How To Resist A Heartbreaker

by Louisa George

  She turned her head away. ‘No, Max. Please. Don’t.’

  The laugh turned bitter. ‘I need to hold you, Gabby. I need to feel you in my arms. We both lost that baby. I know you’re hurting. Hell, I’m hurting too.’

  She knew that.

  He’d come a long way. He could admit that he hurt. But she was still back in the emotional dark ages.

  He hurt. For himself. For her. For what they’d lost.

  Her throat clogged with thick emotion. She’d been thinking purely about herself and not how he felt about losing a baby, too.

  What had happened to her? Had she always been so selfish? For so long she’d learnt to keep her emotions tightly locked away. Refused to discuss how she felt. Refused, even, to acknowledge that she felt anything at all. But now it wasn’t just about her, it was about Max, too.

  Her hand found his. ‘I’m so sorry, Max. I know you’ll make a great dad one day.’

  ‘And you’ll be a fabulous mum, somehow. But don’t beat yourself up about it now. We can talk about all that another time. Just work on getting better.’ His arm slid under her back and he pulled her to him. She knew he needed her comfort as much as she needed his. But she couldn’t do this anymore.

  ‘I can’t hold you, Max. Not now.’ Because if she did, she might never let go. ‘Please, don’t.’

  Confusion shimmered in his eyes. ‘When you’re ready, let me know.’

  He pulled his arm away but stayed on the bed next to her. A gap of a few inches separated them. Judging by the frustration emanating from him, it might as well have been a mile. An ocean. A continent.

  Minutes ticked by. His breathing settled but he wasn’t relaxed, not by a long shot. His thigh muscles remained tight under his jeans, his fists clenched at his sides.

  It took all her strength not to reach for him.

  Eventually he shifted from the bed. ‘I’m going to get some food for you. Don’t you dare move before I get back—I can’t keep chasing you across the city. Besides, I want you strong and well for that dinner next week. I want to show you off.’

  She knew he meant well and was trying to give her a focus to distract her. A reason to heal. Well, she didn’t want one. She didn’t want to be looked at and pitied. And she didn’t want to string him along anymore. She needed to set him free. ‘I’m not going to the dinner.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘I know what I said. But I have to tell you something.’ She drew in a breath and readied herself for the most painful conversation of her life. ‘I can’t go—’

  ‘Of course you can.’ He spoke over her. Goddamn him. ‘You’ll be fine by then. You need something to look forward to. Is it because you have nothing to wear?’ He’d jumped off the bed and walked across the room towards her closet. ‘Let’s see what you have in here.’

  ‘No! Max, stop. Listen to me.’ She leaped forward but a sharp sting across her incision scars whipped her breath away.

  Before she could stop him he’d opened the closet door. He reeled back. ‘Oh, okay. Wow. You have a lot of shoes. And so neatly stacked. You have OCD, too?’

  No. No. No. Everything was unravelling exactly the way she didn’t want.

  She wanted to scream. To run.

  ‘Don’t…touch the boxes.’ Please, don’t. Please, don’t. Please, don’t. ‘Max, come away from there.’

  ‘Hey, silly. It’s just shoes.’ He picked up box three and examined it. His forehead furrowed as he took in the childish train stickers. The blue balloons. The number three in navy and silver glitter. ‘What are the numbers for? You rating your shoes now, too?’

  ‘Max—no.’

  His hands were opening the lid. Her heart thumped and pounded and rattled. Her shoulders hunched up and squeezed against her neck. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. She closed her eyes. Opened them again to see the nightmare had become a reality.

  He would ask. She would have to tell him. It would be over.

  ‘What’s all this, Gabby? I don’t understand.’ His voice was hollow as he showed her the contents of the box. Contents she’d painstakingly put there. The birthday card so lovingly written, that one day she hoped she’d be able to give. The carefully selected presents. The letters. ‘What’s this about?’

