Текст книги "Fall From India Place"

Автор книги: Samantha Young

Соавторы: Samantha Young
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Who was that girl?

I blinked away the tears, refusing to give in to any more of them.

A light knock sounded at my door and I looked up to watch Cole slide in. He was taller than Cameron now.

Without saying a word he walked into the room and sat down beside me.

“I know everyone has tried talking to you about what happened and I know you keep blowing everyone off, but today you aren’t going to.”

I scowled at my lap.

“Hannah, you passed out in my arms. There was blood. Jo and I didn’t know what was going on. You were dying. I was scared shitless,” he confessed, his words thick with emotion.

Surprised, I looked up at him. Cole cared about me.

Sighing, I reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry I did that to you.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. Just tell me who got you pregnant so I can kill him before Braden, Adam, Cam, and Nate get to him.”

Still, despite feeling betrayed by Marco’s departure, angry at him, so angry at him for leaving me to deal with all this alone, I felt fear more than anything else. Fear of my family discovering he got me pregnant. Fear they’d hurt him. Fear they’d think less of him.

“Hannah, you almost died,” Cole reminded me harshly.

“I know.” I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. “I made a massive mistake. At the beginning of the school year I went to a party with Sadie. I got really drunk.” I looked away from him. “I slept with this random guy I met and I took off afterwards because I couldn’t believe I’d done it. I don’t even know his name, let alone where he lives. And if I did, what would be the point? I had a miscarriage. He didn’t know I was pregnant, I didn’t know. We were both to blame for acting irresponsibly.”

“But you’re the only one who had to deal with the consequences. How is that fair?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think God’s a woman, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He choked on laughter. “You’re joking about this? Really?”

“It’s either that or I cry.” I felt my lips tremble. “Shit. I’m going to cry.” The tears fell before I could stop them, the sobs shuddering out from the very depths of me.

Cole wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into him, his T-shirt instantly soaked where I laid my head on his chest. “You’ll get through this, Hannah.”

“I keep seeing my mum’s and dad’s faces. I watched them go through hell when Ellie was diagnosed with her tumor and I saw it in their eyes again when I was lying in that hospital bed. Their whole world nearly disappeared along with me and it’s my fault.” I sobbed harder.

“Ssh,” he soothed, pulling me closer. “It’s nobody’s fault. Everything’s going to be okay.”

The truth was, I was scared. I was scared one wrong move could rip life away from me. Suddenly pregnancy was something that could do that to me. It wasn’t rational. I knew the doctor had told me I could go on to have a perfectly healthy pregnancy, but the fear of another ectopic pregnancy was too great. My fear forced me to grieve too young for what I always took for granted would be in my future.

Sitting up from the cold tiled floor of my bathroom, I swiped at my wet cheeks, and pressed my back against the bathtub, wrapping my arms around my knees to draw them into me.

My miscarriage, my near-death experience, and my grief changed me. It made me a bit of a loner. I lost most of my high school friends and I created a distance between myself and my family. Partly because I felt to blame for it all. I had acted recklessly that night with Marco, and in doing so I scared the utter crap out of the people that meant the most to me. They all became super-overprotective. To the point of suffocating me. That only made me internalize everything more.

I was depressed for months. Heartbroken.

In an attempt to try to pull me out of the dark, my parents were actually the ones who surprised everybody by suggesting I stay in student accommodations at university. They believed it would force me to start living again.

And it did.

Suzanne was crazy. She was never serious. She liked to party, and I found her carefree attitude addictive during a time when I really needed that.

I soon discovered, however, that my parents were worried about me getting pregnant again. Although they’d never admonished me for my stupidity, since nature had done enough reprimanding for the both of them, I knew I’d lost something from them. I’d lost their certainty in me. They worried that I’d make the same mistake all over again and that I’d put myself in danger.

So I went with Mum and I got the pill.

I’d been on it ever since, even though until Marco there had never been any real use for it.

By the time I turned nineteen I’d gotten through the worst of it, and standing on the sidelines, waiting for me to come back to them, was my family.

And I did.

They knew I would.

Waiting at the head of that line was Cole. He was the only positive thing to come out of it all. Since the moment I’d collapsed in his arms, a bond had formed between us, gradually growing until we counted each other as best friends. He had always been there in those dark days to assure everyone else that I was still in there and that day by day I was making my way back to them.

Eventually I moved on.

I tried to let it all go.

