by Hart, Staci
I leaned back, beaming. “I didn’t even know you were trying.”
“I just got off birth control last month.”
“Those Banes and their high testosterone,” I said with a shake of my head. “So virile.”
“So very virile. Apparently, they can get a girl pregnant with a well-placed glance.”
“Well, I assume Tommy has The Look, same as Theo. I don’t know that anyone could escape a look like that.”
“Oh, he has it. We were doomed from the start,” she said on a laugh that died in her throat. She reached for my hand. “I hate this.”
“So do I. But we’ll figure it out. Theo and I work well together and are pragmatic enough to sort this out. I think…I think, once we do, we’ll be very good friends.”
“What if you can’t be friends?”
A flash of pain shot through my chest. “Then we’ll have to separate.” The tickle in my nose stung. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Me too,” she said with the saddest look on her face.
“I’m going to talk to him tonight. He’s been avoiding me all week. I might have to camp out in front of his bedroom door to pin him down, but I’ve got a book and a floor pillow and all the time in the world.”
“Can we meet for lunch tomorrow? Or, if you want, call me tonight and come up. I’m here for you.”
“I know. Thank you. I’ll be all right, but lunch tomorrow would be nice. I’ll text you tonight anyway. I know how you worry.”
“I do,” she agreed. “I just…I want you to be happy, and I hate that you’re not. I was sure you and Theo were it. You’re so well suited.”
“I thought so, too. The hardest part is, as much as I hate it, I understand. His father leaving made him wish for a nuclear family. I can’t argue with that.”
“And your parents being flaky made you want to avoid love and marriage completely. I don’t think he can argue with that either.”
“Oh, he can. He was right. He hasn’t asked me for one thing, except this. And this is the one thing I don’t know how to give him. I can’t give. I don’t understand love. All I know is that I want to be with him.”
“Couldn’t that be considered love?”
“Not in the way he means it. I just…I wish we could have taken it one day at a time, one week at a time, a month, then a year. I wish I’d known how he felt. When you were little, you dreamed about your wedding day, your babies, of finding a man who would love you. But when I was little, I dreamed about being alone. About being self-reliant because my parents were not. They needed me, and they took without replenishing what they’d stolen. They were codependent when they were together and even when they were apart. Even the idea of marriage is tainted by their constant state of flux. When they split up, we all still lived together. Do you know how many ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ I saw shame-walking out of the house in the morning? That’s not commitment.” I shook my head. “I know it’s not like that for everyone. I know you and Tommy are happy being married. But I just can’t imagine being beholden to someone else for the rest of my life. That commitment sounds like it would require so much energy that I would deplete to the point of emptiness. I don’t know how I would withstand having someone need so very much from me.”
“But won’t a baby do the same?” she asked gently.
“Yes, and that will be hard enough on its own.” My voice broke. I swallowed hard. “He is the perfect mate, the perfect man. And someday, he’ll meet someone who will love him like he loves. I’m just not capable. I’m not equipped for love.” My breakdown was complete, the words gone, choking and catching in my throat.
“Come here,” she said gently, pulling me into a hug to rock me. “It’s all going to be okay. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but I promise it will.”
I bit down on my bottom lip, bit back my tears, felt the stretch of our baby in my body, felt the raw edges of my heart.
And I hoped against hope that she was right.
❖
Theo
It had been the longest eight days of my life.
I’d made it my mission to stay away, stay out of the house. The charity function I was planning had ended up being a boon—it’d afforded me an excuse to avoid home. Eight dinners I’d eaten alone. Eight breakfasts wolfed down in a cab. Seven long, cold nights alone in my bed, unable to sleep, unable to think of anything other than the girl down the hall. The girl I loved.
The girl I couldn’t have.
The frustrating and maddening girl who was carrying my baby. The girl I’d given my heart to, the girl who didn’t want it.
All my dreams had been washed away with the tide, leaving me empty of anything but longing and regret. I should have talked to her before proposing. I should have listened to her when she warned me. I should have known the second I met her mother. But I’d been blinded by what I wanted. I’d justified my actions, made my choice strictly based on my dreams without considering hers.
If I had, I would have known the answer.
I should have known better.
I should have left well enough alone.
I should have given her a warning, more time.
But time wouldn’t have changed anything. She didn’t want to get married, and she didn’t believe in love.
Which didn’t change the fact that I did. It didn’t matter how much I loved her. I couldn’t love her enough for both of us. I couldn’t bend her to what I wanted. It was one of the reasons I loved her. She was unflappable, sure-footed, and confident. And that was exactly why I’d lost her.
I’d finished work hours ago, but I knew she’d be home, waiting for me. So I walked. I walked from Midtown, passing Bryant Park and the library, pausing to admire the light posts she’d told me about months ago, when hope still existed and possibilities lit a fire in me. I walked the long city blocks to Washington Square Park, sat at the fountain, admired the arch as the sun went down and the marble lit up. And hours later, I’d dragged myself home, hoping everyone was asleep.
