Page 24 of The Baby
He laughed. “A little of both I guess. Look, you and Ellie are good people. And while I may never have been in love myself, I know it when I see it. Shit, I don’t think Rich and my mom ever had a quarter of what you and Ellie have. I also know she’s a good person. She shines with it. So whatever she did, there was probably a reason behind it. And that reason wasn’t to intentionally hurt you. Ellie would neverdothat.”
No, Ellie would never do that. She might have thought I would be pissed. She wouldn’t have known how much it would hurt me. How much of a betrayal it felt like. Not just of me, but of us. If she’d known that, she wouldn’t havedoneit.
“I yelled at her. Pretty hard,” I admitted. I hated getting mad like that. I hated seeing her crying and shaking. I was just so gutted. My mother? She thought she could reach out to my mother. I never wanted to see or have anything to do with that womanagain.
“Dude, you yelled at a pregnant chick? That’sharsh.”
I winced. I had beenharsh.
“Guess it’s time to go man up.” I sighed, but even as I stood I could feel the anger waning. The hurt, sure it was still there, but next time when she said she was sorry, I might be able to hear it. Take it in.Believeit.
“Goodluck.”
“I’m the victim here,” Iremindedhim.
Cody laughed. “Please, your wife is carrying your kid. I have a feeling by the time all is said and done you’ll be apologizingtoher.”
I scowled at him, but he was probablyright.
7
Ellie
Ibasically criedmyself into exhaustion but I still couldn’t sleep. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls. I didn’t know if Jake was going to come back to the house tonight, and I wasn’t sure he would want to see me if he did, so I decided to crash in my room. Or my old room. We had painted it and taken down all my stuff from when I was a kid and packed it all away. So it was less ode to Ellie’s old room and moreneutral.
We basically packed up everything but the picture Jake had given me for my birthday—of my parents when they were pregnant with me—and my vibrator. One sat on top of the nightstand on my side of the bed in our room, the other was tucked inside the seconddrawer.
Because while I like to call Jake a prude and say how he was afraid of anal (which he was) he still liked toplayevery once in awhile.
I squirmed in my cold and lonely bed just thinkingaboutit.
Other than that, all my girly stuffed animals and posters of actors—I was partial to Ryan Reynolds—it was all gone. Now it was just a guest room, but I supposed it would eventually be thenursery.
Wow. How crazy was that? My baby was going to grow up in my old room. I hadn’t let myself get that far in the pregnancy, but now I supposed it was time to let all of that go and start thinking ahead.ForJake.
Because Jake didn’t deserve any of the things I had done to him. Pushing him away emotionally and physically. I told myself it was for him, not to get too attached in case something went wrong, but the reality was I was hurting inside and so I turned that hurttowardhim.
Which he stoically took for five months. Until I did theunthinkable.
He thought I had betrayed him. Hell, I thought I had betrayed him. Isn’t that why I had to drive to Jefferson to mail the damnthing?
Theletter.
He said no reaching out, but he had to know I already did it. It had been less than a week. I hadn’t expected to hear anything so soon. I didn’t give her a phone number or anything like that, but she obviously knew who I was and where Long Valley Ranch was. She had lived here for eleven years. There was no gettingaroundthat.
I groaned in the empty room. He was going to be pissed all over again. Once he knew about the letter, if she didn’t contact us at all, then my worst fear would be realized and he would feel rejected by her. Be hurt all over again by her.Byme.
Hey Jake, can you just sit still while I kick you in the nuts overandover.
That was assuming he was ever going to speaktome.
He had to eventually, right? We had fought before, mostly about stupid stuff, but it never lasted. Neither one of us was the type to hold a grudge. I could only keep the silent treatment going for a max of a few hours. Jake… he usually got mad, but then cooled off prettyquickly.
Tonight he’d been gone forhours.
Then again, I had never hurt him this much, not even when I told him I wanted a divorce so many years ago. Who knew how long it would be before he would speak to me… longer still until he actually listenedtome.
He would listen to me eventually though. He was going to have to know how sorry I was. How I truly thought I was doing something that needed to be done even if it was totally inconsiderate of his feelings. I had only been thinking about my baggage. Reliving that feeling of abandonment over and overagain.