Until Marco. He came crashing back into my life. No one but my dad knew he was the one who had got me pregnant and left me. I felt all alone again. I couldn’t talk to my dad about it. That was too weird, too uncomfortable, and so it brought everything back.

I tried to fight through the hurt and disappointment to reach for rational thought. Marco hadn’t known I was pregnant. If he’d known it would have been a different story. I was sure of that. It wasn’t his fault any more than it was mine.

Okay, if he hadn’t left me I would have had him by my side when I needed him. Maybe the days wouldn’t have been so dark. However, he’d explained why he left. And Cole had been right. I might not like it, but his explanation was a good one.

I forgave him.

My fingernails dug into my knees.

But to know now that he’d not only returned to Edinburgh without looking me up, but that he’d returned and gotten some other girl pregnant and been there for her… It was devastating.

All that pain was back full force again.

It didn’t matter if it wasn’t rational. I felt it. I felt it scoring my insides.

The hardest thing I’d ever been through and he wasn’t there for me.

But he’d been there for Leah.

I knew I shouldn’t have let him back in.

I couldn’t forgive him this.

CHAPTER 19

“The turkey looks burnt.” Dec made a face at the dead bird as he approached the dinner table.

Mum had gone all out¸ just as she did every year, and the table looked beautiful.

The turkey did not at all look burnt.

“What?” Mum squawked as she hurried into the room, carrying a bowl of potatoes. Her eyes flew to the bird in panic.

I shot my brother a dirty look, ready to reprimand him for teasing Mum when she was anxious, but Dad beat me to it.

“Declan, stop being an idiot and go help your mum get the rest of the food through from the kitchen.”

Dec grunted at the order but didn’t argue with it.

As soon as he was out the door, I made a face at my dad as I rounded the table to take a seat next to Ellie. “Do you think he’ll be passing that irritating stage of teenage idiocy anytime soon? He is eighteen – shouldn’t he be over it by now?”

“I heard that!” Dec shouted from the hallway.

I bugged my eyes out at Ellie as she giggled. “Ears of an owl.”

“An owl?” Joss smiled, amused, as she helped Beth, Luke, and William settle at the kiddie table.

“Yes,” I said. “I do believe they have the sharpest hearing in the world.”

“I do believe you know a whole lot of crap that no one cares about,” Dec said as he returned to the room with a bowl of steamed vegetables.

“Ha.” I greeted him with a grimace. “I do believe I know whose Christmas vouchers are getting canceled if he doesn’t stop being an irritating d-i-c-k.”

“Ah.” Adam sighed contentedly, sitting on Ellie’s other side. “Now it feels like Christmas.”

Ellie giggled into her glass of water.

Mum glared at us both as she set down the last bowl of food and slipped into her seat at the head of the table across from Dad. “Both of you zip it and eat.”

“She’s the one that started it earlier on,” Dec huffed, sitting down next to Braden. “She’s been on my back since she got here. I don’t understand why she stayed the night when she has her own place. And it’s not my fault she’s in a shitty mood because she got dumped.”

I sucked in my breath and everyone with the exception of Braden and Dec tensed. Braden’s reaction was to smack Dec lightly across the back of the head. “One, don’t swear in front of the kids. Two, she didn’t get dumped, she did the dumping. And three, you’re eighteen. Grow up and stop being a pain in the a-r-s-e to your sister. Apologize.”

I was too busy avidly staring at my empty plate to see Dec’s reaction to that. I was attempting to regain control of my breathing after my brother’s words had winded me.

All day I’d been doing my best to forget.

The last few weeks had not been easy, to say the least. I’d had to explain to everyone that Marco and I had broken up, but of course I couldn’t explain why. I didn’t get into it, and I tried my best to appear as unaffected as possible. However, no matter what I said they were all convinced that I was the devastated party in the breakup.

“I’m not devastated,” I’d lied to them on more than one occasion. “We were barely together two months.”

Yet the truth was I missed him so much I was in pain. All the time.

I was completely at war with myself.

In the mornings I would wake up alone but I would feel the press of his warm body against mine like a phantom in the room. I’d remember Marco was out of my life and that warmth would disappear and I was left alone in my flat. My flat that had once been home and now just felt empty and cold.

Like its owner.

When missing him became too much, I’d reach for the phone, and just as I was about to dial his number, I’d remember. How much it hurt. Why it hurt. And why we were no longer together.

