Page 24 of The Regrettable Mistake

“That’s it?”

“I don’t know what you’re looking for here.”

“How about being sorry for the fact that you tricked me into marrying you?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sorry for that.”

“Are you kidding, right now?”

“Nope,” I continued to shake my head vigorously and grabbed for Steph’s hands, but she pulled them away. I stared into her whiskey-brown eyes and willed her to believe me. “I’m not sorry that you ended up married to me. That is one of the better decisions I ever made, even if it did take me too long to figure it out. The only thing I’m sorry about where all that is concerned is that I didn’t open up my heart to you right away.”

“So, you admit it. You used me as a live-in nanny for your son.”

One tip of my head was all the confirmation I could give her. “That was my original plan, but then we got to know one another better. You became a friend first, and then of course my lover.”

She scoffed at that. “That’s obviously nothing special to you.”

“No, you’re wrong. Until the incident with Julia, you were the only one. I swear to you, and I know my word doesn’t mean shit right now, but you were the only person I was with from the moment we went on that first date until Julia came to town three months ago.”

“Right. And then I was back to being nobody. Just the live-in babysitter.”

“No, Steph. No! That’s when I realized exactly what I stood to lose by going there with Julia. I realized she had never been worth a second thought of mine from the time she left. What I felt for you was stronger than anything I’d ever imagined with Julia. That I liked you more than I ever thought possible became painfully obvious the night I stupidly went there with her.”

“That’s gross. You realize that, right? You have to know how horrible that sounds. It took you sleeping with your ex to realize you liked me more?” She visibly shivered.

“I understand you’re seeing it one way and I get that it hurts to know that I undervalued what you meant to me before that. My mind was still clogged up with all the abandonment shit that I never bothered to sort out. I was still stuck on not letting anyone that close to me ever again while not realizing I had already let you in. Piece by piece, you dug your way deeper into my soul. Your laughter penetrated first. The way you teased and joked and lightened the very air around you made my barriers come down.”

She turned her head from me and her dirty blonde hair flitted down to hide her beautiful, fuller face from me. I didn’t like it one bit.

“The way you loved my son chipped away at another brick in my wall. The way you took care of both of us has continued to break down those barriers. You’ve been chipping away at my wall the whole time, and you did it in such a fucking gentle way that I didn’t even notice there was barely a wall left anymore.”

“Obviously, there was enough of one, since you chose to betray me and the vows we took.”

I looked away from Steph, not knowing how to make her understand something that only began to dawn on me recently. “I fixated on her for years. It wasn’t healthy. I’m the first to admit that. It wasn’t love for her. It was like putting a dream on hold and hoping when you picked it up again the thing that person did to disappoint you would not be a problem anymore. I don’t know that I’m explaining it well enough.”

“You know what? I get it,” Steph said without emotion. “That’s exactly how I felt when you put our relationship on pause. Only, up until that point, I’d been living under the delusion that we had a real relationship to begin with. It never even crossed my mind that I was simply an unpaid intern who you fucked when you got horny.”

“Jesus, Steph. It was never like that.”

“You all but admitted it was.”

“No. I explained that you meant more and more to me as time moved forward. You were never just an employee. You were a friend who grew into more.”

“That’s the crazy thing, Ollie. For me, you were always my boyfriend, the man I fell in love with, then my husband who I adored. All the while I was just a tepid relationship for you. I’ve loved you for years and you only just realized you might care about me. And the real kicker is that you claim to have done so in the midst of destroying me and what we had.”

What could I say to that? In a way, she wasn’t wrong, even if it felt blown out of proportion. I pulled Steph’s hands into mine and tried to make eye contact again but she refused.

“Are you pregnant?” I finally asked, my voice whisper fucking soft as I did.

“I didn’t want you to know.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?” That shocked the shit out of me. Of all the women I’d ever dated, Steph was the last person I would have thought would hide something as important as a pregnancy from me.

“I planned to, but not now, so soon after….” Her voice trailed off as she stared out the dining room window. “I would have told you after.”

“After?” I questioned, not liking what that one word implied. There was no way she meant she would have waited until after our child was born.

“After the divorce.”

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