Page 79 of Auction Time
There was nothing to think about.
What next?
Something snapped in me, and I literally saw everything flash before me. That first day I saw her at middle school. Her mother had just dropped her off with her sisters. Like an idiot, I stood in the field watching her. Just looking at the flawless being before me. I wanted so badly to talk to her, but I didn’t because I was the bully. I was afraid she wouldn’t like me. Every time after that when I saw her, it was always the same, and the truth was, it wasn’t her watching me. It was me watching her.
Always feeling like I wasn’t good enough.
I was doing it again now. But I was a bigger fool this time because I actually knew what it was like to be with her and let her go not knowing how much I loved her.
I set the beer down, gave Gage one last look, and left him standing in my kitchen.
I rushed out to my truck, jumped straight in and drove like a maniac straight to Vanessa’s house.
I must have run three red lights on the way over here.
That autopilot mechanism kicked in enough for me to drive and chipped out when I jumped out of my truck and went into her house.
I found her out back in her garden, sitting on the bench by the roses. She was staring out into the space before her. Just looking on, with tears in her eyes.
As I watched her, I decided this was the last time I did this.
No more watching.
No more wondering.
It was going to be the last time that I looked and wondered what my life would be like with her in it.
I already knew.
My girl was sitting right there, pregnant with my child.
She was mine. She always had been, and it was time she knew I had always been hers too.
Chapter 23
Vanessa
* * *
I’d gotten so usedto the numbness now that it felt like it was a part of me.
Two days of me knowing I was pregnant, and I wasn’t doing a very good job. If I wasn’t crying, I had my head in the toilet throwing everything up.
The strain and drain on my body made it difficult to feel any form of joy for the life growing inside me.
I was in complete shock, and it might have taken me longer than I wanted, but as freaked as I was, that knowledge of having life in me was there, and I knew eventually, once the shock passed, I’d be able to be as happy as I wanted to feel.
I’d come out in the garden to sit just to get some fresh air.
My mom would be coming around later, and I suppose everyone else.
I wasn’t alone, and yet I felt alone because all I could think of was Cole. I didn’t know how I was supposed to tell him, and honestly, I was in two minds about it.
A sudden movement caught my attention, making me jump, and I turned to see him walking toward me.
I nearly thought I was imagining him. It wouldn’t have been impossible with the way I felt.
It wasn’t until he got up to me, stood before me, and dropped to his knees that I realized he was actually here.