  Her hand found her mouth and stopped the wobbling lip. But she couldn’t stop the tears that threatened and yet never fell. Somehow she forced the words out through her burning throat. ‘They are for my baby.’

  Pain crawled across her stomach, up her spine, reached out to her fingertips, down her legs to her toes. Every part of her burned with the loss.

  ‘Your what?’ His focus was back on the boxes, his voice empty.

  ‘There are ten of them. One for each year he’s been alive. One for every birthday I’ve missed.’

  Again he shook the box towards her. ‘I don’t understand. What are you telling me?’

  ‘You’ll get the chance to be a father again and again, Max. But I won’t ever be a mother. Not again. I was once, though.’ Now her heart shattered into a million tiny jagged pieces that would never fit back together again. She’d lost everything. She’d lost her babies. She watched as he recoiled, his face a grim mask of disgust. And now she was losing him, too. She was utterly broken. ‘I gave my baby away.’

  *

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What did she mean? Gave it away? ‘I don’t understand.’

  Didn’t want to comprehend what she’d done. He gazed at the neatly stacked numbered boxes. One to ten. Covered in a pathetic collection of stickers that were aged appropriately. From teddy bears, bubbles and balloons to music players and groovy cartoon kids on skateboards. They looked like collages done by a child. The sense of hopelessness that accompanied them was almost palpable. And mirrored the same feeling he had in his soul.

  Her eyes were dead. Her face a mask. How she held herself together to say those words he’d never know. But he needed to hear the rest. To discover what kind of person he’d lost his heart to. Because, God knew, she wasn’t the woman he’d believed her to be. ‘Go on, Gabby. I’m listening.’

  Her voice, in contrast to his hoarseness and harshness, was shallow and soft. He had to strain to hear her. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to move closer.

  She gripped the necklace at her throat. ‘I fell pregnant when I was fifteen. First time lucky.’ The smile was false. ‘First and only time. Until you.’

  He supposed that should mean something. She’d waited how long to put her faith in someone? And she’d chosen him. But it didn’t change anything. Couldn’t change what she’d done. She’d given a baby away…for adoption? Foster care?

  The same kind of life he’d had.

  But it wasn’t the same, he tried to rationalize. This was his Gabby, beautiful, kind Gabby who wanted every baby to be loved and looked after. She’d drilled that into him enough already. He couldn’t imagine her doing such a thing.

  So why? Why had she given a baby away?

  Had she no idea how that kind of stuff messed with your head? How it always felt like rejection? At least, that’s what he’d always felt. Like he was something nobody had wanted. Not his parents. Not his brother. Certainly not his uncle.

  Rational thoughts twisted and screwed in his head. God, he was all kinds of confused.

  He watched her throat rise and fall against the diamond heart as she picked her words. He couldn’t find any words of his own so he let her purge herself.

  She didn’t look at him. Instead, she spoke to the space between them, her gaze directed somewhere around his chest. ‘I didn’t realise I was pregnant until I was quite far along. Twenty weeks. I’ve always had irregular periods and everything seemed normal, until they stopped altogether. My mum went hysterical when I told her. We had no money, nothing, no way of bringing up another child. Eventually Nonna found out. She was furious. She’d spent her life bringing up my mum then me. She had no intention of doing it again, and definitely no inclination to help me. “Get rid of it,” she said.
“Otherwise everyone will look down on us even more. You don’t bring dishonour on your family.”’

  His laugh was filled with scorn but he couldn’t hold it back. ‘What? In twenty-first-century New Zealand?’

  ‘You know what it’s like to be a pregnant schoolgirl, do you? How it is to be under the thumb of an über-strict family who are old-fashioned and proud, who would never ask for handouts. Nonna dictated everything. What I did, who with. She had control down to a T. She’d always said my mum had been out of control and that’s why my father had left, so she wasn’t going to risk it with me. Short of locking me in the house, she had a hand in everything I did, who I saw, where I went. Monitoring calls, checking my texts. It was worse than prison.’

