by Malcom, Anne
I sucked in a raspy breath.
“That day, right before the wedding,” I began.
“Fuck, Polly,” Heath started to argue.
“No, I need to finish,” I said. “Standing in my wedding dress, chosen for another man, with that same man’s baby inside of me, I was close. I don’t like to say how close I was to giving up my baby’s peace for you. But I couldn’t do that. You’re a good man, Heath, despite what you think. Good enough to raise another man’s baby if it came to that...”
“It fuckin’ would’ve come to that,” he growled, cupping my face. “Anything grown inside of you, half of you, I would’ve loved it with all of me.”
Another tear trailed down my cheek.
More pain.
“You know what I said about ifs,” I whispered. “They’re dangerous. Fatal. Especially since there’s more.” I steeled myself. “I lost my baby exactly one day into my honeymoon. Not the best way to start married life. Craig was understanding, kind, of course. Took care of me. But now with hindsight, there were moments that he was...irritated with it all. But I was too deep in sorrow to care I guess. I don’t know. It was blurry. But what the doctors told me after wasn’t. That I likely would never conceive naturally again. That I’d never carry to term, even if I could. That I would never be able to give the gift my parents gave me to a child of my own.”
I let the words sink into the air. They were heavy. I knew this since I’d been carrying them around with me.
Dragging them with bloodied and broken fingers.
“I decided I didn’t want to tell anyone. Craig agreed. He said he didn’t want kids anyway, so it was okay with him. Okay. Me literally losing my baby and any possibility of another one.”
Okay.
I remembered hating him in that split second.
Absolutely despising him.
But I let go of that because I had to.
“I made myself okay. Because there was no other choice. I couldn’t say it out loud, Heath.”
I sucked in air and it raked down my throat like broken glass.
“I physically couldn’t reproduce the sound of my dreams shattering in that cold and no-nonsense tone like the doctor did. I couldn’t spread the utter agony and loss around my family like a plague. So I kept it. Let it infect me. Because I knew I’d survive it. Because I managed to do things like breathe and blink and walk after they told me. Then I managed to pretend to smile. Laugh like I almost meant it. Throw myself into life with Craig that was so different than how I expected.”
I blinked to glimpse into the past. “Sometimes it was nice. Good, maybe. And then I remembered that I did love him, so I made excuses for those cold looks, those strange and cruel comments that I didn’t understand, and he apologized for later. I made excuses right up until his fist in my face was too big of a thing to excuse...and you know the rest.”
That was a lie. Even telling the ugliest and painful truth I’d been nurturing for two years, there was the ugly, decaying lump of truth inside of me that I couldn’t purge right now.
Couldn’t purge ever.
Heath didn’t speak.
He was still holding me, frozen in the pain from my words. Likely torturing himself for one reason or another.
For me.
“You want kids,” I said, more than a whisper. Barely. “You told me that. You want to make a family you never had. You deserve to make the most beautiful family there ever was. You deserve a son with your courage, bone structure, and strength. A daughter with your eyes and your heart. I can’t give you that, Heath. I can’t give you the one thing you want above all else.”
“Stop,” he said. The word was harsh. Painful. Because he’d yanked it up his throat with a force that hurt to hear. “You are what I want above all else, Polly. You.”
He shook me roughly in his arms as if to bring home his point. As if to remind himself that I was still there.
His eyes burned into mine. “Your fucking sunshine. Your smile. The fact that you wander around the house at three in the morning because it’s some sort of witching hour and you want to suck up the ‘positive energy.’”
I jerked at that because I hadn’t done that in the two months we’d been here.
Because there was no positive energy for me to suck up. I slept past the witching hour. Slept past the nightmares.
Heath knew this somehow, like he knew everything about me.
And he wasn’t done.
“You who won’t eat meat but who will cook me steak with a wrinkled nose because she knows I like it,” he growled. “You who constantly loses phones, keys, remotes, but never forgets a birthday, an anniversary, a commitment to a friend. You who smiles at strangers because that’s your first instinct. You who sleeps tangled up in me and uses my chest as her pillow.”
He cupped my cheek in his hands. “That’s what I want above all else. I didn’t have a home, a family, until you. You carry home around with you. You make a family everywhere you go because you attract people who want to be involved with you, connected to you, dedicated to you. So if you think that what you lost, what breaks my fucking heart, is going to make me lose you, then you’re fucking wrong.”
As if he couldn’t help himself, he leaned forward, kissing me hard and brutal in amongst his gentle words.
“I’m not going to lose you,” he murmured against my mouth. “Not going to walk away. Never. Because you’re my family. Even if it’s all I’ll ever have, it’ll be enough. More than enough.” He paused, searching my face.
I blinked at him, unable to digest his words.
He waited. For the words to tear through me. To settle.
And then he fed me more.
