Unforgettable

by Ann Christopher

  “True.” Sofia sobered. “So what’s the issue, Zee? Why are you and Daniel so angry at each other? And don’t give me some generic bad breakup nonsense.”

  Zoya opened her mouth, but it wasn’t that easy to just spill her darkest secrets over coffee, especially when her feelings were still so raw from last night.

  “Take your time,” Sofia said, all wide-eyed concern as she squeezed Zoya’s hand.

  “It’s not that big a deal,” Zoya said, clearing her throat and stiffening her spine as she pulled her hand away and rested it in her lap. “We met at a wedding reception when we were juniors at Cornell. We took one look at each other and... that was basically it. It was an amazing two years.”

  “And?”

  “And right around graduation, I landed an audition with the symphony. He was deciding whether he wanted to go to work with his father—they’re like oil and water—or try to get a job at some other vineyard, and I, ah...” Zoya hesitated, trying to get the words unstuck, and lowered her voice. “I found out I was pregnant.”

  “Oh, honey.” Sofia pressed a hand to her heart.

  “And this is between you and me. Not you, me and Ethan. Okay? I’ve never spoken about this to anyone.”

  “Of course. I’d never break your confidence.”

  “We used condoms. I don’t want you to think I’m one of those women who doesn’t know how to keep herself from getting pregnant.”

  “I’m not judging you,” Sofia said. “And condoms don’t always work, right?”

  “I’m proof of that. Anyway, you should have seen the look on Daniel’s face when I told him.”

  “I’m sure he was shocked, honey.”

  “It looked like horror to me at the time. And then he just...He said he needed time, but it was like he shut down on me. Like he withdrew. He wasn’t there. He didn’t want to talk about it initially. And all I could think was that all our plans were being ruined because we were part of the two percent condom failure rate population.”

  “I understand.”

  “We were already coming to a crossroads. We’d never really talked about what would happen if he went to some vineyard in, I don’t know, California or Spain or something. And I’d be traveling with the symphony if they offered me a position. I mean...We had no money. We’d both have a ton of student loans to repay—”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

  “I just...in my mind, I was doing the best thing by terminating the pregnancy.”

  “But you didn’t tell him beforehand?”

  “I told him, but he wanted to get married. He proposed and everything. I didn’t think we were ready. Wasn’t sure he really meant it. We were only twenty-two.” Zoya struggled with her answer, trying to make sense of something that had seemed so clear at the time and now seemed as cloudy as sewage. “I wanted to be strong. I wanted to be in charge. I didn’t want to look in his eyes one day a couple years down the road, when the kid had strep throat in the middle of the night or something, and see Daniel blame me for anything. I just couldn’t deal with that possibility.”

  “How could he blame you? Last I checked, it takes two people to make a baby, Zee.”

  “I’m not saying it’s rational. But it’s what I thought—that he’d ultimately be relieved that we’d dodged such a bullet. And talk about a plan backfiring.” Zoya rested her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands. “You should have seen the way he looked at me when I told him I’d made my appointment at the clinic and I planned to keep it.”

  “Oh, no.”

  Zoya paused. “And the way he’s pretty much looked at me since. We had the worst fight you can imagine. He called me a cruel bitch. And then he took off for the Air Force. And we never spoke again until he showed up at the wedding.”

  “Wow. No closure there.”

  “Well, we had a huge fight last night. It was really bad. It’s like we spilled all these feelings in a puddle on the floor. And the puddle is just lying there and we need to mop it up.”

  Sofia rubbed her chest. “That’s terrible, Zoya. My heart hurts just hearing about it.”

  “How do you think I feel?”

  “Well, what now? I assume you both still have feelings for each other. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so angry.”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “What was the upshot of the fight?”

  “The upshot is that I thought we weren’t ready, but he was determined to be a good father and husband. He laid the groundwork for our joint future and I laid the groundwork for big careers.” She sighed helplessly. “We broke each other’s hearts.”

