Castle Hill

by Young, Samantha

  I nodded, trying to ignore the lump of tears in my throat as I thought over the last few days. Our home had been a silent, cold place recently. My whole life had. Ellie and Adam had refused to get in the middle, so they were staying out of it completely. I think Ellie must have talked Elodie into the same because I hadn’t heard from her. I’d gotten tentative texts from my friends but no one wanted to bring the subject up. “It’s slammed up this huge wall between me and Braden.”

  “It has or you have?”

  “Actually, he has.” I shrugged. “I was scared when I suspected I was pregnant. I was terrified when I found out that it was true. But I knew that wasn’t all. I just . . . I had to get away, go to my place to process. Before I could, Braden got there, I told him, and he took one look at my face and assumed . . . the worst.”

  “The worst?”

  “That I’m unhappy. That I don’t want a child with him. He’s so mad, so hurt, he wouldn’t and still hasn’t let me explain.”

  “And what would you tell him if he gave you the chance?”

  My hands pressed tighter against my stomach. “That our kid means more to me than anything ever has before. That it scares me to feel that much for anyone. It always will. But that I’m working through it now. That I’m still scared, and I’m scared about screwing it all up, but that I want this with him. I just needed time to work out what I was feeling.”

  “And that was?”

  I smiled at the irony. “So happy I was paralyzed.”

  “You still believe that everything good will be followed by bad?”

  “I haven’t for a long time,” I shook my head. “But this is a huge deal. I had a relapse.”

  “Joss, you’re allowed to feel this way. You recognized it and you’re working through it. That’s all anyone can ask.”

  We were quiet a moment as I studied my wedding rings, twisting the bands on my finger. “He hurt me,” I whispered, not wanting to admit it out loud.

  “Braden?”

  I nodded.

  “He’s not perfect, Joss. You’ve always known that he was a family man. It must be hard for him to wonder if he’s married to a woman who could be unhappy about carrying her own child, his child.”

  “But he won’t let me explain.”

  She cocked her head to the side, giving me a small, reassuring smile. “Maybe he’s afraid to hear what you have to say. So make him listen.”

  “I would . . . but . . .”

  “Joss—”

  “When he’s gone I blame myself,” I admitted. “The way I reacted . . . I can see why he would feel this way, act this way. But when he’s right in front of me, looking through me, not wanting me to touch him, unable to bear my touch, I almost hate him. I feel so alone.” The tears spilled down my cheeks. “And he promised I wouldn’t feel that way again.”

  Dr. Pritchard leaned over and pressed tissues into my hand, giving it a comforting squeeze as she did so. “You have to try to get past that feeling long enough to talk to him. This is a case of total miscommunication, and you two have come too far to let that derail you.”

  I nodded as I wiped the tears.

  “And Joss.”

  “Yeah?”

  She smiled kindly. “Congratulations.”

  She was the first person to say it to me in person, and although I understood it was my own fault that no one else had, it was still nice to hear it. “Thank you.”

  ***

  I shutdown the laptop after having just bought up every self-help book Amazon had on being a first-time mom. After my session with Dr. Pritchard I’d come home to an empty apartment and gone into this hyper mode, cleaning and tidying, throwing things out. I’d also ignored reminders that Braden and I weren’t sharing the same bed when I went into the guest room to measure up and saw his stuff scattered everywhere. This was going to be our kid’s nursery. I was thinking yellow or green for a color scheme since those were both gender neutral.

  I’d then opened up my laptop to an e-mail from my new agent, telling me she’d sent off my manuscript to the publisher, and she would like me to start thinking up concepts for a new book. For a while I typed up notes for several ideas I’d come back to, to flesh out later.

  And then I’d started freaking out that I knew nothing about being a mother and began an online shopping spree.

  Nerves frayed, I stood in front of the mirror in our bedroom and lifted my T-shirt.

  No bump yet.

  I smoothed my hand over my stomach thinking how weird it was that there was a little person inside of me whom I already loved beyond reason.

  Now if only my husband would give me a chance to tell him that.

  I glanced at the space between the window and the bed and wondered if there was room to put the baby’s crib there for a while. I wanted him or her to be close to us. I already knew I’d find it difficult to sleep if I didn’t know our kid was safe and at arm’s reach.

  After a few minutes of fruitless search for the measuring tape, I wandered back into the guest room to see if I’d left it in there. I found it on the bedside cabinet, but as I moved away, the address on a letter half-hidden under a book drew me up short.

  Heart beating obnoxiously loud, I slipped the letter out from under the novel and fear prickled my skin in cold shivers as I read it.

  My fingers went numb and the letter fluttered out of my grasp to the floor.

  It was a letter to Braden’s tenants, asking them to vacate the premise in one month’s time. It was his bachelor penthouse on the Meadows. The one he’d put up for rental when he moved in with me.

  The one he could take back from tenants on a short notice if he needed it for personal usage.

  My doorbell rang.

  A welcome distraction from the pure fear running cold in my veins.

  “Liv?” I said, after I opened my front door, surprised to see her on my doorstep.