With a sigh, I unlocked my front door. The house was dark and silent—a good omen. I crept through the house, up the stairs. But when I reached the landing and glanced into the living room, that longing I’d thought I kept tamped down let loose in a rush that brought me to a dead stop.
The lights were off but for a lamp next to the couch, and in the low light, she looked posed in her perfection, too beautiful to be real. Her face was soft and slack in sleep, her dark lashes and rosy lips a contrast to the pale of her skin. Her head rested on her arm, which lay hooked behind her head on the arm of the chair. Her hand cupped the curve of her belly in a protective gesture, almost as if to reassure herself the baby was there and safe. The white muslin of her nightgown stretched and draped around her breasts and belly, her hips and legs, the light brushing the curves of her in gentle strokes.
There were so few things in this world I truly wanted, and she was almost all of them. The sense of loss was blinding, the desire to pick her up and carry her to bed overwhelming, the wish that she were still mine and the knowledge that she wasn’t nearly bringing me to my knees.
The ache in my heart twisted and burned as I walked to her with wooden legs, snagging a blanket from the basket next to the couch, unfurling it as I approached. I slipped it over her with gentle care, not wanting to wake her, not wanting to touch her for fear it would sting.
But a lock of hair was strewn across her face, and before I could stop myself, I brushed it away.
She stirred, inhaling deeply, stretching languidly. Her eyes fluttered open. “Theo?”
“Shh. Go back to sleep.”
The corners of her lips tugged into a frown. She pushed herself up to sit. “I was waiting for you,” she said, swinging her feet around to the ground.
“I’m home. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “Please, will you sit with me for a minute?”
I swallowed, locking my face, shuttering
my heart. I took a seat in an armchair without speaking.
She took a breath and met my eyes. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve had a lot of work to do.”
“Work never keeps you out past ten, Theo.”
A week ago, I’d ached to hear her call me by my nickname that she was so averse to. Now it only reminded me of all I’d lost.
“What did you want to say, Katherine?” I asked, unwilling to give her anything she hadn’t explicitly asked for.
Her brows flicked together. “This is unbearable.”
My jaw flexed. I didn’t speak.
“I know this is my fault. I should have been more clear from the start.”
“And I should have listened.”
Pain shifted behind her eyes. “I have another proposition. I…I know we can’t go back. But what’s happened doesn’t change the fact that we’re having a baby. So we need to find a way to move forward. My first question is, do you want me to leave?”
That split in my heart widened. “No,” I answered with firm certainty. “I don’t want you to be alone. And I want to be here when the baby comes. I don’t want to be apart from her any more than I want to be apart from you.”
The click of her throat as she swallowed. “All right,” she said with a small, shaking voice. “Then we need to figure out how we can be partners again. How we can be friends. I…I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” I admitted, hating that she was right. I just didn’t know what to do about it.
“What if we make new rules? Rules to help us?”
“What do you suggest?” Hope was my curse. It rose like the sunrise.
“For starters, we need to stop avoiding one another. We need to know we can be around each other without it hurting.”
“But it does hurt, Kate.”
“It does. Won’t that lessen with time?”
“Theoretically.”
“It’s a theory I think we should test. Because even though we’re not together, we’re bound. I don’t want to feel this way, but knowing I’ve lost you as my friend is too much to endure. And I don’t want to go back to being strangers. Do you?”
“No.”
A pause. “Will you start coming home for dinner again?”
My sigh tested the limits of my ribs. “Yes.”
“We can start there. I’ll stay out of your way. It hurts me, too.”
I watched her for a protracted moment. “I hate this. I hate this so fucking much, I can barely stand to share air with you. Because every breath hurts. Every single one, Kate.”
Tears shone in her eyes, clinging to the corners. “I know,” she whispered. “But nothing about us has been conventional, Theo. There is no option to run away. So we have to decide not to. We have to face what we are even if it’s not what we want.” She shook her head, glancing down. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
I couldn’t stand to see her cry, couldn’t stop myself from moving to her side. From holding her, from closing my eyes and burying my face in her hair. From feeling her body against mine and memorizing the sensation, the warmth radiating from her and into me. I couldn’t help myself.
And this would be my greatest challenge.
I swallowed my emotion, swallowed the things I wanted to say. Swallowed my wishes and dreams and kissed them goodbye with a kiss to her forehead. And then I stood.
I had to, or I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
“Amelia said it would all be all right,” she said, swiping tears from her cheeks. “But it’s hard to believe there will come a time when this doesn’t hurt.”
“It will.”
I said it for her sake. And I said it with the hope that it would come true but without the faith to believe it.
26
Semantics
Theo
31 weeks, 4 days
Three weeks crawled by, and little by precious little, we found a new normal.
It wasn’t any normal I wanted, but it was better than the alternative—life without her.
The progress was slow, peppered with stilted conversations and strained silences. Conversations that systematically avoided painful truths. And somehow, we found a way to be roommates.
