Page 79 of Midnight Between Us
But no matter what I want for myself, it all keeps circling back to one thing.This baby.Our baby.
I thought about adoption.For a while, it felt like the most logical path.Give them a stable home, two loving parents, and a chance to grow up without carrying everything I’ve been through like a second skin.
There’s this couple I like.Jacob and Pria.He’s a musician.She’s a publicist.They have five children.Two boys and three girls.At first, I wasn’t sure if they could be part of my short list.They already have five children.But when I saw how much they love them—one of them is adopted—I wanted that for our baby.
It’s something I never experienced.Honestly, I’m afraid I don’t have that much love to give him.
It’s so difficult to choose what I want to do for the future of our baby.
And even if I wanted to give him up for adoption, I’d still need your permission: legal stuff, paperwork, consent forms.And I already know that’s not happening.I’m not approaching you again.
I’m scared.Not of giving birth, not even of being alone in that hospital room.I’m scared of what comes after the long nights and the unknowns and this love that already feels too big to survive.
It’s both funny and tragic that I’m not even an adult yet, and I’ve already learned how to love and how love can break you.
Some days, I wonder if Nina went through this.Is that why she gave up on me?
Maybe she loved my father the way I loved you.And the little one she got from that big love turned into a scar instead of a joy.
That’s one of my fears, you know?
What if the baby doesn’t love me?
What if I can’t be the mother he deserves?
I don’t know what kind of future I’m building, but I hope I don’t make a fatal mistake and ruin his life.
I hope I don’t end up full of regret the way you might regret not getting to know this little bean.
Sincerely,
Simone
ChapterThirty-Eight
Keir
I stare at the letter.
Read it once.
Then again—slower.The second read doesn’t hit harder.It lands differently.Sinks in deeper, as if the words have claws.They don’t shout.They whisper, and somehow that’s worse because I can feel the intensity of the pain.They find the quietest places in me and settle there.Crawl beneath the skin, wedge themselves into places I didn’t even know could ache this way.
She was scared.Alone.Holding something more fragile than hope, something bigger than just a future.
And where the fuck was I?
Fighting.Running.Pretending I wasn’t bleeding from places fists couldn’t reach.I was seeking punishment because I couldn’t understand why I was unraveling.That’s the thing I never told anyone.Leaving Birchwood Springs was a choice, but it was a choice I made out of desperation.The town—more like my father—was slowly making me into the person I hated the most.
I thought leaving would protect her from the wreckage I’d become.I didn’t realize walking away would cause just as much damage.
My fingers curl tighter around the paper, trying to contain the shaking.I’m not trying to destroy it—I couldn’t if I wanted to.It feels like the last thread connecting me to a version of her I barely deserve to remember.
She thought the baby wouldn’t love her.Thought she’d fail him.Thought she wouldn’t be enough.And I wasn’t there to tell her she was wrong.I wasn’t there to tell her she was the bravest person I’d ever known.That she already carried more love in her than most people get in a lifetime.
I wasn’t there to ...I fucking left her.
My jaw locks.There’s this hollow pressure building behind my ribs, not pain exactly—more like something unraveling at a pace I can’t control.I keep trying to picture how it must have felt—to be that terrified and that alone, waiting for someone who never came.