Of course it made things easier that Marco didn’t call or come around. I’d packed up the things he’d left at my place and had Nish return them to him. She did it for him. Not for me. Nish and I weren’t really speaking to each other, which made for a very wintry atmosphere in the staff room. I discovered she’d known all along that Marco had a son. He’d asked her to stay quiet on the subject until he had the chance to tell me. Nish was equally pissed off with me for reacting to the news the way I had. She was under the impression I was a selfish, coldhearted bitch.

Nish and Marco could think what they liked, as long as I had space to lick my old wounds and try to make sense of everything.

Being around family helped. I’d stayed with my parents on Christmas Eve and I intended to stay with them right through until the day after Boxing Day. Although Liv, Nate, Jo, Cam, and Cole were celebrating Christmas with their own families, my parents’ house still felt full, it still felt warm, and it felt safe.

I was doing my best to hide my heartbreak so I wouldn’t spoil the mood, and I’d been doing a pretty decent job of it until my little brother decided to be a little shit.

“Hannah.”

I looked up at Dec and saw the remorse in his expression.

“Sorry,” he muttered guiltily.

“Don’t even worry about it,” I replied quietly, and then flashed everyone my best faux smile. “I’m starving. Let’s eat the crap out of this turkey.”

Thankfully the atmosphere at the table lightened and we were able to enjoy a great Christmas dinner together.

Earlier that morning Mum, Dad, Dec, and I had opened our presents, but Ellie, Adam, Braden, Joss, and the kids had yet to open theirs from us, and we hadn’t opened ours from them. After dinner, I hurried upstairs to my old room, where I had a Santa’s sack with all their presents in it. I was just going through it to make sure everything was there when my phone rang in my pocket.

Thinking it was probably Jo or Cole, I answered it without even looking at the screen.

“Merry Christmas.” Suzanne’s greeting surprised me. “I thought I better call since it seems you’ve lost my number.”

Just like that, all my pretense at happy Christmas spirit fled out the nearby window and instantly frosted over in the December air. “I didn’t lose your number,” I told her flatly. “I just don’t want to talk to you.”

She gave me a loud, dramatic huff. “Because I sent that picture? That was for your own good. I was being a friend.”

I shook my head at her bullshit, catching my look of incredulity in the mirror in front of me. “No. You were being a bitch because you don’t know how to be anything else. You didn’t send that photo because you were looking out for me, you sent that photo because you were pissed off and wanted me to be pissed off too. You’re spoiled and you’re spiteful. Not to mention inconsiderate. I should have broken off our friendship ages ago, as soon as I realized that you aren’t capable of thinking about anyone but yourself. Don’t bother calling me again. Ever.” I hung up before she could respond and instantly deleted her number.

The fact that I felt relieved more than anything else told me I was doing the right thing.

“What was that about?”

I spun around. “Adam?”

He stepped into the room, scrutinizing me. “Well?” He gave a nod toward my phone.

I slipped it into my pocket. “It was nothing.”

Adam scowled at my reply. “Did Marco cheat on you?”

“What?” I stared at him in surprise. “Why on earth would you think that? No. He didn’t cheat on me. I told you, I just didn’t want to be with him anymore.”

“Well, none of us believe that.”

I heaved a beleaguered sigh, wishing my family didn’t pay such bloody close attention. “Look, if he’d done something awful to me, I’d tell you in a heartbeat so you could go and kick his arse. But he didn’t. I promise.”

It was Adam’s turn to sigh. “Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you, Hannah. Els is worried.”

I opened my mouth to reassure him, but there was a commotion downstairs —

“Adam!” Dec bellowed up the stairs. “The baby’s coming!”

“I don’t recognize any of these people.” I wrapped my arm around Cole’s shoulders and leaned into him as I looked around the room.

“That’s because you’ve had five beers.”

“Yet my cognitive functions appear to be in working order, so it’s not that.”

He glanced at me, a small smile playing on his lips. “And you used the phrase ‘cognitive functions.’ Okay.” He gazed back around the room. “So I guess I don’t recognize some of these people. But most of them are from uni.”

“Hmm. Should we mingle?”

“Aye.” I felt his concerned gaze on me. “You ready for that?”

“You’re the one that’s forcing me to celebrate New Year’s, so I think you already think I am.”

“Jesus Christ, leave it to you to be smart when you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk. I’m buzzed.” I spotted a bottle of tequila. “But I know a way to get drunk.”

Following my gaze, Cole’s nodded. “I’ll get the salt and the lime.” He walked off toward to the kitchen, smiling and nodding hello to people.

