Page 16 of Captured Immune

Tears prick the surface of my eyes. I want that. All of it.How can I have it?

Trey’s tone goes husky. “The problem is that I can’t. Can you understand how much it hurts to know that you’re pregnant when I biologically cannot have babies with you? Mental images of you fooling around with another man are tearing me apart from the inside out. I constantly feel like I’m suffocating because my chest aches too much for my lungs to work.”

That does it for me. I gasp for air as a cry ripples through me. I can’t imagine how much it burns to think you’re infertile, then find out your girlfriend is pregnant. If I were him and believed what he believes, I wouldn’t be here. To him, it’s obvious that I slept with another man.

When I said he should be prepared to pay child support, it probably sounded like I was after his money. I only said that because I was angry. I didn’t actually mean it. If I were him, I’d hate me. No wonder he’s so broken.

What breaks me, though, is that not once has he stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, this baby is his. How can he be so sure he’s infertile? Did a doctor say so? Did he get a vasectomy? Was he born that way? Does he think people from his alternate universe can’t have children with the people in this universe?

Suddenly, any hope I had of us getting back together vanishes. If I were him with all the baggage from his past and the knowledge he has, I wouldn’t want anything to do with me.

Trey places a tender kiss against my temple. “Oh, angel, please don’t cry.”

I can’t help it. I’ve been crying for a week, and feeling his pain mix with mine is only making it worse.

He kisses my temple again. “Remember when we were at your thinking spot under that big oak tree? You told me that when you love someone, you put their happiness before your own. I want you to be happy, baby. It’ll kill me, but if you wanna go be with him, go be with him. If that’s what makes you happy.”

Wait...Did he just admit he loves me? He’s shown me he loves me, but he’s never verbalized it.

I don’t have much time to process it, because he keeps going.

“I just want to know what I did wrong, first. What did I do to make you feel like you needed him instead of me? Did I not give you enough? Should I have paid more attention to you? Should I have made you feel more beautiful or bought you more things?”

I’ve never felt like I needed anything more from Trey than his presence. He’s given me everything I’ve ever wanted and more. He gave me a man who listened to me. A man who truly cared about my hopes and dreams. Someone I felt safe with and protected by. Most of all, he gave me someone who made me feel loved in bed—not used and abused. Trey has made me feel the most loved I’ve ever felt, without ever saying the wordsI love you.How could he think he didn’t give me enough?

“I think I need closure,” he says, choking up. “I need a reason to let you go, because obviously, knowing that your heart is with someone else isn’t enough. Tell me you’re better off without me. Tell me you’re happier when you’re with him. Tell me you don’t want me anymore. Maybe then I’ll be able to move on. I just can’t take this pain anymore. I need it to be over.”

And there it is—the real reason he’s here. Closure. He needs me to give him a reason to let me go. If that’s what he came for, I’ll give it to him. Maybe then we can both move on. Unfortunately, it’ll be separately, but at least we can move on.

Maybe in the future, if we’re ever able to mend this rift, we can do a paternity test and things will work themselves out from there. But for now, I just want his heart to stop aching.

3

TREY

The scentof freshly brewed coffee floats through the air. I pry my eyes open to find myself under a blanket I don’t recognize. It’s fleece, and it smells weird. This isn’t my blanket.Whose the fuck is it then?

I lurch upward. Something in my neck pinches. It’s a kink, probably from sleeping on my couch.Hold on.This isn’t my couch. It’s Arella’s couch.What the hell?

I shoot up onto my feet. The room spins.

Dizzy.

Wobbly.

I shouldn’t have gotten up so fast. I plop back down. Screwing my eyes shut, I rub my temples as a lame attempt to get the hammering in my brain to stop. It doesn’t.

When I open my eyes again, I’m still in Arella’s apartment. How did I get here? And why am I wearing only boxers?

On Arella’s coffee table are a glass of water, my wallet, my phone, and two small pills.Are the pills meant for me?They look like Ordinary pills. Well, of course they’re Ordinary pills. Arella wouldn’t have Zordinary ones. Zordi bodies process Ordinary medicines too quickly for them to work on us.

I down the glass of water within seconds. It refreshes my dry throat—sort of. I could probably have another glass or two. Maybe it’ll get rid of the spinning.

“Morning.”

I jerk my head toward the voice. It’s Arella, sitting at her small dining table, eyeing me with a hesitant look.Damn, she’s gorgeous.Her wavy chestnut hair is tied into a braid falling over one shoulder. Her dark purple dress drops to the middle of her thighs. It shows off her slender legs. I have the urge to trail my fingertips up her thighs and lick every part of—She’s still wearing it.The necklace with the golden angel wings. She’s still wearing it.

“How do you feel?” she asks in her usual honeyed tone.

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