“Being part of something like this,” he murmured, tightening his hands around me, “is something special. Sacred. And when we started, I didn’t treat it that way because there was no fucking way I could. You were still in fucking high school. The only reason I didn’t run away was because I knew you were legal, that and I couldn’t fucking resist you.” He squeezed again.
That hunger that had been only teasing, weakly fighting against the rest of the vile filth inside me, it sparked again with that squeeze. With the desire in Heath’s eyes.
“I couldn’t resist taking you even with the knowledge of knowing I’d have to leave you,” he murmured. “Because you’re the beautiful girl who wants peace but fucks like it’s war.”
My thighs clenched at his words.
Heath’s eyes flared in response to the desire I must’ve been wearing on my face. “You’re the woman who deserves a smile on her face every day and a man that doesn’t have demons that makes that impossible,” he continued, voice raw. “So that’s why I left at first. Because I knew I was gonna be in a war fighting demons and creating worse ones in their place. Knew I was going to sacrifice whatever parts of me would’ve been able to give that beautiful little girl her smile. I did the wrong thing that morning to do the right thing in general.”
“I know that,” I whispered.
His eyes flickered. “You know that?” he repeated.
I smiled. “Of course I know that. I used to live in a fantasy, most people will tell you that. But I lived in that fantasy to save myself from pain in the world. If I’d held onto fantasies into regards to you, then I’d be in insurmountable pain when they never came true.”
We were laying it all out here, with talks of murdered ex-husbands, lost babies, lost loves. Lost lives.
“I know that you leaving was the only option,” I said. “I knew that the second we kissed. When you took my hand and dragged me from the bar. I knew there was a time limit. An expiry date. That’s why I fought so hard, before,” I said. “When you came back. Because I couldn’t stand our love having an expiry date.”
“It fucking doesn’t,” he promised. “It never fucking will.”
I smiled. “I think I’m getting that now.”
Something moved in his eyes. “Not quite. But I’ll prove it to you.”
Chapter Nineteen
One Week Later
“You need to go,” I murmured against Heath’s mouth.
“I know,” he responded.
But instead of letting me go, he yanked me closer, melding my body against his and laying his mouth against mine.
I responded. Completely. With all of the hunger I had for him, with all of the fear that pulsated through my body with his touch. It was a battle, every time he kissed me like this. But it was worth it.
I moaned into his mouth as his hand palmed my ass, grinding my body into his.
He let out a growl at my response, the first audible one I’d had to his touch since...then. The single thought was like ice water and I froze, my hunger retreating as the demons won again.
Heath noted the instant change. He always did. Because it was becoming the norm. Every time we got further, every time we nudged at the desperate hunger I knew was hiding in between both of us—that Heath was physically restraining—my ugly memories fought back.
He released his grip on my ass, moving one hand to my hip, the other to cup my jaw. His eyes roved over my face with concern. He didn’t ask me if I was okay.
He never did.
He knew I wasn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He jerked as if I’d struck him, his hand flexing at my hip, his jaw hardening. “You don’t apologize, Sunshine,” he clipped. “No fuckin’ way do you apologize for kissin’ me like that, for giving me that when I know what it takes from you.” He kissed my nose. “I’m the fucker that should be sorry. Sorry I’m pushing you.”
“No,” I interrupted. “You’re not.”
And I was right. He wasn’t pushing me. I was pushing myself. Because he’d made it apparent he wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how hard I tried to push him away. And I didn’t want him going anywhere.
So if I wasn’t pushing him away, I needed to push myself back. Back to somewhere we could try this. Somewhere we could make this work.
His eyes searched mine. “Polly,” he said, voice tender but tentative. He inhaled, and I knew it was coming. The moment when he asked me, straight up, what happened.
He was yet to do that.
And I was thankful. Because he seemed to know how impossible it was for me to utter it. And how impossible it was for me to lie to him.
But there was only so long a man like Heath could wait. Could withstand the torture of not knowing.
I braced.
But then the door opened.
“I didn’t barf today!” Lucy announced to the room.
Heath and I both jerked back, well, I did. Heath moved enough to tuck me into his side.
Lucy looked between the two of us with a shrewd gaze. “Oh, am I interrupting?” she asked, sweetly.
“No,” I said at the same time Heath snapped, “Yes.”
I smacked his shoulder.
Pain radiated through my knuckle as it encountered pure marble.
“Damn you and your iron type shoulders,” I hissed, rubbing my hand.
He snatched it and laid his lips gently on it. “Oh, did my shoulder hurt your fist?”
I scowled at him but did not snatch my hand back.
“Okay, this is so sweet I could vomit,” Lucy interrupted, throwing her purse on the sofa and doing her best to sit down gracefully.
An impossibility since she was eight months pregnant.
“I could vomit, but I won’t,” she continued. “Because I didn’t vomit today,” she said, grinning.
“Congratulations,” Heath said dryly.
