by Hadley Quinn
“I have that meat in the fridge that needs to be used,” she answered. “It’ll just take a few minutes to throw something together, but thank you for the idea.”
So maybe I wasn’t too keen about getting inside her head.
While riding as a passenger in Clare’s car, I would not have guessed what happened in the next few minutes. We pulled into her garage, and just as I wrangled Sadie from running down the driveway upon her car seat release, I noticed a car pull up to my house down the street. I didn’t recognize the car, but as I held Sadie against my hip, I watched for a second as the driver got out and walked to the front door.
I almost shit myself when I saw it was Aubrey.
14
I was almost too stunned to function at the moment. Seeing Aubrey was the last thing I expected. When Clare cast me a funny look from the garage as she led Mia into the house, I turned to follow her. I didn’t know why Aubrey was at my house or what I was to expect, but I did know that I needed to find out.
I realized I was in that moth-to-flame mode, and it made me instantly uncomfortable.
Setting Sadie inside with Clare, I mumbled some sort of communication that someone was at my house and I needed to go see what they wanted. She told me dinner would be done in a half hour if I wanted to come back, but I think I failed to respond and was already walking away.
My heart was pounding. I hadn’t seen Aubrey in over a year and now she just shows up at my house? I even pulled out my phone to make sure I hadn’t missed a text or phone call to warn me of her arrival.
Nothing.
I glanced up as I slid my phone back into my pocket and that’s when Aubrey turned from the unanswered door and paused on the porch, facing the white orchid. I watched from the sidewalk—she hadn’t noticed me yet—but she held out a finger to gently touch one of the petals. Something about her seemed different, and it wasn’t just that her hair was longer, but something else that was noticeable. I couldn’t put my finger on it right away.
When I moved again to head for the house, she finally saw me. Pausing, she seemed to assess me as I stepped onto the porch, and then she carefully crossed her arms in front of her body like Clare sometimes did.
Was she nervous?
“Hi, Matt,” she finally said, hardly above a whisper.
“Aubrey.” My own voice barely competed. This was strange, though. I mean I’d always fantasized that she would come back, but now that she was here, I had no idea what to say. I had wanted to see her for so long, just to talk things out, but she had always refused. Now that she was here, I was angry that I’d been denied a simple conversation for the past year.
How dare she just show up on my fucking doorstep.
“What do you want?” I asked. Even I could hear the caution in my voice. If she was here to crush me more than she had already, I wasn’t sure if I could take it.
She took in a slow breath of air and let it out. “I’d like to talk, if you don’t mind.”
“Talk?” I repeated bitterly. “You mean the same thing I wanted from you for the past year?”
“I know you don’t have to, but if you could just listen… I came all this way to—”
“Don’t give me that. I was willing to travel clear across the fucking country just to talk to you and you told me to stay the fuck away. Tell me why I should allow you the courtesy you denied me of.”
She sighed. Heavily. I could tell she was worried or stressed out for some reason, but I was feeling pretty damn selfish at the moment. It surprised even myself. I always thought that I’d be willing to give just a little bit more of myself if she ever gave me the chance, and here I was, fucking it up again.
It was my turn to sigh. “Aubrey, I don’t know why you’re here or why you didn’t even bother to call but…maybe you should give me some time to consider it.” I headed for the front door and unlocked it.
“Consider it?” she asked quietly from behind. “What do you need to consider?”
Good question. What the hell was my problem? Okay, I’ll admit that I was still butt hurt, and seeing her here at my house again—a place where we shared a shit ton of memories together—kind of set me off. I was feeling the dagger to my chest again and I was letting it control my actions.
I held the door open to motion her inside. She barely looked at me as she squeezed past, but glanced around the house when she paused in the entryway.
“What?” I asked dryly, noticing the frown on her face. I didn’t know if she was going to make some negative remark about my housecleaning skills or something else, but I didn’t think I was ready to hear it.
“Not much has changed,” she whispered, still glancing about.
“What’d you expect to change?” I shut the door behind me and came across the room, dropping down on the couch. “Would have been easier to just burn it down instead of change out the furniture and stuff.”
That was true. I’d considered it, too. Burning it down, I mean. I couldn’t afford new furniture, so therefore I was stuck with the memories of everything Aubrey and I had done on the couches and chairs. I could only take so much after a while and lighting a match to the place had been tempting.
“I’m sorry,” she spoke quietly.
I raised my eyebrows. “Excuse me? Sorry for what, exactly?”
She licked her lips as she came across the room and sat on the opposite end of the couch. “I’m sorry for…everything. I just…” She sighed. There was moisture building in her big blue eyes, but she asked, “Can we talk about it?”
Raising my eyebrows again, I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Talk about what? Now you want to talk about everything? Why the change of heart?”
After several seconds of staring at the carpet, she finally looked at me again. “I was really embarrassed, Matt, and I took it out on you. I didn’t know what I needed to do, but I couldn’t ask you to go through any of that because of me. I left because I thought it was the best thing for you. I left because I truly did love you and wanted you to find something better.”
