I wiped a tear off my cheek.
That was your tear to wipe away, Josh.
He touched my stomach but not me. He didn’t wipe away the stray tear.
I was going to be the mother of his baby and nothing more.
And that meant a piece of my heart would always be broken.
“I can’t believe I have to do this with all these fucking cats looking at me,” Josh said.
“We can go to your place if you’d like,” I said.
“No. We’re here. We can stay right here, love. You want to know everything… here it is…”
Josh stood while I sat on the edge of the dining room table. The back of my mind raced over what was to come over the next nine months of my life. And the nine months of being pregnant was just the start. Nothing would be the same ever again. I was a struggling waitress living in an apartment dedicated to cats. I used to have a dream of being a writer and surviving that way. Now everything I knew had to shift to the life inside me.
And the life that stared at me with his strong arms crossed.
“I’ve been going to talk to someone for a while,” he said. “To… I guess help with things.”
“A therapist, Josh?”
“I hate that fucking word. That makes me feel weak.”
“You’re not weak.”
“I did it as a promise to Aaron.”
“Why?”
“Because of Delilah.”
“Who is she, Josh? What happened to her? Is she… dead?”
“No,” he said. “She’s not dead.”
“And you still love her?”
“With everything inside me,” he said without hesitation.
My heart ached even more. I swallowed as much down as I could, wanting to give him his chance to talk to me. My hands protectively touched my stomach. I already started to negotiate with myself, saying that as long as Josh loved and took care of our baby, then nothing else mattered. Nothing about his past or my past mattered. We had done this together. We had created this life together.
Josh pointed to a picture of a cat swatting at a balloon. “Do you think the cat got the balloon? Or did they pull it away?”
“What? Do you really care about that?”
“I don’t know. I’m just amazed that someone set this up. And someone bought it.”
“Josh…”
He stared at the picture of the cat. “I lost myself, Amelia. Really bad. I had a couple of events with Sasha that went well. I was hanging around Michelle, stuck in feelings that were different than hers. Yet I couldn’t get away. I knew I was hurting her, but I didn’t care. And then guys like Azor, who meant well, were just as destructive in their own way. I felt like I was walking this fine line each day and it got exhausting. So, one night after getting as drunk as I had ever been in my life, I decided to go find…” Josh looked at me.
“Delilah?” I whispered.
“Yeah. I went back to her house. And I didn’t actually just go back. I went inside.”
“Inside?”
“I broke in,” Josh said. “My mind and heart were a wreck, love. I thought I was back in time and coming to save her. Coming to make it so she didn’t leave my life. I wanted to make everything right and live up to the promises I used to silently keep to myself.”
“What happened?”
“The people who lived there woke up. Found a drunk Josh stumbling around their house calling out the name of someone who didn’t live there anymore. They were an older couple. The man had a bat and wasted no time in hitting me with it. He could have killed me, but he hit me in the ribs to take me down. I pleaded with them to call Aaron. He came and saved my ass. He was there for everything. With the police.”
“The police?”
“I broke into a house, love. I should be sitting in jail right now. But the woman - her name was Angie - she sort of stuck up for me. It was a blur for me as Aaron busted his ass to help keep me from getting into serious trouble. But he made me promise him to go talk to someone. To figure everything out. So, I call it the meeting. I go and talk.”
“Josh, I had no idea,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me…”
“Do we need a reminder that you came to me digging for a story.”
“There was never any story," I said. “I would never do that to you. Do you have any idea what you mean to me? Back then and now? My entire heart revolved around you. How do you think I feel right now finding out I’m probably second best to someone else?”
Josh lowered his head and shook it. “That’s what you don’t get.”
“What?”
He looked at me. “Everything, love. You were close to the edge when you’d come find me. You don’t get where that could have gone. And my life was a mess. Us meeting up again and getting together wasn’t part of this.”
“Since when do you have a plan in life?”
“When it comes to protecting you, it's the only plan I’ve ever had.”
“What about Delilah? Did you protect her? Or were you protecting me as a way to make sure we didn’t find out about each other?”
“It’s not like that at all.”
I stood on my two feet now. I was the one feeling protective. And it wasn’t over Josh.
“Then tell me what it was like.”
“My father showed up with Delaney. Then he left for good. He started another family. You know all that. You know what I did to his house over and over, which did nothing to help me. There was a girl that lived next door to me. We were best friends. True best friends. Like me and Aaron except she understood me more because of the way she lived. Her father was raising her on his own. We leaned on each other. She was the first girl I felt things for.”
“Let me guess, Delilah,” I said in a cocky voice.
“No. Not at all. Her name was Lilah. And she moved to Texas a week before I found out Delaney was sick. She was there and then she was gone. Gone when I needed someone to be there for me. Everything in my life fell apart, love. Lilah left. Delaney got sick and passed. Gram got sick and passed. All I had were the guys. I should have gone to Aaron but he was living his perfect life. We only got close again when his parents divorced. You were the only thing I had for a little while, but…”
“You pushed me away," I said.
“I saved you, Amelia.”
“Saved me. You broke my heart that night. I went home to my mother bleeding on the floor. She was drunk. I was destroyed. And now I know you were running off to someone else.”
Josh stood in silence, only confirming everything I was thinking and saying.
I suddenly felt sick.
I rushed to the kitchen and leaned over the sink.
One thing I had mastered was pulling my hair back, so it didn’t get any vomit in it.
My cheeks burned hot as I had never thrown up in front of Josh before.
He came to my side.
His hand touched my back.
I shook him away and reached for the paper towels.
“Don't worry," I said, “this happens all the time. It’s not just in the morning. But I think this one was your fault.”
“Amelia…”
“I loved you so much,” I said to him. “I’d never kissed someone before, Josh. I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to have you… do whatever you wanted. You pushed me away. Twice. I felt like the ugliest person in the world.”