“I might not have been able to tell you any of this,” I admit, a heavy sadness settling deep in my bones. “Do you think I don’t know my mother is using me? Do you know how I felt when you took me home to meet your family? I saw how loving your parents were. I was so jealous. I wanted that for myself. But I know I can never have that for myself. I cannot make my mother love me. I could cut out my heart for her and put it at her feet, and she would still hate me.”
Defeated, I look ahead at the children. Young kids climbing the monkey bars, babies playing in the sandbox, while a few clouds gather on the horizon. “My mother always hated me. My father never wanted a daughter. He tolerated me first as long as he could, and then he left us. Mom told me I should just be grateful she raised me. She could’ve thrown me into the system. I’m supposed to be grateful to her. Everything I am is because of her.”
“And you believe that?” Ethan asks in a disbelieving tone.
I don’t have the strength to look at him. “I want to be loved by her.”
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, willing my tears away. “I know it’s pathetic. Trust me. I know.”
My voice cracks.
“There’s nothing pathetic about wanting to be loved by your parents.”
Ethan takes my hands in his, forcing me to look at him. “I consider your mother to be unfortunate. Your family doesn’t deserve your loyalty. You can’t spend your life trying to get theirapproval, not when you have your whole life ahead of you. I want to know what happened that night. I want to know it from you, but only when you’re ready to talk about it. But know this: I never betrayed your brother. He cheated me.”
I searched his gaze. “That’s why you came after me, didn’t you?”
I feel so terribly sad, my heart crumbling inside the cavity of my chest. “You were never attracted to me. You were never interested in me. I was just Lucas’s sister.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I don’t even have the strength to laugh bitterly. “It was a fluke, Ethan. Let’s say Lucas did steal from you. Why are you here now? Do you really expect me to believe that during all those ‘dates’ that we had, you ended up falling for me? And you looked for me for five years?”
“You were just Lucas’s sister in the beginning.” Ethan doesn’t lie, and my hands curl into a fist. “And I did find you attractive, or I wouldn’t have gone down that route. I also ended up falling in love with you. I didn’t know it at the time.”
His words pierce me to the core.
Love?
Does he know what he’s saying?
“I looked forward to our time spent together.” Ethan’s voice is serious as he continues. “I tried to drag out our dates so that I could watch you talk about what you wanted to do after college. I liked listening to you, to all your plans for the future. You were so driven.”
He curls his hands around my fist and gently loosens the clenched fingers, his eyes on my hands. “Remember when that server dropped the iced coffee on your new dress? It was a white dress. You didn’t get angry. You picked up the glass from the ground and handed it to him before you went to the bathroom to clean yourself up. You had no problem continuing the dinner with that large stain on that dress. I never forgot that. I got you a necklace from a famous jeweler on our fourth date,but you got more excited over the cheap flowers I picked up at the gas station. Everything about you just arrested me.”
My ears burn as he talks about moments that I remember but never paid much attention to. “You were everything I didn’t know. And if you mesmerized me back then, you stole my breath when we met again. When I found out what you had been through, my admiration for you only grew. Life threw hurdles your way, and Natalie, you made something spectacular of yourself despite them all. How could I not be drawn to a woman like you?”
I try to pull my hand away, but he holds it tight, looking up, our eyes meeting. “If you don’t want me, if you think I will always be a reminder of the worst time of your life, I need you to say so. I will walk away.”
My mouth turns dry. “Just like that? You’ll walk away from me? You won’t bother me again?”
There’s no mistaking the pain in his eyes, but his jaw is hard. “Yes.”
I hold his gaze for a long while. It would be so easy right now. I could walk away. I could close this chapter of my life. I could move somewhere far away with this baby, start over, be hap?—
“What if I don’t want that?”
The words slip out of my mouth, and I feel his grip on my hand tighten. “Then?—”
The wave of nausea returns, this time with a vengeance. Pulling away from him, I stumble to the trashcan a few feet from us, making it just in time. I throw up so viciously, that my body is left wracking from the force of it.
“Natalie!” The alarm in Ethan’s voice barely reaches me, and then he’s holding me in his arms, rubbing my back as I throw up once again. He pulls my hair back from my mouth.
It’s like he doesn’t even care how disgusting this is, I think to myself dazedly.
When I’m done, I sink against him, unable to stand. He guides me to the park bench, ordering, “Sit here. I’m getting you some water.”
There’s a hot dog stall down the road, and he brings back a water bottle for me. To my relief, it’s cold. I drink some of it to get rid of the taste in my mouth. My hand is on my belly as I feel the light cramps return. The doctor told me I would have them for another two to four weeks.
Without thinking, I press the cold water bottle to my forehead, groaning, “I hate morning sickness.”