  Olivia and I were good friends, but for some reason she wasn’t the first person I expected to see. Jo and I were closer. Liv and I only knew each other because of Jo, but we’d quickly banded together as fellow Americans and book enthusiasts.

  Liv’s eyes washed over me in concern and I instantly tensed. I knew what she was seeing. Dark circles under my eyes because I hadn’t been sleeping; a pale, icky complexion; and hair that was all over the place.

  “Is Braden here?” she asked casually as she barged right past me and into the flat.

  There was no need for barging. I welcomed her presence as long as we talked about anything else but Braden and my pregnancy.

  “No, he’s at work,” I replied as I followed her into the kitchen.

  When I got there she was already making coffee. She frowned at me. “You need to take better care of yourself.”

  “I’ve been busy,” I hopped onto a different subject quickly. “A literary agent in New York now represents me.”

  Liv smiled in excitement. “She loved your book?”

  “She loved my book.”

  “Joss, that’s amazing.”

  I smiled back, knowing out of everyone Liv would be the one to really get how cool it was. Liv was a librarian. Books were her passion.

  When her eyes dipped to my stomach, uncertainty entering their depths, I cut off her obvious next question.

  “She thinks I should start working on another.”

  To my relief, Liv let me get away with the distraction, listening to me yammer on about my different ideas as we settled in the sitting room with coffee and biscuits. Anything, anything, to forget the letter I’d just found.

  I was in midsentence about this crazy dystopian idea I had that was completely not what my agent had in mind when she asked me to think up new concepts, when the front door opened.

  Braden.

  I felt my whole body lock with tension as I stared, waiting with this ho
rrible sick feeling in my stomach, for Braden to appear in the doorway and crush me.

  He appeared, looking just as tired as I felt, and stopped in the doorway. “Liv,” he greeted her before glancing at me. His eyes instantly narrowed at the sight of me. “Did you sleep today?”

  Are you leaving me? “I couldn’t.”

  Appearing annoyed, he sighed. “You need to get some sleep.” Tugging on his tie, he strode out of sight.

  “Joss?” Liv’s whispered anxiety brought my attention back to her. She looked so worried for me. “Girl, what are you doing?”

  What am I doing? What am I doing? “Don’t.” She didn’t know shit.

  We sat in taut silence, sipping on coffee.

  “I’ve got a late meeting with Adam,” we heard Braden say as he wandered down the hall. Another lie. The front door slammed behind him. I flinched and desperately tried not to cry. This pregnancy was turning me into an emotional black hole.

  “Oh, honey,” Liv stood up as if she was coming to hug me.

  I held up a hand to stop her. “You hug me and I won’t stop crying. And I need to not cry.”

  She froze, looking helpless and angry that she felt that way.

  I knew exactly how she felt. “It’s not me.” I needed someone other than Dr. Pritchard to know that. “I haven’t shut him out. I’m just having a really hard time right now and I ruined it. I ruined this for him.”

  “He’s the one not talking to you?”

  “He talks. But it’s . . . it’s like he can barely stand to be in the same room as me. He hasn’t asked me how I feel about it now that the shock has worn off. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want me to touch him. . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Joss.”

  “He’s never been like that.” The letter came back to mind and I felt that panic swallow me whole. “I think I’ve fucked up.” My hysterical laughter immediately turned into loud, hard sobbing I couldn’t control. I couldn’t even be mortified that I was breaking down. I was crying too hard to care.

  I felt Liv’s comforting warmth as she gently nudged me aside on the chair and snuggled in beside me so she could pull me into her arms. And then everything just disappeared as I let her comfort me, the tears soaking her shirt a testament to the fact that I wasn’t alone.

  I wasn’t aware of the shaking stopping, or the tears drawing to a halt. Everything was just black as I finally fell into the deep relief of sleep.

  ***

  My eyes felt crusty as I tried to open them, consciousness coming to me, and with it the feel of a heavy warmth resting on my waist.

  As I opened my peepers I realized they felt swollen and that’s when I remembered why. I tensed at the memory of crying in Liv’s arms at the same time I looked into my husband’s sleeping face.

  The heavy warmth across my waist was his arm.

  We were lying in bed together.

  I didn’t know how we’d gotten there.

  I started to cry again.

  Braden’s arm tightened around me and through the blur of tears I saw I’d woken him.

  “I wasn’t not happy,” I whispered, licking the salt water off my lips. “I was so happy I was terrified.”

  His warm fingers brushed my chin and I felt the gentle pressure of his touch as he tilted my head back so I would meet his questioning eyes. “Terrified?”

  I nodded. “Just because I’ve come a long way, doesn’t mean I still don’t feel that way. You wouldn’t let me explain. I’m still terrified of losing all the good we have together.” Had together.

  Braden frowned as he sat up. “You’re afraid of losing our baby, so you shut me out before I—”

  “No!” I sat up, glaring at him. “You shut me out.”

  “I thought we were past all this.”

  “Then let me fucking explain!”

  He glowered at me but shut up.

  I glowered back. “You know I’m afraid of losing the people I love. But my kid, our kid, I already love this kid so much I can’t breathe. The thought of something happening . . .”

