“Nothin’.” I set the pencil down. Taking a drink of his coffee, he slid my notebook around, studying it.

  “Nothin’—to you maybe. I don’t think you realize how talented you are.”

  “Thanks.”

  He considered me. “You quit smoking?” He’d probably noticed the patch on my upper arm.

  “Yeah, a couple weeks now.”

  “Good for you, Case.” He took another sip of his coffee, quiet for a bit, but his eyes were ripe with questions. “Well, I guess we’re avoiding the issues, huh? So what did you want to talk about?”

  Damn…he was cool and calm and collected. And here I sat, feeling like I was on the edge of a major emotional breakdown. I had to keep it together.

  “I don’t even know where to start.” I let out a deep sigh.

  Our waitress reappeared. “I wanted to let you know you can have breakfast or lunch if you want.”

  I didn’t even feel like eating, no matter what meal I ordered. Scott glanced at the menu, though, and ordered a big breakfast. I wasn’t hungry so I just picked something I would hopefully try once it was in front of me. “I guess I’ll just take a BLT and French fries.”

  Our waitress smiled. “I’ll have that out shortly.” Collecting our menus, she clipped to the kitchen faster than I could get my thoughts together.

  I fought to keep my voice steady. “I guess, uh, things aren’t the same between us.”

  “Look, Casey…a lot has happened since you left.”

  One fucking month. A lot? But, yeah…I could tell just by the vibes I was getting. I averted my eyes, looking down at my bony knuckles on the table. “Yeah. I guess so.” I rubbed my forehead in frustration—and fear. Did I want to know the whole, horrible reality?

  “Tell me the truth. Why did you leave? Why did you really leave? And don’t give me some bullshit about needing to get away from here. Did I scare you?” I just looked at him, afraid to say the words. “Was it something as simple as still being in love with your ex or were you afraid of being in a committed relationship again?” When I still didn’t answer, he said, “Okay, maybe I was wrong. You said you had to find yourself. Did you?”

  The words didn’t want to leave my mouth, but I forced them anyway. “Some. I, uh, I did learn a lot about myself. Did you get the postcards I sent?”

  “Yeah, I did. You drove over half the fucking state, it seemed like. Even your ex came looking for you.”

  “Barry?”

  “Yeah. I guess he was pretty worried about you. At least, that’s what your parents said.” He looked down at his coffee for a brief moment. “What was the reason, Casey? Why?” He lowered his voice as his eyes drilled into mine. “You don’t just up and leave a relationship that’s working for no good reason. I don’t believe your lame excuse.”

  He was calling my bluff, and I was more transparent than I’d thought. Probably even more see-through than the lightly grease-stained window we were sitting by. I closed my eyes, summoning up the courage to say what I needed to, and cleared my throat. “I thought I was pregnant.”

  For a second, he looked as if I’d slapped him. He just sat there, wind knocked out of him, searching my eyes for truth. It pained me, but I looked back, seeing if he understood.

  Yeah. He understood, all right, and as it hit him again, he turned his head to look out the window. The traffic was pretty steady out on the pavement where his eyes were drawn. I could hear other customers in the restaurant talking, laughing, enjoying their lives, could hear the whirr of tires rolling by on the highway, everyone and everything in motion. But my life had stopped. For me, time was standing still.

  What was Scott thinking?

  “Pregnant.” I could barely hear him as he moved his eyes back to me. “So you left to what? Have an abortion?”

  “No. I left so I’d have time to think about what I should do.” And here came the tears, as unstoppable as the traffic outside. First one, then another. “I decided to have the baby.”

  I could sense more than see that he was starting to get angry—a side of Scott I’d rarely seen. But he was controlling it well, considering all that I’d just hit him with. “Well, it’s pretty obvious you’re not pregnant now.” He was glowering. “What happened?”

  I drew in a deep breath. “The doctor in Grand Junction told me I’d never been pregnant. The test I’d taken before was faulty. He said I was malnourished, and that’s why I thought I was pregnant.”

  He shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No, I guess it doesn’t.” I bit my lip. God, I was craving a cigarette—hardcore. “The doctor said I wasn’t having periods because there wasn’t enough fat in my diet or stored in my body. He said female Olympic runners and ballet dancers are like that. They’re super-lean and so they’re lucky to have a few periods a year—they definitely don’t have them regularly. But I hadn’t had a period, and I tested positive at a clinic here in town—so I thought…I believed I was pregnant.”

  Just as I dropped that little bombshell, the waitress stopped by our table with two plates of steaming food. She set my sandwich in front of me first, followed by Scott’s breakfast. The smells wafting off the plates turned my stomach. “Be right back with more coffee.”

  I looked down at my plate, sucking my cheeks inward, almost afraid to look Scott in the eye. A few seconds later, the waitress came back, topping off our cups. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “No, thanks.” I was grateful Scott spoke, because the words didn’t want to come out of my mouth. It was all I could do to keep the tears at bay. But as soon as she walked away, I forced myself to look at Scott again. He didn’t touch a thing on his plate, continuing to bore into my soul with his steely eyes.

