Page 77 of The Fall

“We were doing so good.” I laughed with no humor. He slammed his glass on the counter, making me jump.

“Cut the shit. Tell me why you didn’t say anything.” I’d hoped to resume our relationship without dredging up the most painful part of my life, but I knew now that hope was ridiculous. The memory of those days of devastation after losing our baby were the solid foundation of the wall I held up against Dean. Some part of me—though it was irrational—had always blamed him.

“I didn’t know for the first two months. I’ve skipped periods once or twice a year since I started. It was perfectly normal. Then I started getting sick, but I was already sick most of the time. I was upset—a lot. I missed you. The whole fucking campus was a graveyard filled with memories of the two of us. Did you think it would be easy for me? You had all new surroundings. I had to resume life without you there. Everywhere I looked, I saw the two of us. It was just like high school all over again, except this time it wasn’t just a crush.”

“We spoke almost every day,” he reminded me, his hands flat on the counter.

“I know. I hid it well,” I said, looking down at the floor.

“Look at me,” he snapped, and I obliged. “Why did you hide it?”

“Well, let’s see. You had just started medical school.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“You say that now, Dean, now, and after the fact, but that was your dream. I didn’t want to take it away from you. And telling you I was pregnant would have done that. I was mortified. I didn’t want to be the one to take it away.”

“I would’ve been here,” he insisted. I watched him go through the emotions and shook my head.

“You have no idea what your true reaction would’ve been. You can’t look at me today and say you wouldn’t have resented me—or the baby.”

“Baby…” he trailed off, absently rubbing his finger up and down the shot glass. “Were you going to keep it?”

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation. “I was happy about it. I just wasn’t sure you would be.” I braved a look at him and saw unshed tears in his eyes.

“Four months?” His question was a whisper.

“Almost,” I answered. “When I lost it, I just flipped. I couldn’t get in touch with you. You refused to answer my calls, so I went to see you in New York. I was going to tell you, but when you told me we were over, I decided not to.”

He looked at me as if I’d slapped him. “If I would’ve known…Damn you, Dallas, I can’t fucking believe this!”

“I told you! I told you in New York! I told you I was losing my mind and that I couldn’t handle being apart. I needed you! Why wasn’t I enough?”

“You were,” he said quickly.

“Bullshit, that’s not what you just said. The baby would’ve brought you home, not your love for me. I can’t live with that! I can’t! I hate you for saying it, feeling it, thinking it. Because I loved you so much, Dean. I lived for you. I breathed you. I couldn’t stop. When I lost the baby and then you, I couldn’t hang on! I didn’t. I fucked up, really bad and often.” I took an angry step forward and leaned over the counter. “Why wasn’t I enough? You fell in love with some woman, and I was here drowning, mourning the loss of our baby, thinking of nothing but you and you didn’t fucking care! You were gone, and I did what I always do. I began a pattern after you left me a second time. I fucked up.” I poured two more shots of tequila and threw them back, then poured out the contents of the bottle. I didn’t want the temptation or the horrible hangover, and I was already comfortably numb.

He took a step toward me.

“No, no!” I held my hand up, stopping him, and threw the bottle in the sink. “The thing is—and it might have taken me a long time to admit it—you didn’t do anything wrong. You went to college, Dean, and you broke up with the girlfriend holding you down back home. I predicted it, remember? I told you not to make promises you know we couldn’t keep. You didn’t do anything wrong. Our relationship clearly just meant more to me.” I laughed again dryly. “A lot more.”

I looked him right in the eye and told him what I’d been holding inside for seven years.

“I believed you would come for me, even after New York. I believed you would keep your promise, and you never came. Instead, you got engaged to someone else while I waited in vain.”

“I didn’t meet her until the end of the year,” he offered weakly.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It all matters!” he spit out. “You think you’re the only one who suffered? I might not have been here, but you weren’t there either. You didn’t see the hell I went through to try and forget you. You think I just started fucking around and forgot all about the woman I’d been in love with for years and just moved on? You weren’t the only one in love. You weren’t the only one ripped apart. And our relationship meant everything to me. I proposed to you! I wanted to be your husband, and you never really took me seriously! You always held my past against me and never really gave me a fucking chance to be sincere—to prove my love when I left. You were too busy dismissing me because I slept with a few women while we weren’t together.”

“A few,” I scoffed.

“Yes, Dallas, I was never the playboy I was made out to be. I had my share, as did every other fucking teenage guy on the planet. You know goddamn well I was faithful to you. I loved you so much I was willing to give up Columbia, but goddamnit, you pushed me away. If I would’ve known my baby was inside you, I would’ve—” He glared at me before he began to visibly shake. “That was my baby! Mine! I deserved to know. I deserved to know!” He slammed his fist on the counter as his tears fell one by one. He did nothing to hide them. “That baby was a part of you and me. So yes, Dallas, I would’ve come running.” He scrubbed his face as his shoulders slumped forward.

“I never got over us, Dallas. I may have been silent—just as silent as you’ve been—but I never got over that day in New York. I didn’t want you to give up your dreams for me any more than you allowed me to stop chasing mine, but this …” On his face, all I saw was pure devastation. “You had no right to keep any of it from me,” he bit out bitterly. “I watch couples go through hell to have a child every day. I see their pain when they lose the battle. You went through that alone…” He shook his head as if he was still having a hard time believing the truth.

“I got depressed. It was severe. I got lost…and then I got over it. I moved on, Dean. I became a doctor, and now that’s all I want to do. This thing between us almost cost me my career.”

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