Page 24 of Fire

What’s the worst that could happen? Uncle Caleb had asked.

I’d listed trivial things like being left out of inside jokes and missing parties. He’d promised the important things would still be waiting for me, so I accepted the challenge like a fool, texting Ivy from my dad’s phone to let her know my number wouldn’t work even though she’d already broken up with me.

There were important things waiting for me, all right.

The woman I loved and the daughter I didn’t know I had.

And they’ve been waiting for seven years.

An ache settles into my chest. Like I’m grieving a loss I don’t yet understand. I want to go back in time and stop any of this from happening but there’s nothing I can do. No action I can take to fix this mistake.

“Holy fuck, Ivy.” My voice cracks. “You must have felt so abandoned. So alone. I’m so sorry this happened. But I don’t understand how I missed your calls. I mean, obviously my number wouldn’t work, but you had my parents’ numbers, you knew where they worked, and even if you couldn’t reach them at The Pact, it’s not like you couldn’t have called The Hutton Hotel and eventually gotten to me…”

Shock spreads like ice through my veins. Did my family keep this from me? Surely, somewhere, someone answered a call from Ivy and whoever that was decided I didn’t need to know she was pregnant with my child.

Why?

Because they didn’t think I could handle it?

Because they didn’t think I was good enough to be a father to my little girl?

I slide my hands into my hair and pull, wild with emotion, staring into the eyes of the woman I’ve always loved, the woman I accidentally abandoned…

Tears well and I swipe them away. What right do I have to tears when she’s been raising our kid alone?

“Ivy…I am so sorry…” My throat is so tight it hurts to speak. “I…I don’t even know how to begin to make this up to you. To Nell…”

Nell.

My little girl. If Ivy hadn’t already made me believe in love at first sight, Nell sealed the deal. Seeing her sitting there, her face so like mine, her hair so like her mom’s, my heart shifted, making room for this little person I only just met.

What did Ivy tell her about me? Does she think I abandoned her too?

I close my eyes while the thought breaks what resolve I have left. I have never felt so low, not once in my entire life. Not when I couldn’t keep my grades up to the Hutton standard. Not when Ivy left. Not in the hospital, waiting for news on Tucker.

I always knew I wasn’t as good as the rest of my family, but this…

I can’t breathe under the weight of the guilt, my body burning, like Tucker caught beneath the beam that would ruin his life.

“I didn’t call.” Ivy’s voice is low. Flat. Toneless. But it strikes me with the force of hurricane winds.

“What did you say?” I stagger like she hit me, reaching for the wall for support. “You didn’t call?”

She visibly deflates before me, the fight leaving her body. “When you didn’t respond, Dad said you’d made your point clear. No response is a response. You know? And if I had to track you down through your family then… Why keep fighting for someone who wasn’t interested?”

She blinks rapidly, sucking in her lips, and I can’t fucking swallow, let alone breathe.

“Micah…” Ivy reaches for me, and I yank my hand out of reach before her touch shatters me.

“What about email?” My voice rises. “I know you weren’t allowed to have social media, but what about calling my parents? You’re telling me you thought it was okay to stop trying to reach me when all you’d done was text? Because not responding to learning you were pregnant with my little girl seemed like something I would do? Jesus, Ivy!”

“I made a mistake. I wasn’t thinking clearly. You have no idea how hard things were.”

I turn my back before I can unleash a barrage of hatred. “That’s right. I have no idea. Because you listened to your dad instead of believing in me.”

She covers her mouth with her hands. “I’m so sorry.”

Of course she believed him. Because everyone’s always looking for proof that Micah Hutton isn’t worth the family name.

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