  I didn’t know what else to say, but the smell of bacon from both our plates assaulted my nostrils and made my stomach cartwheel. Yeah, there was no way I’d be eating right now.

  We sat in silence together with Scott seeming to soak in everything I’d divulged. Finally, he picked up his fork and ate a couple bites of eggs. “So…let’s say you had been pregnant like you’d thought. Would the baby have been mine?” The vibes flowing off him were ice-cold and angry, and he didn’t even look at me.

  But his words made anger rise up in me, too. “What the hell do you think, Scott?”

  He looked up at me then, daggers in his eyes piercing my heart, but his voice was as quiet as a soft breeze. “Fuck, Casey. If you couldn’t tell me you thought you were pregnant, what else couldn’t you tell me? What am I supposed to think?” I didn’t have an answer. I just shook my head, wishing I could retreat. When I looked down and saw the plate beside my arm, I felt my stomach lurch.

  I let out a heavy sigh before wiping tears away from my eyes. “Yes, Scott, it would have been yours.” I forced myself to look up at him, facing his cold stare head on. “You are the only man I’ve been with since my divorce. The only man I’ve been with in at least a year…probably a year and a half even.” As he continued to glare, I felt my anger flare again. “So, yeah…since I don’t have the gestational cycle of an elephant, you would have been the baby’s father.”

  He leaned in closer, and his words were so quiet and intense, I almost had to strain to hear. “Then why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  Right here and now, his question seemed valid, but I knew the answer. I’d been afraid—afraid of so many things. Mostly, I hadn’t wanted to ruin his life. But at this point in our conversation, I was starting to feel backed into a corner. “What if I had? What would you have done?”

  “I don’t know. You didn’t even give me the chance. Fuck, woman, first you tell me you can’t get pregnant, and then you tell me you think you were. You don’t make any sense.”

  “Scott, I really believed I couldn’t. But the doctor in Grand Junction said I probably could. I don’t know anymore.”

  “You still didn’t answer my question.” Yeah…I knew that. I’d been avoiding it. “Why didn’t you tell me? Don’t you think I’d have wanted to know? Maybe we could have figured it out together?” His voice was a little gentler, more tender, inquisitive…not so demanding. At that moment, I could tell that I’d hurt him badly, deep into his core. I should’ve just stabbed him—it wouldn’t have hurt him as much as my actions had.

  And my decision didn’t seem as clear now—at the time, I’d thought it was the best, most logical thing to do. Now, looking back, it seemed like the stupidest, most childish thing I’d ever done, especially seeing it through Scott’s eyes. All I could do now was try to explain it as best as I could. “Scott,” I said so quietly I could barely hear myself, “I was afraid. Afraid of making you angry, thinking that I’d lied to you. Afraid of what my parents would think. Afraid of all the emotions bubbling up inside me. I was so scared—” The tears started flowing like a waterfall then, and there was no stopping them. “I was confused. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “But, Casey…I thought you trusted me. You didn’t even try to tell me, did you? You just left. It was like you ran as soon as you found out. And did you plan what you were going to do after you had the baby? Were you really going to come back? Or would you have let me hang on for God knows how long? Would I ever have known that I had a child out in the world?” He drew in a deep breath as his quiet tenderness took on an edge of anger once more. “Is a child’s father not important?”

  “I don’t know, Scott. I was going to tell you eventually. But I also wanted to give you the chance to bow out if you wanted to…if you couldn’t handle the obligation—”

  “Is that the kind of man you think I am?” Oh, fuck…now I’d done it. The anger I could feel now and see through his eyes was beyond anything I’d seen thus far. He shook his head and then closed his eyes, drawing in a long deep breath through his nostrils. Clamping his jaw, he pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, as if contemplating his next move. Meanwhile, my tears continued to flow. “You obviously don’t know shit about me, Casey.” Standing up, he reached in his back pocket for his wallet. “Nice knowing you.” He threw some money on the table and left, his food barely eaten, before I could even attempt to say another syllable.

  In shock, I watched him walk out the door and then my eyes continued following him through the window as he peeled out of the parking lot. I felt dead inside…no baby, no humanity.

  No soul.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  After sitting in the truck stop for more than fifteen minutes like I was frozen to the booth, I wandered to my car, zombie-like. I sat there forever, too, before deciding subconsciously to call David, my only close friend nearby. That after driving around town for an hour in a haze. So I pulled into a parking space on Main Street and dialed his cell.

  When he answered the phone, I asked, “You busy right now?”

  “No. Today’s my day off.”

  “Can I take you out to lunch?” Like I could really eat lunch. As it was, I’d left an entire plate untouched at the truck stop. But I needed to entice my old friend out of his house, and neutral territory seemed best.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “David, I know you’re mad at me, too, and I get that your loyalty lies with Scott. That’s fine. But you’re my only friend here. My only friend. And I really need someone to talk to.”

  The silence between our phones was heavy and stretched into several long seconds until he finally spoke. “All right. When and where?”

  “If you’re free in an hour, how about the Renaissance Room?”

  He agreed. I had no intention of actually eating, but I knew there was local art on the walls of that particular restaurant, so even if David told me off, I’d get something out of it.

