Page 132 of Stags

There, in the December morning, she shivered as she pulled her clothes on.

He tugged open the door. “Get back in here. We’re not done.”

“I’m done,” she said. “I amverydone.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

TAWNY SHOULD HAVEbeen angry when Athos showed up, but instead, she was just pathetically grateful. She opened up the door to her apartment and let him come inside, and it was all she could do not to break down in tears.

He entered, walking into her hallway, jamming his hands into his pockets.

She shut the door behind him. “You probably shouldn’t have come.”

“I know you want me to go,” he said. “But can you hear me out first? Someone today told me that you’re rejecting something.”

“I’m not rejecting anything,” she said.

“It’s not me you’re rejecting,” said Athos. “And I don’t really think it’s the baby either. I know you’ve wanted a baby for a long time. So, I don’t think it’s that. I don’t think you’re even rejecting pregnancy itself. You can do anything at all, even really hard and difficult things. You’re not one to be frightened or terrified. And maybe you could be rejecting your family, maybe you don’t want to go live with your mother, but there are options to avoid that, and even if you’re rejecting her, that’s no reason to run off on me this morning or not to take the test, so…” He turned around, spreading his hands. “It leaves only one thing, Tawny. You’re rejecting yourself.”

She let out an exasperated breath and pushed past him, further into the apartment. “No!”

“No?” He was coming after her.

They arrived in the living room. She turned in a circle, hugging herself, shaking her head. “Maybe. Sort of. In a kind of way.”

“You think there’s something wrong with you,” he said.

“No, you think there are things wrong withyou,” she said.

“Iknowthere are things wrong with me.”

“You think that you won’t matter again unless you’re part of a couple,” she said. “That’s why you just abase yourself to me, let me practically abuse you—”

“Um, wait a second here, what?”

“Yeah, it’s not weaponized incompetence. You actually don’t think you’re worth anything. And it’s not just you, you happen to think it’s, like,allmen.”

He coughed. “You know, a lot of times, I talk out of my ass, and it doesn’t mean that I—”

“Newsflash, Athos, men are not only important for making babies and dying to protect people. Men can do all kinds of things, like, you know, sew baby clothes and mix baby formula and—”

“Come on, Tawny, I know this stuff.”

“It isn’t true, is all I’m saying,” she said. “You feel like you lost your identity when you lost Cira. You and Cira were a unit, and that was who you were. And you think nowthisis your identity, me and the baby, and you don’t need that, Athos, you don’t.”

He stared at her for a moment, wordless, and then he sat down on the couch in her living room and bowed his head, his antlers pointing at her. “You are rejecting me.”

“No, I’m saying you’re rejecting yourself and you’re settling for me! And I don’t want to be settled for.”

“Settling for you?” he said, his voice muffled. “How could I be settling for someone who has such high standards?”

“Oh, I haveimpossiblestandards. You know it. I know it. We all know it. No one sane could stand being in a relationship with me. I’m too loud, too opinionated, too forceful, too brash, tooeverything.”

“Are you?” he said in a low voice. “Are you really?”

“Yes, and you just have this incorrect opinion of yourself that you are not enough. So that’s why you put up with me. And I’ve let it go on as long as I could, but eventually we have to face the fact that we’ll eventually be at each other’s throats. You’ll come to resent me. I’ll come to be frustrated with your lack of backbone.”

“You’ll be frustrated with my lack of backbone,sir,” he said faintly, furrowing his brow.

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