  “So you regret your decision?”

  The question required some hard thought.

  “No,” Zoya finally said. “I really think we weren’t ready. Not in terms of maturity. Definitely not financially. I think we could have tried, but we would have crashed and burned in the end. But maybe I didn’t handle it the right way. Funny how I’ve spent so much time hating him for running away when I needed him so much, and I didn’t try to see his side. And now I know he has a side. A valid side. Maybe my side isn’t as valid as I thought it was. Anyway...”

  She trailed off. They sat in silence while Sofia digested this information.

  “Do you still love him?” Sofia asked, staring thoughtfully into her coffee.

  The L-word startled Zoya. “Wow. Right for the jugular.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “We’ve been apart for over a decade. We’ve both changed. How could I possibly know whether—”

  Exasperated sigh from Sofia. “Right. I’ll take your evasiveness as a yes. Want my advice?”

  “No way. You’re the younger cousin. What the hell do you know?”

  “Which one of us has had a wonderful man tell her he loved her this week?” Sofia asked serenely.

  “What is it?” Zoya muttered, rolling her eyes.

  “Meet him halfway,” Sofia said. “Stop with all the pride and anger crap.”

  “Pride crap?”

  “You seriously let that man leave town and serve in the military?”

  “Let him?”

  “You let fourteen years go by without ever reaching out to him? I mean, who does that? You’d rather be proud, bitter and angry?”

  “Why, yes. Yes, I would,” Zoya said. “At least I have my dignity.”

  “What’s dignified about spending years of your life pining for the only man you’ve ever loved? Sounds stupid to me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you think, for one second, that I’d let Ethan go without a fight?” Sofia asked quietly. “If he ran away to the Army, I’d show up at basic training. Think I wouldn’t?”

  Zoya glared at her. “I told you we were immature back then.”

  “What excuse do you have now that you’re thirty-six? Slow learner?” Sofia deadpanned.

  “Whatever.” Zoya scowled, folding her arms over her chest. “I haven’t had my coffee yet, so I’m not that quick on my feet.”

  “No coffee yet?” said a new male voice. “I can help with that.”

  Startled, they looked up.

  It was Daniel, dressed for warmth, with his cheeks ruddy from the morning’s chill.

  Their gazes connected—his bright eyes seemed watchful and intent—and Zoya’s heart thundered into overdrive.

  “Hey,” he said quietly.

  “Hey,” Zoya said.

  Blinking himself out of the spell the two of them always spun between them, Daniel turned to Sofia and grinned. “Hey, Ethan’s Girl.”

  “Hey, yourself, Handsome Harper Brother.” Inveterate flirt that she was, Sofia channeled her inner Sophia Loren, all wide eyes, sidelong looks and sultry smiles. “Can I call you HHB?”

  Daniel grinned. “Long as Ethan doesn’t hear you. He might come after me and I’d have to whip his ass.”

  Tinkling laughter from Sofia.

  “So, cappuccino with sweetener for Zoya—”

  “Oh, you don�
��t need to get me anything,” Zoya said quickly.

  “—and can I get you a refill, Sofia?” he asked, ignoring Zoya’s protest.

  “Sexy and a gentleman,” Sofia purred. “Wonder when some smart woman will snap this one up, Zee? Nothing for me, Daniel. Thanks.”

  “Sofia’s known for her subtlety, Daniel,” Zoya said, glaring at her cousin.

  “I’ve been warned,” Daniel said, laughing now. “Be right back.”

  The second his back was turned, Sofia lunged to her feet and snatched up her coat and bag.

  “What the—?” Zoya said, disgruntled. “I thought we were talking here.”

  “The only thing I have to say to you,” Sofia said in a stage whisper, pointing one blue-and-white-tipped finger in Zoya’s face, “is that you need to fix this with Daniel. Or you’ll continue regretting it for the rest of your life. And that would make you too pathetic to look at. So you fix it. Fix it!”