  I arrived a little early so, after getting a table and ordering a glass of iced tea, I wandered around to look at the art on display. It didn’t take me long to realize I needed to talk to the person in charge of art here. When I sat back down, the waiter came by. “Are you ready to order, ma’am?”

  “No, I’m waiting on a friend. But I did wonder if you could tell me how a person goes about getting their art on display here.”

  “Ah. That would be the owner. Let me get you his card.”

  David showed up while the waiter was gone. I stood so he could see me, and when he got near, he pulled me into a hug. “You looked like you could use that.” Based on his expression, I must have looked like death warmed over.

  The waiter returned just as we were sitting down and handed us menus. He set a business card in front of me before zipping off to fetch David’s chai latte. Then David asked, “So what did you need to talk about?”

  I gnawed at my lip. “I don’t know. I just needed to talk…about what, I really don’t know.”

  “Look, Case, you need to know. You are a good friend. But Scott is family and it’s true what they say—blood is thicker than water. I have to support his decisions.”

  “Yeah, I know that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk, does it?” He shrugged. On impulse, I slid my hand across the table and squeezed his. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Sure.”

  While we glanced at the menus, I asked, “So how’s work?”

  “Same bullshit, different day, girlfriend.” He looked up. “Honestly, though, it’s not the same without you.”

  “Yeah, probably better.”

  “No. Stop it, Casey. Punishment time is over.”

  “Fine.” After the waiter stopped by and took our orders, I asked, “So how are things going with Gerald?”

  “Oh, my God. I think I’m in love.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. I haven’t told anybody this yet, but…he asked me to move in with him.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “I’m considering it. I’m just afraid of ruining what we have.”

  We spent the rest of our time at the restaurant talking about his relationship and about Bob’s. While it didn’t solve any of my problems, I felt considerably better getting out of my head.

  I still couldn’t force myself to eat.

  When the waiter brought the check, he asked if we were done eating. I said that I was, but David said, “No way, Case. Please bring her a box.” After the waiter left, he said, “You have got to eat. You’re nothing but skin and bones.”

  “I did eat.”

  “Five fries and one bite of your burger does not constitute eating.”

  “It’s better than I did for breakfast.”

  David raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you come to my place? I want to make sure you eat more—and we can share a glass of wine.”

  “Wine?”

  “Yeah—Gerald’s been turning me on to drinking for enjoyment.”

  “As opposed to drinking for the purpose of getting blitzed?”

  “Exactly.”

  While I didn’t want to say no to companionship, I wasn’t ready for everything else that would come with that offer.

  “No…we better not. Scott’s there, and I don’t think he wants to see me right now.” I let out a sigh. “Trust me on this.”

  “He was there earlier, Case, but he should be at work by now. Trust me on this.”

  Fifteen minutes later, we were at his house, sitting at the kitchen table, as David poured two glasses of red wine that he promised would be sweet.

  “Did Scott tell you about this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  I took a sip of wine. As David promised, it was on the sweet side, but the addict in me wanted a cigarette to go with it. I touched the patch on my arm as if it granted me extra strength. “So how bad do you hate me?”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “Scott probably does.” David didn’t take the bait, so I kept talking. “I hurt him pretty bad, didn’t I?”

  “Casey, my dear, you took the cake.”

  “I guess I deserved that one.”

  David tapped his finger on the table before looking at me. “You need to know. If you want the truth, I’ll give it to you. If not, don’t ask me any questions.”

  Fair enough. “So what do you know about this morning?”

  “Not much.”

  I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I told Scott the truth.”

  “Good.”

  “No, I’m starting to question it.”

  “What? Case, have you lost your mind?”

  “Bear with me here, Dave. So Scott is pissed at me for telling him the truth. Honesty’s supposedly the best policy, but I think if I’d lied, I wouldn’t be so miserable now.”

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

  “Okay.” I took a big gulp of the wine. Since I wasn’t with child, I had no qualms about drinking. “So I told Scott I was leaving because I needed to find myself—and I think I actually convinced myself that’s why—but that wasn’t all of it. The main reason why I left is because I thought I was pregnant.”

  “But you’re not?”

  “No. Long story. And now I’ve ruined everything.” Tears blurred my vision but I fought to keep them from becoming a stream. “Scott…Scott feels like a soulmate to me, someone I should spend my whole damn life with.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “No.”

  “You love him?”

  “Of course.”

  “So why the hell didn’t you say anything?”

  I stared at my glass. “Because I was afraid.”

  “Afraid? Afraid of what?”

  I forced myself to look in his eyes. “Afraid the feeling’s not mutual. Afraid of being involved with someone again. Hell, afraid of being rejected, especially right now. Afraid of everything that comes with relationships. Afraid of it all.”

  “All the more reason to say something.”

  “I can’t tell him any of that, David.”

  “Why not?”

  “‘Cause then I’d scare him off.”

  “You already did.”

  “No. I didn’t scare him away. I practically pushed him away. And now he hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you. I don’t think he ever could. Geez, Case, when you guys were together, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that happy.”

 

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