Page 96 of Undeniable

“I think I’m done now. You can all stop looking at me like I’m going to break.”

Shelby scoffed and my mom rolled her lips like she was trying not to make a comment I knew she desperately wanted to. Probably something along the lines of “because you already have.” Broken, that is.

I picked up the glass of water. “He’s not… has he…” I stuttered, trying to find the right words, but they didn’t need me to complete the thought to know what I was referring to. I set the glass back down as they looked at one another.

“No,” Julie answered with a long sigh. “Joseph called him and James answered but only long enough to tell him he just needed some time. That was about thirty minutes ago.”

At least his dad had spoken to him. But that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t going to be enough until I saw him with my own eyes. I rubbed my chest, where it felt like my heart was being ripped from my body, and contemplated how everything had gone so terribly wrong.

“He just needs some time, honey,” my mom tried to console me, but nothing was going to help.

“Everyone else left?”

Shelby shook her head. “No. The Brat Pack was hanging out back and trying to get a hold of James. They said they weren’t leaving until they knew you were okay, too.”

I sniffled and choked out a laugh at her reference.

“They agreed, though,” Julie said. “It’s probably just better to give him some time to come to terms with it on his own. You know it takes him a little while longer to process things.”

I shook my head and wiped my eyes. My fingers didn’t come away black, so it looked like my waterproof mascara was still hanging on. I couldn’t imagine what kind of a train wreck I looked like, though.

“No,” I said and was met with the beginnings of three arguments. But I pushed off the stool onto wobbly legs. “I-I had the three of you when it all happened, and… I don’t want to think about what it would be like to go through this alone.”

I knew there was a very big difference between a nineteen-year-old girl losing her baby and a thirty-two-year-old man learning the same about his high school fling. But he was still reeling. He’d just found out that not only had we lost a child, but that I’d kept it from him for the past thirteen years.

The myriad of emotions he was feeling was probably overwhelming. And I couldn’t let him do that alone.

“But, babe,” Shelby spoke up, always the voice of reason. “We don’t know where he is, and I really don’t think you should be driving around trying to find him while you’re so upset.”

“I promise I’m okay, and I know where he is.”

They all three looked at each other—the three women who were pillars in my life—then back to me.

“It’s the same place I went.”

THIRTY-THREE

James

I didn’t knowwhere I was driving until I got there. And thankfully, there wasn’t a soul in sight.

It had been so long that I nearly missed the turn, overgrown with shrubs and weeds. I pulled up to the same spot where we always used to park by the tree closest to the entrance.

I turned the truck off and sat. My grip on the wheel was unforgiving, and I felt the weak leather give beneath my palms.

There were too many thoughts to wade through, and I felt like I was drowning in them.

She’d been pregnant.

And I’d left her alone to deal with it. I was none the wiser to what she’d gone through.

The heartbreak in her voice rocked me. The sound of her pain embedded itself in my skin and weaved through every memory I had from that time.

That’s why I’d gone there, I realized—to that field we’d spent so many nights in. I’d done it to be close to both of them—it was as close as I’d ever get a chance to be. Close to both the woman I loved and the child I’d never gotten a chance to.

Pain, acute and forceful, speared through my chest.

Nothing. I had no idea what was happening behind the scenes. And even in the weeks, months,yearsfollowing it, I couldn’t remember her ever hinting at something more.

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