Page 46 of Christmas With My Ex

I nod at first, but it feels like a lie. I close my eyes, forcing myself to breathe. “Nothing, sweetness. But I have to tell you something, something that will hurt you, and it's killing me.”

The smile fades from his face, concern flickering in his eyes. He props himself up on his elbow, watching me carefully. “What’s going on? You can tell me anything.”

Why does he have to be so goddamned kind?

This is it. There’s no turning back now. I take a deep breath, gathering the courage to say what I thought I would never tell him. Mainly because I thought that was another life, that wewould never intersect again. But now that we have, he deserves to know.

“Please hear me out before you react,” I start, my voice barely above a whisper. “This is something I should’ve told you a long time ago, like five years ago.”

His expression shifts, growing more serious. He waits, giving me the space to speak, but I can feel the tension in the air already.

I sit up, pulling the blanket around me as if it’ll protect me from what’s about to happen. I stare down at my hands, willing them to stop shaking. “When we broke up, about a month or so afterwards, I found out I was pregnant.”

The words hang in the air, heavy and sharp, and I can see the confusion flash across his face. His eyes widen, but he doesn’t speak. He’s waiting for more.

“I tried to reach you,” I continue, my voice trembling. “I called you, but you didn’t pick up."

"What are you saying? What did you do?"

"Nicholas, I missed my period and I got a test to take at home. The same day I tested, not even an hour after getting a positive test, I found my mother dead in her bed.”

My throat tightens as the memories flood back, memories I’ve tried to bury for years. I'm crying now, unable to hold back the tears. He hasn't said anything since his initial question.

The weight of it all crashes over me again, even after all these years. “I didn’t have time to process the pregnancy. I couldn’t even think about it with everything that was happening, dealing with my mom. I spent weeks in a fog, trying to deal with her death, trying to figure out how to keep going.”

I glance at him, his face unreadable, but his eyes are filled with something—shock, maybe, or hurt. I’m not sure, because he is a steel trap.

"I called you that day because I needed you. I found out I lost the woman who gave me life on the same day I learned I was carrying one of my own. I called you but you didn't answer, and you didn't call me back."

"Did you leave me a voicemail, 'Hey, I found out I'm carrying your baby?' Because if you did, I must has somehow missed that."

"Nicholas, please. I don't remember what I said, I was probably crying, begging you to call me. I don't remember. But I know you were the first person I wanted to hold me, to tell me what to do, and you were nowhere to be found."

"That's not fair. We had broken up. I didn't know why you were calling."

"I guess not. I must have called you twenty times, and you never called me back. Maybe if you had, I wouldn't be confessing this to you right now."

"So, I'll ask you again. What did you do, Rives!?"

“By the time I had the bandwidth to come up with a plan, it had been weeks. You didn’t answer. I figured, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. So, I made a decision.”

Nicholas finally speaks, his voice low and strained. “What decision, Rives?”

I swallow hard, blinking through the tears. “I had the baby. And I gave him up for adoption.”

The silence that follows is deafening. I don’t dare look at him, afraid of what I’ll see in his eyes. Anger? Betrayal? I don’t know. I just know that I can’t take it back. I can’t undo what’s been done. And I can't unsay what I've said.

"Who has him? Where is he?" he demands.

“It was a private adoption,” I continue, my voice shaking. “I didn’t know anything about the family. I signed away all rights. I thought... I thought it was the best thing to do.”

I glance at him, and his expression is a mix of emotions—shock, confusion, pain.

“You gave our baby away? My baby?” he whispers, his voice barely audible. "I would have adopted him. You had no right to give him away!"

I nod, tears streaming down my face. “I didn’t know what else to do. I was grieving my mom. I was alone. And you weren’t there. I didn’t think you wanted to be.”

His brow furrows, and he looks away, processing everything. I can see the questions swirling in his mind, the disbelief in his eyes.

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