As soon as he was gone, I instantly felt despondent. I hated that I felt despondent. This was supposed to be a happy time. Ellie had given birth to another little boy in the early morning of Boxing Day. She and Adam had named him Braden after his uncle, although we’d all already started calling him Bray. While William was fair like his mum, Bray was already dark like his dad. Only time would tell if he’d remain that way.

We were all gaga over Bray, even the kids. Now we were just waiting on Jo, who was due this week.

I tried not to let their pregnancies or the pregnancies that had come before theirs bother me. Never would I resent a family member’s or friend’s happiness. However, each new baby was a reminder that I would never have one of my own. So I took joy in being a favorite aunt.

I took no joy in the fact that missing Marco hadn’t gone away. In fact it had only gotten worse.

“Screw the salt and lime,” I whispered, and headed over to the tequila.

With Cole’s help and the help of people who were introduced to me but whose names I quickly forgot, I got drunk to the point where I was happy but I could still control which foot went in front of the other. By the time midnight approached, a cute guy around Cole’s age was chatting me up. He was flirty and kept touching my waist and bending close to hear what I had to say, and for a little while, at least on a superficial level, I could forget there was a Marco.

Across the room I saw Cole was flirting with a pretty brunette.

It looked like we’d each found ourselves someone to kiss at midnight.

The room grew still upon the countdown and we all started shouting down from ten.

“… TWO! ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

Cheers rent the air along with whistles and claps, and I turned to smile up into cute-guy-I-couldn’t-remember-his-name’s face just as his mouth descended toward mine.

The instant his lips touched my lips, I tensed.

He kissed me. It was perfectly nice.

But there was no tingling.

I felt the burn of tears in my nose and in the back of my throat and I abruptly broke the kiss. I looked up, horrified by the wet in my eyes, and apologized to his neck since I couldn’t meet his surely befuddled gaze. Hurrying away from him, I pushed through the crowds of partygoers in Cole’s flat and hurried out into the chilly stairwell. It was cold, but it felt nice against my burning skin.

“What the hell was that?” I murmured to myself, brushing my hair off my face with a trembling hand.

As if in answer, my phone rang.

That was a surprise. It was nearly impossible to get through to someone on New Year’s since the networks were so clogged with calls. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I almost dropped it when I saw the caller ID.

It was like the no-tingle kiss had conjured him.

Marco.

Feeling the breath whoosh out of me, I stared at the phone, unsure what to do.

Then, as if someone else had taken over my body, I pressed the ANSWER button and held the phone up to my ear without saying a word.

“I’m sitting here” – he started speaking, and the sound of his gravelly voice in my ear caused me to close my eyes in pain – “and for the millionth time I’m wondering what the fuck went wrong.”

Still I didn’t speak.

“I want to know what’s going on, Hannah. What’s really going on? I keep going over it and over it in my head, and no matter what my brain tells me happened that day, I refuse to believe the person that broke up with me was you. There’s something you’re not telling me. There’s got to be something you’re not telling me.” He sounded desperate, and the pain in his voice was like a fist twisting in my gut. “My head’s a fucking mess.” He sighed, his voice lowering to a rumble. “I miss you.”

Frozen, his words like a vise squeezing my lungs, I couldn’t say anything in return.

Marco waited a while.

Then he hung up.

I dropped my head, wondering why I suddenly felt like a coward. “I miss you too,” I whispered.

CHAPTER 20

A week later school had resumed and it felt good to have something to bury myself in again. Morning classes had gone quickly and I’d now settled at my desk to do marking while I had a free period.

When the phone rang I didn’t think anything of it. I answered it and got Neil at Reception.

“Hannah, we’ve got a Cole Walker at Reception for you.”

Wondering what the hell he was doing there, I tried not to let my mind race with the worst possibilities. “Send him up.”

I put the phone down and quickly scrambled through my bag for my own phone. Had something happened to Jo? She was past due and maybe…

It seemed to take forever for my phone to come on and when it did I had no new messages or missed calls. I shoved it back in my bag just as Cole came through my doorway and slammed my door shut.

Slowly, nervously, I stood up.

Cole was furious and I had not a clue as to why. “What’s going on?”

The muscle in his jaw flexed while he looked me over, seeming beyond frustrated and angry. “I bumped into Suzanne half an hour ago.”

My stomach dropped.

“Marco has a family?” he asked in disbelief. “A kid? A wife?”

“No.” I hurried toward him in denial. “He has a son… Cole, we can’t do this here.”

“Just tell me what’s going on and I’ll leave.”