I’m not quite sure I could process her words right now. She left me for another guy. How the fuck was that doing the right thing for me? She crushed me and twisted the knife several times…how the hell was that loving someone?
“I’m not following you, Brey,” I sighed, rubbing my forehead with frustration.
I looked at her again, and that’s when I noticed what was different. She wasn’t dressed in the trendiest fashions like she normally would be, and she didn’t have her makeup on to perfection. No, this Aubrey was in jeans and a t-shirt, and her face had just the basics.
“What happened to you?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. But it seemed like a necessary question, so I chose not to correct myself.
She rubbed at an invisible stain on her pants. “Quite a lot if you have the time to hear it,” she answered softly.
Looking up, she made eye contact with me. I saw part of the old Aubrey again—the softer side that was a bit vulnerable, more compassionate like she used to be—and suddenly I wondered if my anger had been completely selfish and misguided over the past year.
“Aubrey,” I sighed, shaking my head. I had no idea if I was making a huge mistake or not, but I felt like I at least needed to hear her out. “Tell me what you came here to say. I’m not making any promises, but I’ll listen. You at least owe me an explanation.”
“Do you think so?” she asked.
Upon studying her face, I could tell it wasn’t meant to be a smartass remark. For some reason, she didn’t feel like I should care enough for it to matter anymore. I could understand that reasoning—I even felt it myself after everything that had happened—but she was here, willing to finally talk to me, and whether or not it was just my curiosity or something else, I needed to hear it.
“Share,” was all I said.
After another sigh and a few seconds of silence, she adjusted on the couch, tucking a leg up under her. Her hands were clasped together and she was staring at them
like they had the answers.
“I really didn’t mean to hurt you, Matt,” she began. “I…messed up and…didn’t think there was anyway to come back from it.”
My eyes narrowed with confusion. “I told you that I was willing to work through anything we needed to work through. I told you that, Aubrey.”
“I know,” she nodded. “But…you didn’t really know the whole story at the time.”
I wasn’t sure if my head was starting to hurt from the anxiety, but I pressed my fingers into my temples hoping it would help. “Then tell me the whole story. All of it. Don’t leave anything out just to spare my feelings. You won’t be doing me any favors.”
Her head bobbed up and down a couple of times. “I know. And I’ll tell you. It’s just…difficult.” She took in a breath of air and slowly exhaled. “I was pregnant, Matt.”
I’m pretty sure the entire world stopped at that moment, even my own brain. I heard the words, but it took a few seconds for my thoughts to randomly form. Pregnant? When? How—? Well, I mean… And why didn’t she say anything?!
“What that fuck?” I whispered out loud. “Why wouldn’t you—?”
“It wasn’t yours,” she added.
Have you ever felt instant relief, immediately followed by an unexplained bout of depression? All of that hit within two seconds, and I utterly did not know how to respond.
Fuck that. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel.
“Grant’s?” I finally asked.
She slowly nodded. “The first time I met him, actually. It was…a mistake, I know that. I’d been a bit tipsy, and I know being in that situation is not an appropriate excuse, but…”
Yeah, I didn’t really care for her to finish that sentence. I’d already pictured some guy banging my fiancée behind my back plenty of times. I didn’t need a refresher.
“I didn’t even know we’d…” She brushed her hair back with her hand and let out a gust of air. “God, that is so awful. I didn’t even know that we’d slept together until a couple of weeks later, when we were…when we started texting and calling each other. I was…so embarrassed and just… I know that is not an excuse, but…”
“I don’t fucking care about the details,” I shook my head.
I mean I did but I didn’t. I already knew they’d been screwing each other and she left me for another guy. I just wanted to know why, and if she’d been pregnant with his kid…
“So is that why you gave up on us? Because you screwed around with another guy and didn’t think I’d forgive you? Because the evidence would have been pretty hard to cover up?”
She looked at me for a solid ten seconds. I didn’t look away, either. As hard as it was, I needed to do this, to face it. There was no telling how fucked up I was going to be after another round of it, but I needed to get through it.
“I was…devastated, Matt,” she whispered. “I knew it was going to destroy my life as I knew it. I also knew I couldn’t put you through all of that. I mean…why in the world would you ever be around me and have to look at my betrayal every single day?”
That was not a question I was prepared to answer at this point. Just knowing that she’d wanted another man—if that was really the case—was hard enough. But if she’d had this guy’s kid and still wanted a life with me?
I was a very patient and tolerant man, but could I have really handled that? Maybe Aubrey had foreseen things better than I had.
But then again… I hadn’t been given all the facts.
“You should have told me,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what the details were, if you loved me, you should have been honest with me. Instead, you made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for you. You made me feel like there was a life somewhere out there that was more enticing for you; one that I couldn’t give you.”
“I’m so sorry, Matt. I believe I really did have your best interest at heart. No, I didn’t handle it right, but…my intentions were good.”
