Page 76 of Like A Daydream
There is nothing more he wants to do than pull her into his arms and say all is forgiven, no matter what she’s here to say, but he can’t. Not yet.
He swallows, squeezing his hands into fists. Blue meets hazel, and it’s all over for him. If she’s here to ask him to take her back, he’ll do it. He’s that much of a sucker for this woman.
“Why are you here?” he asks, finally. He keeps a safe distance between them, as if it could protect his heart from what’s coming.
“Why haven’t you called?” she counters, rocking from her heels to her toes.
“Oh, I don’t know, Danielle,” he says, harsher than he intends. She winces at his tone of voice, and he folds his arms over his chest. “You said you couldn’t do this anymore, and asked for space. I was just doing what you wanted.”
“What are you talking about?”
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and holds it up so that she can see his lock screen, watching as her eyes scan through the messages there. They widen in surprise, and then start to fill with tears.
He’d taken the screenshot of their text exchange two days after they’d initially had it, when his thumb had hovered over the call button for a good fifteen minutes and he’d gone to war in his head over if he should press it or not.
He’d immediately set it as his lock screen, after.
That way, when he would see his phone he would know that she needed space and they were done, and the last person she wanted to hear from was him.
“I never sent those,” she whispers, meeting his eyes again, “you have to believe me, I never would have sent those.”
She covers her face with her hands, and his heart drops somewhere around his feet. He’s not used to her hiding from him.
“Well it’s your number, Dani,” he says, shoving his phone back in his pocket. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. All I know is that the day before, I was talking to you, and you didn’t evenactlike something was wrong.”
“I didn’t send them,” she says again, “and unless you’ve already made up your mind that we aren’t worth a try anymore, I want you to believe me.”
And he wants to, god, he wants to. He wants to wrap her up in his arms and take her home, hold her close for the rest of their lives. Tuck her into his chest and never let her go again.
“Why should I?” he asks. “When you threw me playing hockey in my face, even though we talked about it? When you knew that I was terrified of it being too much for you, but you said you could handle it.”
In for seven, out for seven.
He doesn’t want to panic. He wants to be calm, but it’s pulling all sorts of memories back into his head and he doesn’t know how to get them out.
He’d spent half of his adult life trying to avoid putting anyone in this exact situation, and now it’s blowing up in his face.
“Look at the date,” Danielle says, her voice steady as she gestures to his pocket. “Your home opener was the same day that I was in court to adopt Harper. I didn’t even have my phoneon mewhen those were sent.”
He pulls his phone out again, checking the date and the timestamps. He had been so preoccupied with it being his first game back that even though it had briefly crossed his mind that she was adopting Harper, he’d forgotten about it in the craze.
“I was waiting for you to call after your game,” she says, “so that I could tell you that I won.”
He runs a hand over his face, wanting to throw his phone into the Neuse River and never see it again. Someone had lied to him, and he spent almost a month trying to fix a heart that shouldn’t have been broken in the first place.
“But then you didn’t call,” she says, voice cracking. “I knew you were busy, and I knew we never set that expectation, but I thought you would have remembered and wanted to know what happened.”
“That text came through as I was leaving for PNC,” he said, “I left my phone at home, and by the time I got back I was so distraught from losing you, and losing the game, that I didn’t want to call. I’d already tried after I got the text and it went to voicemail.”
Danielle runs a hand over her face, and the first tear falls, tracking down her cheek. Andrew can’t help himself, he steps closer, and brushes it away with his thumb, gently.
“I didn’t get a missed call,” she says, shaking her head, “I don’t know what happened, Andy, but I didn’t want this. I wanted you.”
“If you didn’t send the messages, and decline my call, who did?” he asks, brushing another tear away before sliding his hands up and down her arms. She leans into the touch, but keeps a safe distance away.
“I handed my phone to my mom,” she says, “before I went to be sworn in as a witness. It could have been her, or anyone sitting on the bench with her. But, itwasn’t me. I was with my lawyer.”
The parking lot is empty, and Andrew is seeing so much clearer now. In the heat of the moment, he’d forgotten all logic and just let his emotions rush inbefore shutting them off again so that he could try to do his job.
