that I knew was there wasn’t distance between us now.
Heath’s hand was on my hip, yanking his body to mine, steadying me, even when his touch weakened my knees. His other hand went to my chin, gently moving it upward to meet his gaze.
I flinched.
Because there was pain there.
Agony.
Of what I’d lost.
Of what we’d lost.
A life.
Peace.
“You don’t need to stand under it, Polly,” he murmured. “Not when I’m here to hold you up.”
A single tear trailed down my cheek.
He didn’t wipe it away.
He just watched me, waiting for more.
And there was more.
With us, it seemed there was always more.