“Intentions,” I scoffed, shaking my head. “Your intentions were full of deceit from the start. How can you talk about good intentions?”
She nodded. “You’re right. I messed up and then messed up again trying to find the right way through it.”
“You didn’t even trust me enough to tell me the truth,” I said. “That’s what pisses me off the most.”
Pissed probably wasn’t the right word. Crushed. Heartbroken. Devastated. Feeling like a piece of shit that she didn’t respect enough to be honest with.
“I was scared,” she barely spoke.
She finally met my eyes again after avoiding them for a while. The thing was, I could truly see that in her. The regret, the sadness, the shame and penance… It was all there. I’ll admit it pierced my heart, something I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want her to get in there so easily again.
I couldn’t allow it.
“And I would have been there for whatever you needed,” I answered.
And I truly meant it. Yeah, it’s hard to know how I would have reacted to my fiancée telling me she was pregnant with someone else’s kid. But going with how I felt about Aubrey—how devastated I was when she left me—I knew that I had loved her. I knew that I would have been that shoulder, no matter how difficult it might have been for me. Everyone fucks up, and I couldn’t say how long it would have taken me to get past some of those things, but I could honestly admit to myself that I would have tried.
That’s just the kind of person I am.
“I don’t know, Matt,” she said. “I just didn’t see it as something we could get through.”
“You didn’t have enough faith in us.”
She looked offended that I would say that, but her head slightly bowed. “Maybe I didn’t at the time. I don’t think we were on the same page then. I see now, looking back, that you and I…”
I waited for her to finish but she didn’t. We what? I wanted to hear her fucking say it. I wanted her to say that I was right about our future and she’d been wrong. I wanted some sort of validation that I was not just on my own damn cloud in la-la-land.
“We what?” I asked impatiently. “Looking back you see what?”
“That we were meant to be. That you had a better vision for us than I did. I don’t think I was ready to see that; I wasn’t capable of it yet. I am now, though. I’ve learned from this past year, all of my mistakes, and I realize that you had offered me the world and I wasn’t ready to take it. I didn’t have a clue what it was you were giving me.”
My fingers were rubbing my forehead a little too hard and I couldn’t tell if I was creating my headache or just making it worse. Aubrey remained on the couch, completely still, waiting for my response, but the only one I had was…
“So why the hell are you here?”
I happened to glance at her ring finger and noticed it was bare. Had she not married fuckface? Did she get hitched and things didn’t work out? And more importantly…
“And where is, uh, your kid?”
I was sure she was probably staying with her parents, and if that was the case, the kid was there too. It’s not like I was eager to meet him or her, but it was time to wade through this mess.
Aubrey finally moved but it was that awkward arms-crossed-over-the-chest position, and she started rubbing her elbows uncomfortably. Biting her lip, she took a moment before she answered, “I had a stillbirth.”
I let that information process for a bit before I responded. “I’m sorry.” It seemed like an empty condolence—I had no idea what something like that would feel like.
She shrugged but wouldn’t make eye contact. “You don’t need to be sorry. It happened, it was unexpected… It’s in the past.”
It was sometimes like Aubrey to brush things off like they didn’t affect her, and I knew her well enough to see that this was one of those times. I didn’t want to bring too much attention to the subject, but I still had some questions for her.
“So is that why you’re here?” I asked carefully. I knew it was probably
insensitive and very much a dick move, but I had to be sure. “Things didn’t work out in Florida so…?”
She sighed. “I don’t know, Matt. I’m not sure why things have worked out this way. I was fully committed to staying with Grant because of the baby but… Things with him weren’t that great after a while. We never did get married—I don’t think he fully believed me that the baby was his.”
“Can’t you get that figured out during pregnancy?”
“Yes, and I did. But it felt… Icky.”
“What, having to prove paternity to him?” I said it with some bitterness.
“Yeah,” she exhaled, rubbing her face. “I know, I know, and I’m sure you feel like I deserve everything that’s—”
“Hey, stop right there,” I held up my hand. “I’m not that kind of guy. I’m sorry you lost a child, Aubrey. That is just… crushing. But that is not something I would wish upon anyone.”
I thought about Mia and Sadie, and even though they weren’t my kids, I’d grown somewhat attached to them both. I couldn’t fathom what it’d be like if something happened to one of them. And for Clare… God, I didn’t even want to think about that. Yeah, she struggled as a single mom sometimes, but she was a damn good one and she loved those two girls something fierce—
“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Aubrey’s soft voice interrupted my thoughts.
I blinked, unaware of what she was referring to.
“A bit of reaping what I sow?” she clarified. “I know you don’t have a mean bone in your body, but I wouldn’t blame you if you felt karma won that round with me.”
I shook my head adamantly. “No, I’d never think that about anyone. Especially you. But I will admit…I’m still pissed about it all. Hurt. You didn’t have to keep anything from me. I don’t understand why you did. Forget the mistakes you made… I just want to know why you couldn’t come to me.”
She hung her head slightly and then shook it. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand. And because of that…I don’t even think…”