Caleb blinks. “What? They were just about to fight. I want to see.”
Sighing, Jake grabs him by the collar and pulls him out of the room. The sound of the door closing makes me flinch.
“You could have said something. You could have told me you had those pictures removed.”
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d twist it into proof I was trying to manipulate you in some way,” he says, quieter now, and it hurts because I can hear the pain he’s trying to suppress underneath his words. “Because every time I try to protect you, you act like I’m trying to control you.”
“I never asked for your protection.” Even as I say it, I know it sounds childish.
“No,” he agrees. “But you never trusted me with your vulnerability, either.”
I flinch. It’s like he’s peeled me open without raising his voice.
He steps forward, not close enough to touch, but closer than I want him to be right now. “You’ve already decided who I am. Every move I make just confirms the version of me you’ve built in your head. I can give you everything, but I will never earn your trust, will I?”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’strue.” His voice is taut with tension. “You think I’m the same man I was five years ago, that I want something from you. I could give you the world on a platter, and you would think there are strings attached. I have accepted however little you are willing to give me, but you don’t see that. Even now your first thought was that I was attempting to sabotage you, that I would gain some pleasure in destroying your career.”
I feel hot tears rise, and I blink them back furiously, feeling ashamed. “You said it didn’t matter if they found out. You know what the backlash will be?—”
“You are the mother of my unborn child, Natalie, the woman I have loved for five years. You think I will let so much as a whisper hurt you?” His voice is cold and filled with an unrestrained fury that makes my skin prickle. “Do you think so little of me?”
This is the first time he’s confronted me, forcing me to see my own behavior towards him.
“I-I don’t,” I whisper. “I just—” My breath catches when I look up at him.
He’s watching me like he’s seeing everything. The fears I haven’t said out loud. The trust I keep locked behind every bad memory and worse goodbye. The fact that maybe, just maybe, I don’t trust myself to survive it if I trust him, and he proves me right.
“I think...” My voice cracks. “I think I’ve been waiting for you to leave. And it’s easier to push you away than admit I want you to stay.”
He doesn’t speak. He just steps closer, eyes full of something I don’t deserve.
I’m crying now. Quietly. Stupidly. I kept telling myself I was opening up to him, but all this time I was just keeping him at a distance, waiting. It’s like a part of me believed that if I waited long enough, he’d show me his true face, the same face that everyone I loved showed me, that I was not worth staying for, that I was simply not worth being loved.
There. It’s out. Bare, trembling, ugly in its honesty.
He goes still.
His eyes hold a devastation in them that makes me feel like a monster. He looks at me like I just broke something sacred between us. I want to take the words back. I want to run. But I don’t. I can’t. Not now.
“I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop,” I say a little louder, even though my throat burns. “Because people like you don’t stay with people like me. Because everything about this—about us—feels like a countdown to disaster.”
“People like me?” His voice is soft but I can hear the hurt underneath.
“Yes. Look at your family. They-They’re so loving and together, and you’re so adored. You’ve been loved your wholelife. I don’t—I wasn’t… Nobody’s ever wanted me, even you at one point. I know you claim to love me, but what about when you wake up one day and realize that?—”
“I’m not the kind of man who regrets his decisions. I am not that fickle. I have gone to every possible length to prove myself to you, but—” His eyes flash with an intensity that leaves me breathless. “You think I’m just... what? Biding my time until I get bored?”
I flinch.
He steps closer. “You think I’d walk away from you? From this?” His hand gestures toward me, toward the child I’m carrying. His child.Ourchild. “Is that really who you think I am?”
“I don’t know!” I snap, blinking back tears. “I don’t know what to believe when every part of me is terrified of being wrong again. I trusted you once. You said all the right things back then, too, and look where it landed me? And now?—”
His jaw flexes, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just watches me like I’ve shattered him. And maybe I have.
I press a hand to my belly, steadying myself, even though nothing about me feels steady. “I’ve spent so long surviving, I don’t know how to believe in someone staying.” I lower my eyes, the tears burning them. “Especially not you.”