She glared at him. “I know you’re being sarcastic, but I don’t even care. Because I’ve been vomiting, every day, at least three times a day for eight months. And now I have not.” She rubbed her belly. “It was kind of an asshole move to make me sick until the last month of pregnancy, but your father is kind of an asshole, so it makes sense,” she muttered, talking to her belly.
I inwardly flinched at watching the moment, hating the envy I had for the sister I loved. Heath squeezed me a little tighter, kissing my temple as if he sensed my thoughts.
“I’ve gotta go,” he murmured against my hair.
“Yes you do,” I agreed.
He turned me to face him fully, Lucy still talking to her belly.
He cupped my cheek. “You need anything?”
Apart from a time machine?
The ability to kiss my boyfriend—if that’s what he was now—without wanting to crawl out of my skin?
To not look at my glowing and pregnant sister without feeling jealous that I’d never get that?
I shook my head.
He laid a kiss on my mouth. “I’ll be back at three.”
I nodded once. It was Friday, after all.
“I’m teaching a class at one, so I’ll be at the studio.”
“Well then, I’ll be there,” he amended. “With that horrible green shit you like to drink afterward.”
Warmth spread through my belly. “It’s good for you.”
“I sure hope so,” he muttered.
I smiled. And it was real.
“There it is,” he murmured, kissing me again.
I melted into it.
He stepped back, hands fisted at his side.
“Bye,” he said.
I waved because my vocal cords weren’t working.
“Bye Heath!” Lucy all but yelled, grinning from ear to ear.
“Bye Luce,” he muttered. “Congrats on the no barfing.”
I watched him leave.
He paused at the door for one last glimpse.
I blew him a kiss.
And then he was gone.
“Oh my god,” Lucy uttered.
I snapped my eyes downward. “What is it?” I rushed forward in a panic. “Is it the baby? Is it coming? I was six weeks early you know.”
“Chill,” she hissed. “No, can I not be dramatic about things with my appropriate amount of flair anymore?” she said, scowling.
I relaxed at her scowl, sitting on the chair across from her. “Not until after you push the baby out.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Don’t remind me I have to do that.”
I nodded to her belly. “That’s not reminder enough?”
“Well now I can’t have a C-section, it is reminder enough,” she snapped. “But I was getting delightfully distracted by the Heath and Polly show and then you had to go and remind me.”
I grinned. I was getting better at them now. “Well, I apologize.”
She rolled her eyes, then they turned serious. “You don’t have to apologize for being happy,” she whispered. “Is that what you are? Happy?”
I thought about it. I considered lying to her. It was certainly kinder to lie to my pregnant and worried sister. But she’d also murder me if she knew I was treating her with anything resembling care for her pregnancy. “Almost,” I said. “Sometimes.”
Lucy’s eyes shimmered. “You need to talk to someone, anyone, about this,” she said gently.
I nodded. “I know.”
She blinked. “You know? But I had a whole speech drafted. You kind of stole my thunder.”
I grinned. “Do you want me to protest so you can perform the speech?”
She waved her hand. “No, the moment’s ruined.” She narrowed her eyes. “So you know you have to talk.”
I nodded. “There is a group that one of the women in the shelter told me about. I go every week.”
She gaped at me. Openly gaped. “You go every week?”
I nodded.
“For how long?”
I thought on it, back to when I started going. Back to when I told Heath, and he hadn’t hesitated to tell me he’d drive me every Friday. He also hadn’t asked questions. Hadn’t probed. Not when he dropped me off or picked me up. “Like three weeks?”
“Three weeks!” Lucy screamed. “How does Heath not know?”
“He knows,” I replied mildly, hoping she wouldn’t induce labor with her hysterics. But then ag
ain, her being calm was out of the norm, so that was more likely to induce labor.
“He knows?” she hissed.
“Are you just going to repeat everything I say?” I asked, standing to get my things ready. “Because I’m going to be late for my class.”
“You’re always late to everything,” Lucy countered.
“Well, yes, that’s true, but since this is the first class I’m teaching, it would be a bad look.”
It was my first class.
Heath knew this.
Because he was Heath.
But he didn’t make a big thing about it, because he knew that I was nervous, and him making a thing would make it worse. So he was Heath, and it calmed me.
Lucy stared at me, didn’t move, I could see her considering using her considerable size to bar me from leaving until she got the truth out of me. I also saw the fear, the pain in her eyes if she did get the truth out of me. My sister, the bravest woman I knew, the woman who took on drug dealers and won, was scared of me.
Of my truth.
She stepped aside. “Fine,” she huffed.
Then she reached forward and squeezed my hand. “But just so you know, you’re loved, you’re not alone.”
I smiled. “I know that,” I whispered.
But I was alone.
Of course I wasn’t going to tell anyone that.
* * *
I lied to Lucy.
Something that was rare for me before but it had become the norm now. I used to think badly about untruths and omissions. Used to strive to live an honest life. Because I thought that honesty meant doing no harm.
