Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 82715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
I stared at him wide eyed. “I had a sports scholarship,” I reminded him. “Which I couldn’t exactly follow through with while pregnant.”
“Then why not have an abortion?” he asked easily, picking his beer back up. It wasn’t accusatory, just curious.
“Because,” I sputtered, shaking my head. “Because.”
“Far as I remember, you were pro-choice.”
“I still am,” I ground out. “But it wasn’t something I considered then.”
“Why?”
How had I not prepared myself for where this conversation would go? I’d imagined that I’d just tell the timeline of events, explain where I’d been, and then we would move forward somehow from there. What an idiot.
“Because it wasn’t,” I finally said. I wasn’t willing to clarify further. “I knew that I needed to go to college. It wasn’t an option not to. So, I went along with it.”
“You went along with it,” he muttered darkly.
“I was eighteen years old.”
“So was I,” he replied. “You think my parents coulda kept me from you?”
“They never would have,” I shot back. “That’s the difference.”
“No, the difference is I never woulda left you,” he said, pointing his beer bottle at me. “That’s the difference.”
“So, I went to Arizona,” I said, frustration making my words short. “Because I had a partial academic scholarship there, and they said that they’d pay for the rest. And they did. All through my pregnancy and up until Rhett was born.”
He was silent as I started to pace around the kitchen, the memories making me feel itchy.
“But then I couldn’t do it,” I said, coming to a stop across from him. “I’d picked the perfect parents. They were so nice, Michael. The dad was some kind of software engineer and the mom was the receptionist at a pediatrician’s office, but she planned on staying home once he came. They were perfect, and I—” My voice began to wobble and I stopped, swallowing hard. “I couldn’t give him up. He came out, and he looked just like you and I couldn’t do it and I broke their hearts.”
Mick stared at me, the muscle in his jaw throbbing.
“So, I brought him home and my parents were livid. They’d paid for school under the condition that I’d give him up for adoption and then I didn’t go through with it. So they stopped paying.”
“Fuckin’ cunts.”
“They let us live with them,” I said with a shrug. I’d been so thankful for that. “They supported us.”
“So you wouldn’t come back to me,” he said with a scoff, shaking his head.
I didn’t argue. It was something I’d always suspected but never said out loud.
“It was okay,” I said softly. “They loved Rhett, and it was okay.”
“So why are you here?” he asked, putting his bottle in the sink.
“Last year they were in a car accident,” I replied quietly, remembering the way the lights had lit up the front of the house when the state troopers had come to inform me.
“Both of ’em?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. They were awful to you.”
“I’m sorry for you,” he said with a sigh. “They were still your parents.”
I nodded, my eyes watering. “So,” I said with a watery laugh. “Turns out that when your only skill is a perfect back handspring and you have no work history whatsoever, it’s nearly impossible to get a job that pays enough to support a child.”
“They didn’t leave you anythin’?” he asked dubiously.
“When I sold the house, it paid the inheritance taxes and their debts. There wasn’t much left.”
“Shit.”
“I made it work for a while,” I said, remembering how tight it had been. Selling clothes and pawning my mom’s jewelry. “But childcare pretty much wiped out my entire paycheck, so we were living in a dump and walking because I couldn’t afford to put gas in the car. It wasn’t sustainable.”
“So you came here.”
“No,” I said softly, shaking my head. “It took a while longer, because I had to save up to get here. I’ve been saving since I knew that Rhett was coming home with me. It was the only money that I refused to touch, no matter what. I saved a little with every paycheck. Sometimes, I didn’t have more than a few dollars to add.”
“You could’ve fuckin’ called,” he argued angrily, taking a step forward. “You know I woulda come and got you.”
“I had no idea what your phone number was,” I said, embarrassment making my cheeks grow hot. “And I had to do it myself.”
“You had to do it yourself?” he spat. “I didn’t get the last two years with my son because you had to save pennies until you had enough to drive up here?”
I wasn’t sure how to make him understand. I’d been so dependent on my parents for everything, so boxed in by what they wanted, I hadn’t been able to reach out to him. I’d been so afraid when Rhett was a baby that I’d step out of line and they’d cut me off completely. I’d imagined a hundred worst-case scenarios where I’d contact Mick and he’d want nothing to do with us, but they’d kick us out for even attempting it. Saving up had been the only way that had felt safe, knowing that at some point, I could just go, and damn the consequences. It was my way out. Our way out.