  She swept off, leaving Zoya’s pulse just enough time to kick into high gear before Daniel returned with two steaming mugs. And that was before their fingers brushed as he passed her coffee over.

  “Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for the coffee on the nightstand the other morning. You’re so sweet.”

  She risked a quick glance up at his face, but meeting his gaze felt like staring into the sun. Too intense. Too many chances to get burned.

  He ducked his head and ran a hand over his nape. “Sweet. Yeah. I get that all the time.”

  He hesitated.

  She opened her mouth.

  Sit with me.

  The three words sat right there, on the tip of her tongue, waiting to be said.

  Too bad a wall of fear blocked them.

  And then, suddenly, Zoya got sick of fear. Sick of hiding behind her pride and righteous anger, sick of stamping out hope every time it raised its wobbly little head.

  “So...” He hesitated, turning away.

  “Sit with me,” she said quickly.

  He started.

  “Please. Please sit with me. I mean...only if you want to. And if you have time, obviously.”

  Dimpling, he pulled out a chair, sat and put his mug on the table. “There. Was that so hard?”

  “Yeah, actually. I’m exhausted with the effort.”

  He scooted closer. “We’re spending time together. There’s no bed in sight. Isn’t this against the rules?”

  She thought about the rules. Then she thought about the pieces of their broken relationship, and how much she longed to glue them back together. There. She’d admitted it, if only to herself.

  Also exhausting.

  And yet she felt the most wonderful relief. As though she’d finally made it to the top of a mountain she’d been climbing for years.

  “Yeah. It’s completely against the rules.” She took a deep breath. “I think we should do it anyway.”

  Chapter 17

  Daniel waited.

  Even when the weight of the silence between them became oppressive, and when he saw her open and close her mouth, struggling with words that didn’t seem to want to come. If Zoya had something she wanted to say to or share with him? Hell, yeah. He was there, even if it took a little while.

  Even if it took fourteen years.

  Even if he had to sit tight on all the things he desperately needed to tell her.

  “So...” she said, wiping a smudge off the handle of her mug.

  He didn’t move a muscle, every inch of his body on high alert.

  “I’m not making you late for work, am I?”

  Daniel checked his watch, just to make it look good, and repressed a shudder of horror at the thought of what the Dictator would say when Daniel waltzed in a good ten minutes or so past the time he was due.

  “Nah. I’ve got some time.”

  She nodded. Sipped her cappuccino. Folded her hands in her lap, then put them back on the table.

  Generally looked miserable in her own skin, which was the way he felt.

  “Did you sleep last night?” she finally asked. “I didn’t sleep.”

  Being strapped to a bed of nails would have been a pleasure compared to the tossing and turning he’d done all night, while every word of what they’d said ran in an endless and ugly loop through his brain.

  “No sleep here.”

  She nodded again, looking relieved. “I kept thinking about what you said.”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it.”

  “And?”

  “And this whole time, I’ve been thinking that I was right and you were a bastard for walking out on me.” She hesitated. “But even bastards have their side to the story.”

  “Sometimes they do, yeah.”

  “Yeah. And your side of the story...it actually...made sense to me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s very inconvenient, by the way. What am I supposed to do with my righteous anger now?”

  “Don’t ask me. I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of mine.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah.” He paused, wondering how much to say. He’d initially thought he’d left it all at her feet last night, but seeing her now made all those persistent feelings swell inside him, and he couldn’t hold them back. “I just…I’m not sure you understand how I felt.”

  “Then tell me.”

  He looked around at the other customers at their tables, who were all probably talking about the weather and what happened on last night’s reality TV shows while he and Zoya grappled with what felt like the fate of the rest of his life. “I didn’t mean to get into this now. Like this. But…I’m sorry. It was my job to wear the condom right.”