  Braden shook his head slowly. “You kept avoiding talking about having kids. . . . I started to worry that you didn’t want them. I thought with you running off to the castle it meant you were gearing up to shut me out because . . . you didn’t want our kid. Then when you tried to explain, I was . . .” He sighed.

  “You were what?”

  “Scared,” he admitted softly, his eyes locked with mine. “My mother never wanted me, Jocelyn. Never. I was not a happy kid and I would never wish that kind of childhood on anyone, let alone my own kids. I promised myself if I ever had children I’d be the kind of father mine never was and I certainly wouldn’t marry a woman who wouldn’t treat them like they were her whole world. So I didn’t know how to feel about my wife not wanting our kid. I didn’t know how to react to that and what it meant for us.”

  A knifelike pain cut across my chest. “Is that why you’re moving out?”

  “What?” he asked incredulously, his eyes darkening. “What are you talking about?”

  “The letter.” I lifted a shaky hand, pointing out to the hall. “I found the letter in the guest room. The one asking the tenants of your old apartment to move out within the month.”

  A thick silence fell between us.

  Braden slipped out of bed, staring at nothing for a moment before turning to me with a very familiar anger. “That’s the second letter to those tenants. The first one told them they were being evicted because of the complaints I’d received from residents of the building. The letter you saw was a standard notice telling them how much time they had to get out.”

  Oh.

  Fuck.

  “You thought without talking to you, or trying to work this shit out that I . . . that I . . . was leaving you!” he yelled in disbelief.

  Oh, no, he did not get to be angry anymore. I got out of the bed on the opposite side. “You froze me out. I was scared and confused and you left me on my own!” My voice cracked as I yelled back at him, and the break lowered my voice. “You wouldn’t let me touch you. You flinched from me.” I watched his face soften. “You promised me I wasn’t alone anymore, but instead you made me think you hated me. And I think I hate you a little for that.”

  I turned away so he wouldn’t see me cry again.

  Two seconds later he was turning me into his arms. “Fuck, baby,” he whispered hoarsely. “You could bring a man to his knees.”

  There was so much relief in feeling his arms around me, his chest beneath my cheek. Inhaling his scent. Soaking him in. But I didn’t hold him in return.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said gruffly, desperately, in my ear, easing me back to stare into my eyes. He brushed my hair off my face before cupping it in his hands. There was something like panic in them. “Jocelyn, I will never make you feel that way again. I promise. I’m so sorry.” He kissed me hard, tasting my tears. “I was scared. I acted like an idiot but it was just because this is our kid. It means more to me than anything ever has. I fucked up. I fucked up this time, but I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I love you. You believe me?” He pulled me against him, his hands running down my back. “You believe me?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to let go of the last few days. It would be so easy to hold on to the hurt and anger. But instead I looked back a few years when I was lying in Braden’s arms, grateful he’d forgiven me for everything I’d put him through.

  I lifted my arms and wrapped them around his back. “I believe you.”

  He kissed me again, this time slower, deeper. When he pulled back he was frowning. “I fucked up,” he repeated quietly.

  “Well, it was your turn.”

  “There will be times,” he murmured against my lips, “when we don’t like each other very much, but I need you to know that I will never stop loving you. This time it was me who
was terrified of losing you, and I pushed you away because I was afraid to hear what you had to say. If, God forbid, I ever hurt you again, tell me. Don’t lock me out. Don’t shut the shower door on my face. Scream at me. Don’t let me get away with it until you’re storing that shit up and looking at me like you’re haunted. Because . . . I swear to God, that look in your eyes that night, it almost broke my fucking heart. We need to stop doing that to each other. Right now.”

  I nodded, clinging tighter to him, relief and forgiveness melting my body into his. “I promise. And not just for me, and not just for you. We have a baby to think of now too. Congratulations, by the way.”

  Braden’s eyes brightened. “Congratulations, sweetheart.”

  I laughed. “Oh, Jesus C, that took us long enough.”

  He pulled me up into his arms, so my feet left the ground. I automatically clung to his neck and wrapped my legs around his waist, only to find myself being lowered to my back on the bed.

  Braden lay over me, his loving eyes staring straight into mine. “I’ve missed you.”

  I slipped my hands under his shirt, feeling his warm, muscled back beneath my fingers. “I’ve missed you too,” I told him thickly. “I love you so much. Even when I didn’t like you very much, I loved you completely.”

  His thumb brushed across my cheekbone. “Back at you, babe. And I won’t ever stop loving you. But just in case you have your doubts”—he threw me a quick, heated smile as his fingers curled around the waistband of my sweatpants—“let me show you how hard and deep . . . and desperately I love you.”

  I tilted my hips, giving him better access to slowly peel the sweatpants off. As soon as they were gone I wrapped my legs around his back and my arms around his shoulders. “Let’s do this in the shower,” I murmured hungrily against his mouth.

  Holding me tight, Braden stood up and cupped a hand to my nape, bringing my mouth to his. We savored one another in that kiss, tasting each other, our lips growing swollen from the passionate makeout.

  “I love making out with you,” I confessed, nuzzling his neck as he began walking us toward the bathroom.