Page 96 of My Favorite Lost Cause
“I thought you didn’t want to be attached to anything.”
“I didn’t,” he says, and my heart sinks. “But it appears I already am, so it’s too fucking late to take it back. I’m attached, Maren. I’m here. I’m not leaving unless you tell me I have to go, and to be honest, I’m probably not leaving then either because I’ll keep trying to win you back.”
I press my face to his shoulder and begin to cry. How badly did I want him to tell me this for weeks, only to hear it when I’ve got to ruin everything? I’m not going to stick him with the precise life he’s always sworn he doesn’t want, even if I think he’ll change his mind in a couple decades with someone far younger than me.
“Charlie, we don’t want any of the same things. It’s the house doing this, trying to reenact a sad old story. It’ll pass eventually.”
He shakes his head. “Are you serious? Because I kissed you when I got jealous? Because we danced together? Because you liked to watch me doing push-ups?”
“You’ve got to admit it’s weird, all the similarities,” I argue.
“No, I don’t. Has it ever occurred to you that this is how people act when they’re in love, Maren? That for as many similarities as you’ve found, I can name twice as many differences? Was Margaret also married to a twit? Was William about to start a new arena football team? Did he inherit a mansion? Did Margaret run off to Barcelona without explanation?”
“Well, shecouldn’tgo to Barcelona. There was a war going on…”
He laughs, pressing a kiss to my head. “You’re missing the point, which is that my life and your life are wildly different from theirs, and we happen to have a handful of things in common because that’s how people behave when they’re head over heels—and many of the biggest moments happened with the house hundreds of miles away. Our first kiss for instance. Or the fact that I felt like this a decade before we ever went down there.”
My head lifts. “You did?”
“I did. From that first day I met you in the Hamptons. You know I did. I asked you to run away with me on your wedding day, remember?”
I stare at him. “You never…you never implied you meant it like that.”
He holds my gaze. “YouknowI did.”
I wince. Maybe, but it hardly matters at this point. There are a thousand different directions our relationship could have gone, but I can’t take this back. I can’t wish I’d chosen another course because look where this course got me.
I take a deep breath and raise my chin. “Charlie, I’m pregnant.”
He freezes. His hands are still on me, but I swear they’vesuddenly lost their warmth. “Pregnant,” he repeats, as if it’s a death sentence.
I nod. “I’m so sorry.”
“Whose is it?” he asks, his voice quiet and controlled.
I gasp, audibly. “What kind of question isthat?”
“What kind of question do you fucking think it is, Maren? If you flew halfway around the world to fucking seeAndrew?—”
“I’m not here to see Andrew. Where the hell did you get that idea?”
“Elijah said…” His voice trails off and I fill in the blanks: Elijah implied I was here to see Andrew because he knew it would send Charlie flying here in a jealous rage.
Charlie blinks as he meets my gaze again. “So…that would mean…it’s mine?”
I swallow hard to fight the lump in my throat. “Yes, idiot. It’s yours.”
He’s so frozen. So stiff. I rise from his lap, and he doesn’t even seem to notice I’m gone. He buries his head in his hands. He’s now picturing the two of us, losing a child. The two of us on our knees in a hotel parking lot, asking God for something He’s not going to give us.
“I know this isn’t what you want,” I say quietly. “I’ve been trying to figure out what to do—if the best thing would be to disappear for a year or so and let you think it was IVF or something else.”
I don’t mention the solution involving Andrew—it seems like more than he needs to know. Though he barely seems to hear what I’m saying, so perhaps he wouldn’t hear that either. I only realize now that there was still some tiny piece of me holding out hope for a different outcome, picturing him learning I was pregnant and being surprisingly okay with it.
I was being all Maren about it again. Dreaming up a best possible outcome in place of the realistic one. Even when I wastelling myself I’d call Andrew…I was still hoping Charlie would pull through.
And he’s not going to.
“Charlie, you don’t need to be involved. I can do this on my own.”