I wasn’t sure I could get through an explanation that would work without breaking down, but I attempted it. “I found out that Marco got someone pregnant when he came back to Edinburgh four years ago. She was an old friend of his. They’re not together. But they have a three-year-old son.”

He frowned at me in confusion. “You broke up with Marco because he has a child?”

The incredulity in his voice made my anxiety spike even more, but I nodded, hoping my expression didn’t give me away.

Unfortunately, the trembling in my hands did. Cole caught the shaking as he scrutinized me from top to bottom, and as soon as he saw it, he stiffened. Understanding flitted through his eyes and he pinned me to the spot with the force of his realization. “It was him,” he said hoarsely. Renewed fury roiled in his gaze. “It was fucking him. You lied? It was him! He got you pregnant and fucked off!”

“Cole —”

But he was already marching out of the room.

Panicked, not sure what he might do, I grabbed my bag and ran out of the classroom after him, struggling in my stupid heels. By the time I caught up to him he was striding across the parking lot toward his beat-up old car and he was talking on his phone to someone.

“Cole!” I shouted, but he ignored me and got in his car. “Shit.” I hurried after him, chasing him as he pulled out of the school gates. As soon as I hit the main road, I scanned the street for a taxi.

My phone rang. It was Adam.

My gut told me to answer it.

“Hannah, what’s going on?” Adam demanded. “Cole just called to ask what site Marco is working on. He sounds beyond pissed off.”

Seeing a cab, I threw my hand out, grateful when it slowed. My heart was racing frantically in my chest. “Adam, he’s about to do something really stupid. Where is he going?”

Adam gave me the site address and as I jumped into the cab, I relayed it to the driver.

“Hannah, what is going on?” Adam repeated.

“I need to go.” I hung up, turning my panicked attention to the driver. “Please, get me there as fast as you can. It’s an emergency.”

“I’ll try my best, love.”

I jumped out of that cab at the site entrance ten minutes later and I heard the commotion before I saw it. As I hurried around the office cabins, my heart plummeted at the sight before me.

Marco had Cole by the throat, his face twisted in anger. He thrust Cole away, but Cole barely staggered back before he swung out and clipped Marco in the face with his fist. There were two workers standing behind them, not doing much to stop them, and I could see more running toward the scene.

Marco punched Cole and suddenly I was in action.

“Stop!” I screamed, running toward them, pushing past the crew that was gathering. “Cole, stop i —”

Cole’s elbow slammed into my head as he pulled back his arm in preparation to punch. The pain burst down the side of my face, dazing me, and I stumbled back, feeling hands on me, steadying me.

I blinked, trying to refocus, and when I did, I saw Cole staring at me in horror and an enraged Marco behind him, ready to lunge.

“No!” I pushed past Cole and collided with Marco, pressing my hands to his chest. “Marco, please,” I pleaded.

Marco’s handsome features were stretched tight, his jaw clenched hard. I could tell he didn’t want to stop, but he did, taking a step back in silent acquiescence.

Head throbbing, heart pounding, legs trembling, I spun around to placate Cole. I ignored the men who had gathered around us. “He doesn’t know, Cole. He doesn’t know.”

Cole’s nostrils flared. “He still fucking left you.”

“Yeah. He did. But everything else… he doesn’t know.”

“I don’t know what?” Marco asked impatiently behind me.

My shoulders tensed. I’d never wanted this moment to come.

Cole opened his mouth to speak.

“Don’t you dare,” I snapped.

“He needs to know.”

Feeling nauseated at the prospect I replied, “And now he will. But I’ll be the one to tell him.”

“Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on here?” Marco growled.

“And me.”

I turned my head at the unfamiliar voice. A tall man wearing a hard hat and a yellow safety jacket over a suit was glowering at Cole.

“You want to tell me why you attacked one of my men on a worksite?”

“I’d like to know the same thing.”

That voice was familiar. I blanched as Braden and Adam emerged through the crowds of men. They stopped by the guy in the suit, who I presumed was Marco’s site manager. Braden and Adam looked harried. Their eyes blazed with annoyance as they took in Cole and Marco, but their expressions turned concerned when their gazes fell upon me.

“Mr. Carmichael?” The site manager looked surprised. “I didn’t know you were planning a visit today. I can assure you this has never happened before.”

“Keep your trousers on, Tam.” Braden brushed him off. “That’s my little sister.” He looked back at me. “Hannah, what’s going on?”

Feeling my cheeks pale at having all this attention on me, I took a step toward Braden and Adam’s comforting presence. “I need to speak with Marco privately. I’ll explain everything to you, but first I need to explain it to him.”