  And worse, then, than his uncle. Who hadn’t cared what Max had done, as long as he’d excelled at it. Or had taken a beating.

  ‘So this was the ultimate disgrace. Nonna threatened me. Told me I’d let the family down, that they’d disown me. Told me I was stupid and that I’d fail. That I’d be a useless parent, like my mum. That I would condemn my child to a life of poverty and misery, like mine.’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  ‘Truthfully? I was frightened to death of Nonna. She never hurt me physically, although she threatened it enough, but she was scathing with her tongue. She could twist anything to make you feel guilty and useless. “You’ll ruin us, Gabriella. It’s your fault we live like this, with next to nothing. Your fault we have no money. Do you know how much school costs? Food? Clothes? Bus fares? And for what? A stupid, selfish, hateful child who brings shame on us. You have the devil in you, Gabriella.”’

  Gabby dragged in a breath, shoulders slumped forward, as if she still believed every word her grandmother had said. ‘Hateful. Stupid. Selfish. Emotional scars aren’t so easy to see, right?’

  ‘Right.’ If what he was hearing was true, her scars ran as deeply as his. He knew exactly how she felt. But still… Giving a child away? Max tried hard to understand what she’d been through, but how to do that with a series of disconnected thoughts running through your brain?

  Social workers. Screaming. Dip dip dip. Choices made, so much lost to him. And now his pain was heightened by the crushingly sad look in her eyes.

  She sighed. ‘I was naive, God knows. I wouldn’t have got pregnant if I hadn’t been. But I believed Nonna. Believed I was stupid. I believed I’d fail.’

  But there had been two people responsible for this baby. It wasn’t just about how well Gabby would have coped.

  ‘What about the father? Didn’t he care that you gave his baby away?’ Because he would have cared. He’d have fought for his child, whatever feelings he’d had for the mother. He wouldn’t have given it away as if it were unwanted trash.

  *

  Gabby hauled in air. Just looking at Max’s dark eyes destroyed her. She’d already lost him, that was obvious. Lost him because of something he’d never understand. But now that she’d started, she had to tell him the utter, absolute truth.

  ‘Isaac was the only thing that made me feel I was lovable, desirable. Worth something. He was my guilty secret. In a family where I wasn’t allowed any kind of normal social life, sneaking out to see him was my bliss.’

  How naive and stupid she’d been. She’d truly believed the local college boy had been as committed as she had been. Blindsided by immature infatuation she’d thought was love, she’d been crushed when he’d rejected her. Risking that kind of betrayal again had been something she’d avoided for ten years. It hurt too much. Now, seeing the incomprehension in Max’s eyes, the disgust and the anger, she decided she’d been right. ‘When I told him we were having a baby he disowned me. He told me I was nothing to him. Nothing.’

  Just like Max had. Nothing important.

  The dark look she knew she threw at Max was jumbled with the mixed-up emotions of now and the past. She’d been so alone and scared, and rejected by everyone. But had made the very best decision she could at the time.

  ‘Isaac didn’t want a baby and told me to get rid of it. No one cared what I wanted, they just wanted the problem gone. Nonna arranged for me to move across Wellington to stay with a distant cousin until I gave birth. I was fifteen, Max, still a child myself. I couldn’t imagine looking after a baby on my own, with no support. I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘There are social services. They’d have set you up in a flat.’

  Oh, yes, he had all the answers. ‘Easy in hindsight when you’re a smart, rich doctor, but not when you’re a scared teenager. Where would I have found out about that stuff? I was terrified. Terrified of giving birth, of being a mum, of being on my own. One night I was in the kitchen fighting with Nonna, and I suddenly saw everything clearly. I loved my baby so much I wouldn’t let it eke out an existence like I had, where there was little love and too much control. My child deserved better than I could give him. I had nothing to offer. Certainly not a good life with a loving family. The kind of family I’d always dreamed of having.’

  She nodded at Max as he dropped the box onto the floor and walked to the other side of the room. ‘The kind you dreamed of too, eh? I didn’t know what to do with a baby.’