Friends seemed almost out of the question.
It wasn’t made easier by the chemistry that still had us under its thumb. Even that morning, as I rinsed my dishes, I could feel her watching me, her gaze heavy with things unsaid. Desire warmed her face. And I still hadn’t figured out how to override the urge to kiss her or the hope that a kiss would wash our pain away.
But it would be a lie, a temporary stay of execution. There was no way to bridge the gap between what we wanted—what we needed.
“The house is voting in The Eye tonight,” she said, dusting crumbs off her hands. “Can we watch after dinner?”
“Sure. If Todd gets off the hook, Barry might lay him out on live television.”
She laughed. “I don’t know why no one is blaming Janet. She’s the one who kissed both of them.”
“As hard as Barry’s been campaigning, I’m pretty sure Todd’s a goner.”
“I think Janet planned it. Todd’s her biggest competition. I don’t trust her.”
I smirked. “You don’t trust anyone.”
“Not true,” she said, picking up her toast. “I trust you.”
That dull ache that had taken up residence in my chest flared. “Well, I’m exceptionally trustworthy,” I joked, drying off my hands. “I’ll see you tonight, Katherine,” I said, fisting my hand as I walked to stop myself from reaching out to touch her.
“Have a good day, Theo.”
I smiled my best fake smile, turning the corner to trot down the stairs, then down again into the basement.
Tommy was already there, his long hair pulled into a knot at his nape. A Tribe Called Quest was blaring, Q-Tip telling us to wipe our feet really good on the rhythm rug as Tommy curled the hand weights in reps.
I knew exactly where he was in today’s workout cycle, and while he finished up, I stretched a little, cracking my neck and flexing my shoulders as I scanned the rack for a heavier load.
He racked the weights and stepped back as I stepped up, squaring up in front of the mirror.
“Punishing yourself?” he joked.
“No,” I lied.
The strain on my biceps agreed with him.
“You’re miserable,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
He folded his arms. “Sure. You look fine.”
I hissed, unable to answer. The sum of my focus was in my trembling muscles.
“There’s got to be another way.”
My eyes darted to his in warning.
“What? This clearly isn’t working for you.”
Nineteen, twenty. I racked the weights, huffing. “Doesn’t matter what I want, does it?”
“The way I see it, it’s a matter of semantics. You both want the same thing, but you’re calling it different names.”
I hung my hands on my hips, glaring at him. “You’re telling me, if Amelia said she didn’t love you and refused to marry you, you’d be content begging for scraps?”
His brows drew together. “No.”
“Exactly.”
“But that’s not who Amelia is. If she refused me, it would be for different reasons than Katherine—it would be because she didn’t want me. Katherine wants you. She just holds issues with the words and constructs.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know how to get past that.”
“That’s because you have an inflexible view of right and wrong. Black and white.”
I snorted. “Please. Have you met yourself?”
“Takes one to know one, Teddy.”
My eyes flicked to the ceiling.
Tommy picked up his weights, shifting to get his feet just right. “Maybe you need to redefine your idea of a relationship.”
“If she doesn’t love me, what possibly could we be doing together?�
��
“Maybe she loves you but only at her best capacity. Maybe this is the most she can give. Does it matter whether or not she says it if you know how she feels?”
“How can I know how she feels if she doesn’t tell me?”
He gave me a look and curled one weight. “Oh, you know. Don’t lie and say you don’t.”
A noncommittal noise slipped out of me.
“Maybe it’s you who’s being inflexible, not her.” A hiss and a curl. “Can you let it go? Can you let her be with you and care for you however she needs?”
“That’s all I’ve done, Tommy—let her be whatever she needs. This is the one thing I need. How can I live without the thing I want so much?”
His hands lowered, and he turned to pin me still with two words. “For her.”
Anger and longing surged. I shook my head. “It hurts too bad.”
“Worse than not having her at all?”
“Goddammit, Tommy, it’s not that simple.”
He shrugged, unaffected. “Doesn’t seem all that complicated. If you want to be together, it seems like you’re the only thing in your way.”
“I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to just pretend like it’s fine that this is all we’ll ever be. It’s like we’re business partners who’ve entered into a merger. So that’s how I’ve gotta treat it. I can’t keep loving her. I can’t stand the pain.”
Sadness shifted behind his eyes. “You’re a stubborn son of a bitch.”
“Takes one to know one.”
That earned me a ghost of a smile. “Just think about it, Theo. Because if you can figure out how to put your fucking ego away, you could have her for good.”
“You don’t know that. She won’t promise me that, so how could you?”
“Call it a hunch,” he said, turning back to the mirror to start up his reps again.
And I waited for him to finish, staring through a spot on the foam floor, trying to find truth in his words. The thought of rolling over, of slipping back into her arms, was almost too much to resist.
I could be whatever she needed. But I didn’t know how much more I could sacrifice when she’d sacrificed so little.