Page 48 of The Backdraft
I’m the dad.
The anxiety and panic I’d expected to feel with the news were there in the form of my racing heart, and the feeling of blood draining from my body, and yet, it wasn’t as bad as I’danticipated. My breathing remained steady, and I didn’t feel like bolting from the vehicle. I wasn’t sweating, or thinking about my past—there was only her and the words she’d said to me.
I’m the dad.
Darcy’s eyes kept bouncing back to where I sat frozen in place, fingers still clutching the ultrasound photos.
I let my gaze drop down to them again, but this time they looked entirely different. It wasn’t just a slope of the nose, it was trying to see if it looked like hers or mine. They weren’t just eyes because now they could bemyeyes. I had a sudden urge to make sure all ten toes were at the ends of those feet, but it was impossible to tell from the photos.
“Arch?” Her voice vaguely registered through my thoughts. “It doesn’t have to change anything. I meant what I said at Thanksgiving—you don’t have to be in our lives if you don’t want to be, but you’re also more than welcome to if you’d like.”
I nodded, still unable to move my eyes from the pictures of her—our—baby. Our baby. Mine and Darcy’s. Even thinking the word “ours” had my thoughts spinning in a million directions.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice dripping with anxiety similar to my own, and I kicked myself for not saying something, anything to reassure her.
“I’m fine. I’m good. I mean, we both knew it was a possibility, right? I think I just need to process it now that it’s real.”
Tension left her shoulders, and she nodded. “Do you want me to put some music on and let you process for a while?”
More often than I’d like to admit, I found myself wanting to kiss Darcy, but never more than in that instant. I’m sure giving me space in her tiny car was the last thing she wanted to do, but I needed it to grapple with the hundreds of feelings at war inside me.
“Thank you, Darcy.”
She chuckled. “Oh, don’t thank me yet. I fully intend on blasting music while you contemplate all of your life choices.”
I rolled my eyes and took a sip of coffee, hoping it covered the goofy grin that had slipped onto my face.
***
By the time we got to the Adler house, I’d realized two things. One, knowing the baby was mine didn’t change how I’d started to feel about Darcy. That could’ve been because I’d actually have to know how I felt about her for it to change, but there wasn’t enough time in the car ride to dive into that as well as everything else. All I knew was that holding her after my nightmare calmed the darkness in me faster than anything else ever had, and that when I saw her in Target, I could’ve kept on walking, but I didn’t want to. It’d been three weeks since I’d seen her, and I wanted to talk with her, even if it meant tagging along as a third wheel with her friend.
The second thing I realized? That while my being the baby’s dad didn’t change whatever was going on with Darcy and I, it one thousand percent changed how I felt about telling her family she was pregnant. Before I got into Darcy’s car this morning, it was all a lie. I didn’t know if her plan was to tell them I was the father, or only that I was her boyfriend, but regardless, to me it was all going to be a lie. But now? Now it was the truth, and I’d have to look her parents in the eyes and tell them I’d gotten their daughter pregnant. I wasn’t ashamed, it was what it was, and neither of us were children, but after having met her family, I finally understood why Darcy hadn’t wanted to be alone when she told them. They weren’t judgemental, but it was clear that they loved their children, and had high opinions of them. Trying to live up to that kind of standard could put a lot of pressure on a person.
We’d discussed the plan for how we were going to tell them at length in the car, but we’d only been inside her parents’ house for just over an hour when it all went to absolute shit.
A bottle of wine was being passed around the table, and I passed on it because, for starters, wine was terrible—the headaches were unbearable and it tasted like spoiled grape juice—but I also passed to alleviate the attention of Darcy passing as well. It didn’t work.
“Did you start a sobriety streak or something, Darse?” Garrett joked from the other side of the table. And before Darcy or I could speak, or stop her, Linnea answered.
“She can’t drink you dummy.” It was clear she’d realized her mistake the second the words left her mouth. Her dark blue eyes widened in the classic “oh shit” expression, and she slapped a hand over her mouth.
All eyes snapped to Darcy, and I could feel her shrink beside me though her posture hadn’t changed. She hadn’t moved at all, but her eyes narrowed at her sister. We knew her slipping was a possibility, but Darcy was convinced, since she’d survived Thanksgiving, that she’d be able to make it through Christmas Eve dinner. That’s all Darcy had wanted to do. The plan was to tell everyone over coffee and before board games.
“Why can’t you drink?” Jack asked from the head of the table.
I promised Darcy in the car that I’d let her take the lead in all of this, but as she sat there, still glaring at her sister, the only thing I wanted to do was take charge—to answer him for her so that she didn’t have to.
Her voice was prickly, and she still hadn’t peeled her gaze away from Linnea. “Well, this wasn’t how I was planning on announcing it, but since the cat is out of the bag . . .” She met her father’s gaze and then glanced at her mother. “I’m pregnant.”
There were sixty seconds in every minute but this one. This one had a thousand, and every one of those seconds wassilent and heavy. All eyes were still locked on Darcy, with the exception of Linnea whose eyes were bouncing around the table at everyone else, and Garrett. Garrett was homed in on me, my death playing out a dozen different ways in his icy glare.
Shelby broke the silence, her voice gentle, but lacking its usual chipper tone. “What do you mean you’re pregnant?”
Darcy shifted, and I grabbed her hand under the table, squeezing it lightly. “I mean, I’m pregnant.”
“But, how? When?” her mom stammered, and a wave of sympathy washed over me because I remember how it felt to hear those words and be so severely caught off guard. But I also knew how they were sounding to Darcy in that moment—disappointed and upset, when she really just wanted happiness and support.
“Do you really want me to answer that?” Darcy’s tone had grown defensive, and I dragged my thumb across the back of her hand, hoping to ground her.
