Page 66 of Let You Love Me

I can still remember how protective I felt, how much I wanted to tell them no and keep her in my arms.

It might’ve been an incredible moment—one of the most incredible ones of my life—but an incredible photo of me, it is not.

I choke out a laugh, and it’s like breaking the seal on a soda bottle. The pressure from moments ago dissipates. “You're kidding, right? This was three a.m. in the morning, and I was exhausted after fourteen hours of labor. I was swollen and red-faced and sweaty and miserable.”

“And the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

I open my mouth to protest.

He’s just being kind, saying what I want to hear. But a seething glance from him tells me otherwise. It’s a warning not to argue because he’ll win, so I snap my mouth shut.

“What was it like? After you had her? Were you scared?” he asks.

I stare down at the album, transporting myself back to the day I went into labor with Sophie. I had yet to turn eighteen, and I was only a couple months away from graduating high school. I’d been in class when the first contractions started.

“Scared out of my mind is a good way to describe it,” I say, watching as he turns the page, listening. “And I guess, embarrassed, too. I had to tell my teacher I didn’t feel well to get excused from class, and then I went to the school nurse where I had the joy of informing her I thought I was going into labor. I suppose I should be grateful my water didn’t break. That would have been much worse. By then, it’s not like my pregnancy was a secret, but it didn’t matter much. The disapproving glances, the whispers in the hall, the shame, they were still there, along with all their judgments.

“My dad was already at the school since he was the high school coach. He rushed me to the hospital where my mother stayed by my side in the delivery room. Honestly, she was amazing.” Soamazing, I barely missed Chance’s presence, hardly gave him a second thought.

If either of my parents ever felt embarrassed by me, they never showed it, and for that, I’ll be eternally grateful. Still, when I look back on that period in my life, I can’t help but wonder.

It makes me wish I could repay them; show my gratitude for all they’ve done.

Which is why moving out is so important to me.

It’s time to give them their lives back.

“What specifically scared you?” he asks, his voice soft.

“Honestly? Everything.” I shake my head and lift my gaze to the ceiling, remembering. “Getting an epidural. Something going wrong and needing a C-section. Somethingbeingwrong with the baby. The pain. All of it.” I swallow. “I was so young. How could I care for a baby when I still felt like a child myself? I wasn’t ready. I wanted more time. More money. More wisdom. It took me a while to come to terms with what having a baby at my age would mean. All the things I would have to give up. Things I might miss out on, and even though I chose this, I was terrified that I might resent her. That when she was born, I’d feel nothing at all. Or worse, that I’d be angry with her. But I didn’t. I wasn’t.”

A vise grips my throat, and I clear it to speak. “When I heard her cry, everything changed.” I meet his eyes. “In one single second, everything changed. It was like someone turning the chapter in a book or flipping a switch. They laid her in my arms and sleepy, unfocused blue eyes blinked up at me and the world stopped. I knew, even if any of my fears were valid and I would have to sacrifice everything, she was worth it. It wasallworth it. Like someone cleaved my chest open and filled all the empty spaces with love for this tiny human I had only known for seconds.”

I inhale, feeling a little shy and wondering if I said too much. “There’s no other way to describe it,” I say with a shrug. “I don’t know if that’s what it’s like for everyone, but it’s what it was like for me.”

Teagan swallows and brushes a lock of hair off my face, tucking it behind my ear in a move so tender, it makes my chest ache. “Did you have any help other than your parents?”

I shake my head. I know what he’s asking. Did I have help from the father? Was he ever involved?

“No. Just them, and I’ll admit, they were my rock. I leaned on them, especially emotionally, but I also made it my goal in life not to rely on them too much. They both have full-time jobs and their own responsibilities. Sophie was my choice. She’s mine, and I didn’t want to put them out.”

“Does he know anything about her? Like how amazing she is?”

We’re skirting around the topic of who the father is, and Teagan knows it. He turns his attention back to the scrapbooks and flips a page, focusing on the photos—taking in Sophie’s first outfit and my first time strapping her in the car seat before I brought her home. I can practically feel the unspoken question he wants to ask the most radiating off him:Who is he? Why isn’t he here?The only questions I told him to never ask, and the only ones I won’t answer.

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” I say because Chance has seen Sophie throughout the years, he just chooses to ignore her. “But probably not. He knows of her, and he’s seen her—”

“Through photos?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I murmur a noncommittal response and push away the guilt accompanying it. “He’s just too focused on himself to care much, I guess.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches, and we sit in silence for a few minutes while he finishes flipping through the album. He flips past photos of her first bath and first bottle after I had tostop breastfeeding when I started college because pumping and nursing and going to class was too damn much. He turns over another page to reveal her first taste of carrots, crawling, and those miraculous first steps just before she turned one. All of my memories, each one special.

Gabby and my parents are the only people who have ever seen these photos. Not necessarily by design, but they’re the only ones who have ever cared enough. And as Teagan finishes, I realize just how intimate this feels, sharing these moments in time with him. To anyone on the outside looking in, they’re just photographs, but to me, they’re more than that. They’re the struggle. They’re all the sacrifices it took to get here. They’re pure love and joy and maybe even a little bit of pain, too.

Motherhood summed up in a nutshell is a Tootsie Pop. You have to get through the hard outer shell to get to the good part.

Once he’s finished, he closes the scrapbook and sinks back into the cushions, lifting the arm closest to me to rest across the back of the couch and behind my shoulders. I turn toward him expectantly, but the intensity in his expression makes me squirm.

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