Page 97 of My Favorite Lost Cause
“So you weren’t planning to tell me?”
My eyes close. “I tried. I tried the other day, and you went on your rant about how kids ruin everything. So I came here to think.”
“Were you, or were you not, going to tell me?” he demands.
“I was trying to do the kindest thing, Charlie. You’ve been pretty open about how this is the worst possible outcome, so yes, it occurred to me that I could just disappear for a while and pretend the kid was someone else’s. Possibly.”Probably.
“I need to think,” he says, and then he gets up, walks back into the room, and out the door, closing it softly behind him.
Just like that. I gave him terrible news and he handled it even worse than I’d imagined he would. So is he thinking about whether he’s going to force himself to become a part of this? Or is he wondering how he can politely extract himself?
I curl into a ball on the corner of the long bench and press my face to my knees, feeling far more alone than I did before he arrived.
I have a father who left before I was born. A stepfather who was kind but didn’t really think of me as his kid. An ex-boyfriend who fell in love with my sister while he was with me. An ex-husband who stopped wanting me before the ink was dry.
“It’s just going to be us,” I whisper to my daughter, resting my hand on my stomach. “And maybe we’re better off that way.”
I go into the room to pack. There’s an early morning flight direct to JFK and I’d rather wait overnight at the airport thanspend the next eight hours listening to Charlie explain all the ways this isn’t what he wants.
I’m still crying, but I’m also furious, because…what the fuck?How am I possibly so egregious, so terrible, that every man in my life wants something or someone else? Wants a different daughter, girlfriend, wife?
“You need tothink?” I demand, though he’s not here. “You need to fucking think? Take all the time you want. Take your whole fucking life. We don’t need you anyway.”
I turn off location sharing, growing angrier by the moment.
“Fuck you,” I say loudly. And that’s to all of them. To my dad, to Henry, to every guy my mother was ever with who hit her or hitonme. To Miller, to Harvey, to Charlie. They all brought me as much heartbreak as they did joy, and my daughter and I don’t fucking need any of them.
There’s a knock.
I stomp across the room, sliding the chain in place before I open the door because he had his chance and he’s not coming in now.
“Go away,” I tell him. “I don’t need this. I’ve got my own money, and I don’t want you involved, so just go away.”
“Maren,” he says coolly, “you will open this fucking door right now, or I’ll jump onto your terrace from upstairs and throw a chair through that sliding glass door.”
I’d like to call his bluff, but he’ll probably do it, and he’ll break half the bones in his body in the process.
I unlock the door and step back, swiping away the tears on my face. “I?—”
He shuts the door behind him, and then his hands cradle my jaw. “I made you cry,” he whispers.
“Everything’s making me cry,” I sob. “You’re not special.”
He laughs. “You’re a lot like Kit when you’re triggered, you know that? But I love you anyway.” And then he kisses me. Hekisses me hard enough to steal my breath and make me lose track of every last thing I was about to say. For a second.
And then I remember.
“Stop.” I pull away. “You can’t just walk off and come back and say you love me, then decide you don’t love me enough and walk off again. I’m done. I’m tired of this. I’m tired of men deciding I’m not enough. So please go. I’m just—” Exhaustion roars into me like a tornado, out of nowhere. “I’m really tired.”
“Then lie down,” he says, leading me to the bed and frowning at the open suitcase there. “Holy shit, Maren. Were you about to fucking take off again? How many places do I need to chase you?”
He pushes the suitcase off the bed, and I’m too exhausted to even get mad. I guess I’m not going to the airport. I’m just going to cry myself to sleep and figure it out tomorrow. “I don’t want you to chase me. I stopped sharing my location.”
I place my head on the pillow, and he lies down with his face next to mine.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry I took off like that. It wasn’t my finest moment. But it was a lot, and I had to catch my breath before we had this conversation.”
I let my eyes fall closed, swallowing hard before I say what needs to be said. “We don’t have to haveanyconversation. You don’t want kids. End of story.”