  “Oh, my God. The things leak. They break. As much as we were having sex? I should have been on the pill and had an IUD on top of the condoms.”

  He shook his head, determined to get it all out. “I should have protected you better. I didn’t want to let you down. I never wanted to let you down. Sometimes I feel like that’s the story of my life. Letting people down.”

  “Daniel…”

  He held up a hand to stop her, then had to clear his gruff throat. “I know it’s crazy, but I wanted us to be a family. I was excited to propose.”

  Bewildered look from Zoya. “We’d never talked about marriage, though. What twenty-two-year-old wants to—”

  “I did,” he said quietly. “Maybe it never would have worked out, but I wanted it. It took everything I had to propose. You think it’s easy to propose to the woman you love when you know you’re not good enough for her and you’ve already let her down?”

  “Daniel. I didn’t blame you for that.”

  “I was scared shitless. Because I knew I didn’t have anything to offer you, but I still wanted to give it to you on a silver platter.”

  Zoya ducked her head. Wiped the corner of one eye.

  “Having a kid or not at that age? That was one thing. But dealing with your rejection? The idea that you didn’t love me the way I loved you? The idea that you didn’t believe in me? Didn’t believe in us the way I did? Didn’t want to take a risk on our joint future?” He shrugged. “It made me insane. I couldn’t cope. I couldn’t face you again. Was it a stupid-ass move? Yeah. Did I cut off my nose to spite my face? Hell, yeah. And I thought about that every day when I was struggling through my training, getting my ass kicked. But I needed the Air Force. Needed to grow up and become a man. Leaving you was stupid and impulsive. Exactly as immature as you thought I was. But I’m telling you…I could not face you again. And the more time that went by, and the longer I was gone? I couldn’t figure out a graceful way back onto the playing field.”

  She dabbed her tears with a napkin, then looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I’m so sorry. For everything.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” he said, feeling lighter suddenly. Almost…free.

  Zoya went very still, as though she’d been suspended inside this moment. This blossoming potential for detente between them. “Do you...” Shaky breath.
“Do you understand why I thought what I thought?”

  Daniel thought back, putting his behavior under a microscope beneath fluorescent lighting.

  He remembered the way he’d said a heartfelt oh, shit when she told him she was pregnant.

  He envisioned, like it was yesterday, the way the color drained from her face when she reached for him and he backed away, saying he needed some time to think things through. Had she been about to apologize for their joint accident? Had his expression told her he expected her to?

  He thought about the way his heart secretly soared at the news that they’d made a baby together, crazy as that was given their circumstances. How he’d initially tamped down the joy and focused on the odds stacked against them, like flattened cars in a junkyard. How he’d wanted to step up to the plate like a man and cut a brilliant diamond out of the lump of carbon they’d created. He would ride to the rescue! He would get a job and an apartment and health insurance! He would be Zoya’s hero!

  And the way his father’s disapproving voice had run through his head like a banner message trailing a small plane during a baseball game:

  Don’t you let me down, boy. You know what I expect from you.

  “Yeah,” he said, the softball-sized lump in his throat making him hoarse. “I understand why you thought what you thought. We weren’t ready. The odds were stacked against us.”

  She took a sharp breath (was that relief? Gratitude?) and pressed a hand to her heart as she leaned across the table. “Daniel, I can’t... I can’t apologize for the decision I made. I still think it was the right one—”

  It probably was. He knew that now. Had known for a long time.

  “—but I’m sorry for the way I handled it. I’m sorry I didn’t have more faith in you. I’m sorry I didn’t try to talk it through better.”

  He nodded, blinking back sudden hot emotion. “I should have gone to the clinic with you. I didn’t want you to go through anything alone.”

  Watery smile from Zoya. “Are we forgiving each other? Maybe a little?”

  He took a shuddering breath. “Let’s hope so. It takes too much effort to keep hating you to your face. I can manage it across the country, but here? You don’t make it easy for me.”