Page 143 of One Big Little Secret

First, I hadn’t gone to college, and then I’d gotten pregnant by some strange man and wasn’t planning on marrying him.

I wouldn’t even give them hisname.

I can still remember the way my mom screamed at me, her eyes bulging. We didn’t have anything like the Rory wealth, but my father was a doctor, and they were crazy social in a big city with a small-town feel where word gets around.

They couldn’t stand their only daughter being a disgrace.

“My mom told me to get rid of him,” I say quietly. “Not abortion—she didn’t believe in that—but she wanted me to give Arlo up when he was born. But I couldn’t, Patton. So they threw up their hands. They’d just retired, and they left for California.They wanted me to come with and start over, without my baby. I refused. I stayed here like an idiot.”

“Alone.” For the first time, he looks at me, his blue eyes agonized. “Yeah, fuck them.”

“…what choice did I have?” My voice turns brittle, on the cusp of breaking. “No one would stick around for Arlo but me. I wasn’t abandoning him.”

“Shit, Salem.” Patton runs his hands through his hair.

Shit’s right.

I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t shit.

“You stuck around for him, yeah. You did the right thing, but who stuck around for you?” he growls. “I wasn’t suggesting you should’ve abandoned him. I’m pissed knowing everybody else walked out onyou,and I couldn’t be there.”

Oh, God.

I’m not going to cry over this.

I’mnot.

Not even while my eyes are melting in their sockets and I can feel my soul bleeding out in the mess.

“It’s not… it’s not about what anyone wanted. It’s not what I wanted for myself, I guess, but I wouldn’t change anything.”

No, I take that back.

I think.

I still don’t know if I would take back telling him like this.

“I know now what I should’ve done. I should have told you sooner, as soon as I knew who you were,” I whisper. “I just didn’t want to pile more responsibility on you, especially when you clearly wanted nothing to do with us at first.”

“Goddamn,” he groans.

“And then things changed. You did want something to do with me. I got scared. I thought if I told you, it would run you off and ruin whatever it was we had.”

“You’d think that,” he says, his voice heavy. “I gave you no good reason not to.”

“I’m not blaming you,” I rush out.

“No.” His smile is a little too forced. “But it’s true.”

“Telling you something like this is a big deal. But then this weekend happened and today was so perfect, it just feltright.”

“You’ve known all this time I’m Arlo’s father,” he says numbly. “Every single time we…”

“Yes.”

“How could you stand to look at me?”

The softness in his voice makes my throat tighten.

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