For a moment Braden was silent as he considered this. It was clear he wanted to know what the hell was going on now so he could decide whether he wanted to help finish what Cole had started with Marco. Finally, he gave me a taut nod and then turned to Tam. “My sister needs the use of the office cabin.”

“Of course.” The site manager gestured toward it. “It’s empty.”

Before I could do anything, I felt the warm press of Marco’s hand on my lower back. He gently guided me forward as the site manager started yelling at everyone else to get back to work.

I wanted to rip away from Marco’s touch, hating the ache inside of me, that torturous longing that couldn’t seem to get on board with the whole not-forgiving-him thing. However, I let him keep his hand there and I didn’t know if I did it for him or if I did it for me.

Once inside the quiet cabin, I stepped aside from the door and watched Marco as he strode toward the manager’s desk. He whirled around to look at me, a million questions in his eyes. Ignoring the throbbing in my head where Cole had clipped me, I dipped my gaze to Marco’s lip. Cole had split it open. “I’m sorry about Cole,” I muttered.

“I could give a damn about what he did. I want to know why he did it.”

It took all the courage I had to meet Marco’s eyes.

“Hannah?” he prompted, his patience clearly waning.

The last time I’d felt this sick was after discovering he had a son. Ignoring the cold chills I was feeling, I rubbed a shaking hand over my dry lips and fought the nausea.

“It wasn’t because you have a son,” I told him quietly.

The air around him instantly grew still, his look sharpening.

“I don’t know how to say any of this,” I confessed.

“Well, you better find a way because I lost patience with this shit weeks ago.”

Exhaling, I nodded. I just needed to say it. Just say it.

Breathe, Hannah.

“When you left me five years ago I was in a really bad place. I thought at first I was just heartbroken, that that was why I wasn’t feeling great. But a few months after you left I was out with Jo and Cole and I felt this indescribable pain. I passed out from it.”

Marco’s expression tightened and I could see in his eyes that he didn’t want to hear what was coming but recognized that he needed to. I didn’t want to tell him because I knew in that moment that what I was going to tell him was going to hurt him, too.

I fought the tears and powered on through. “When I woke up it was almost forty-eight hours later and I was in hospital.”

“Hannah…” He seemed to plead with me.

That’s when the tears started winning. “I miscarried. But it wasn’t just a miscarriage; it was something called an ectopic pregnancy. That means the egg implanted inside one of my tubes instead of the womb, but because I didn’t realize I was pregnant, the egg grew until it ruptured the tube and I started bleeding internally.”

“You almost died?” he asked, his voice deep and thick with the emotion I could see blazing in his eyes.

“Yes. I had surgery. They removed the damaged tube.” Saying it out loud just reminded me of all the resentment I’d been feeling, and without meaning to I let it spill out of me. “I lied to my friends and family about who got me pregnant. I protected you. I protected you, but you weren’t there to protect me. I had to cope with having a miscarriage at seventeen. And you weren’t there for me. And I know you had your reasons and I tried to forgive and I tried to forget.” I swiped at my tears, but they were falling too fast for me to keep up. “But you weren’t even back in Edinburgh a few months when you got Leah pregnant. You were there for her, Marco, and as much as I know it’s not rational, I feel like you betrayed me somehow. You were supposed to be the love of my life, but how can you be? I went through all of that alone only to discover that the supposed love of my life was there for some other girl when he was never there for me.”

The small space was thick with a stifling silence, broken only by my labored breathing.

I waited for him to say something. Anything.

Without warning, he turned around and slammed his fist into the cabin wall. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He punched it repeatedly, the wall crumbling like paper.

“Marco!” I moved toward him to stop him, but my voice had already done that. He sagged into the wall, his forehead resting against it as his shoulders shuddered.

“Marco,” I whispered, my emotions confusing me all the more when an ache inside me begged me to comfort him. I walked over to him and he turned his head to watch me approach.

There was anguish unlike anything I’d ever seen in his eyes as they looked deep into mine. “You were this precious, beautiful gift that came into my life when I needed it the most,” he said quietly. “I never felt safe as a kid. I knew what it was like to not feel safe and I hated the idea of anyone I cared about ever feeling that way. I started to care about you pretty quickly, so it feels like I’ve always only ever wanted to protect you, you know. And I didn’t. So I did betray you. And I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sor…” His voice fell away as he dragged his hand down his face, pushing away from the wall and turning away from me.