Page 84 of Boards & Betrayal

"He accused me of getting it taken care of," I continued, my voice barely above a whisper now. "And I didn't correct him. He assumed I wanted nothing to do with you, and after what I already knew about Nick and you and Janet, I thought maybe… maybe it was for the best." Her heart ached at the thought. "Because what if you didn't want it? What if you assumed I was just like Janet, trying to trap you into a marriage you didn't want. And it wasn't his business, anyway. Except he used it against me. Turned it into another weapon. Threatened to tell you. And I just… I didn't want you to look at me different. I didn't want anything to taint those few weeks we had together because they were the best three weeks of my life."

Tom's fists clenched at his sides, his knuckles white from the pressure.

"I'm sorry," I repeated, feeling the futility of those words but having nothing else to offer. "I just… didn't know how to handle any of it. I thought staying away from you would let you move on so you didn't have to deal with it."

"Deal with it?" he snipped. "You think I'd just… deal with it?"

Tom's fists clenched, his face a mask of barely contained fury. His voice was low, strained, like he was fighting to keep himself from exploding.

"You stopped picking up my calls," he said. "I didn't understand. I thought you were afraid of me. Of my temper."

His words hit me like a punch to the gut. I'd wanted to protect him, to spare him from more pain. Instead, I'd caused more.

"I… I was trying to protect you," I said, my voice trembling.

"Protect me?" He scoffed, his eyes blazing with anger. "Being with you now reminds me I never stopped loving you. But keeping this from me? You might as well have taken my heart and chopped it up, so there's no hope to put it back together."

"I didn't know what else to do!" I cried out, the weight of my guilt pressing down on me. "And now, with the award?—"

"Fuck the award," he interrupted, his voice rising. "Fuck all of it."

We stood there, the tension between us crackling like a live wire.

"Do you think it was easy for me?" I shot back, my own anger bubbling to the surface. "Do you think I wanted to go through this alone?"

"You didn't have to!" he yelled. "You chose to! You decided for both of us!"

"I thought it was the right thing to do!" I shouted, tears streaming down my face. "I thought?—"

"You thought wrong!" he cut me off again, his voice breaking. "You should have trusted me!"

"And what if you'd turned your back on me?" I asked, my voice shaking with emotion. "What if you'd looked at me and saw nothing but a mistake?"

Tom's expression softened for a moment, but the anger quickly returned.

"I loved you," he said quietly, his voice full of hurt. "I still do."

His words hung in the air between us, heavy with unspoken pain and regret.

"I just… I didn't want to burden you," I whispered.

He took a step closer, his eyes locking onto mine.

"Burden me?" he repeated, incredulous. "You think this is a burden? This is our child we're talking about."

The raw emotion in his voice cut through me like a knife.

"I'm sorry," I whispered again, feeling the futility of those words but having nothing else to offer.

Tom took a deep breath, his anger simmering just below the surface.

"Ally," he said softly but firmly. "You should have told me everything."

"I just… It hurt," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "I can't even describe it. And I didn't want anyone to make me feel bad for my pain, so I kept it to myself."

He furrowed his brow. "You think I would do that to you?"

I sucked in a breath, trying to steady myself. "One of my friends from high school dealt with a miscarriage when she was a freshman," I said, the memory raw and painful. "The guy she was with, he was working, and she was so scared. She told him she was at the ER because her doctor wouldn't see her since she wasn't technically a patient, you know? And he wouldn't leave work to be with her. She had to do that alone. She didn'tunderstand what she was going through or how to fix it and he avoided it."

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