  ‘You can learn. There are books.’ His jaw tensed and his lip curled. God, he really did hate her.

  But she actually felt lighter by telling him. She was utterly broken but open. She’d never ever told anyone else about this.

  ‘Nonna arranged a meeting with a private adoption agency who gave me files on couples who wanted a baby of their own. I chose one couple who sounded nice. But they were celebrities, the document said. They were desperate and they wanted a closed adoption to keep things from getting to the press. I realised, in the end, that was probably my best option. I wouldn’t be able to watch someone else love him. It would break my heart to visit but not be able to have him with me. And I would never take him away from them, so they convinced me to give him up as quickly as possible, as it was best for all concerned.’

  He leaned on the back of a chair, watched her from a distance, his gaze damning. And said nothing. She looked for a glimmer of understanding, but there was nothing but a taut stance and tight fists.

  ‘In the hospital I held him for a few lovely hours. It was just me and him. I held him tight and told him over and over how much I loved him, how I wanted him to be strong and kind and happy. How proud I was of him already.’ How I was so, so sorry, but it truly was for the best. That I loved him so much I had to give him away. There had simply been no other choice. The only way to be the best mum had been to give him to someone who could provide more than she ever could have.

  Her lips wouldn’t stop trembling. She bit them together. Tried to control herself. Relaxed her shoulders and finally let out the pain that had haunted her for a decade, and that she knew she would never shake.

  ‘He was perfect, Max. So tiny. So beautiful. I gave him his own name, his name for a day: Joseph. My baby, Joe. I sang him a lullaby. Wrapped him in a blanket I’d bought—it’s in box zero if you really need to know—just so I could have his smell with me for a bit longer. I spent those last minutes with him looking over his features, his tiny body, his little snub nose, at those teeny little fingernails. So I would never forget how he looked, what he felt like. So I would have something of his to remember him always. Just a snapshot in my head, but it’s as clear today as it was then.’

  How she would say the next words she didn’t know. But she had to. She inhaled deeply and stilled the shaking in her voice. The bright ball of pain in her throat burned and prickled and throbbed. ‘I pressed my lips to his perfect mouth and kissed him, and he gurgled. His baby voice was like sunshine, I didn’t know he would sound so beautiful. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so much love for someone I’d only just met.

  ‘But then they came, and I told him again over and over how much I loved him. I loved him, Max. I hadn’t got to know him, but it was there already, this immense and overpowering feeling for him. I loved him so much. That was
all there was for me—my love for him. There was nothing else. Nothing. And then they came, and I handed him over. It was like a light going out in my soul.’

  Just like that. Hers for a few moments, then gone. She hadn’t known how she’d be able to live without him. How she could get up each morning and face a less bright day. But she had, believing he deserved better than what she’d had to give. Believing he was in a happier place.

  But even then she’d wavered. Wondered if he was happy. Wondered if his new family burned with the same fervent love she did.

  Wished she could turn the clock back.

  And now she had nothing to look forward to. No child to hold in her arms. She ached as much for the baby she’d just lost as for the one she’d given away.

  Tears pricked at her eyes but still none fell. Her throat was hoarse with an ache that she didn’t think would ever heal, and the hole in her heart gaped wide.

  ‘It was like a tight fist of pain that gets bigger and bigger until you think you’re going to die because of it. For a long, long time afterwards I didn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t face each day. I wanted him back so much. I knew I’d made the right choice, but it was so hard to deal with. I loved him. I always will. And one day I’m going to see him again. Somehow.’

  *

  Max couldn’t get past ‘handed him over’. Handed him over like an unwanted Christmas gift.

  He knew he should feel sorry for her, knew she couldn’t have made any decision like that easily—but, damn, he couldn’t stop his anger pouring out.

  ‘If I ever had a child I’d keep it so close, treasure it. I wouldn’t trade it away for a better future.’ Or leave it behind like his parents had. He felt the rage spread across his chest. Rage for what? Now? Then?