Page 48 of Silent Cravings

Her smirk faded as silence unfurled between us. The longer it took me to come up with a reasonable explanation for what had gone down, the more serious she became. “What did you do?” she eventually asked in a whisper, the way a person asked a question whose answer they weren’t sure they wanted to hear.

If there was one conclusion I’d come to, it was how pointless denial was. What had I gained from pretending not to understand how traumatic Valentina’s experience must’ve been? Like a coward, I had told myself if she didn’t bring it up, I didn’t need to either. Obviously, it had eaten away at her, not to mention eating away at anything we might have had together.

Still, I couldn’t find the words, and I didn’t want to betray Valentina worse than I already had. Aria made it easy for me. She looked down at her cup, turning it in place and tapping her fingers against the cardboard. “You were the father, weren’t you?” she asked, and the sudden question took my breath away. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about because I think you do. I don’t feel like being insulted with a lie.”

Jumping right into it, were we? That was fine. We needed to. Valentina needed us to. “Yeah. It was me.”

Head bobbing slowly, she murmured, “I’ve noticed the way she’s acted around you lately, deliberately avoiding contact when we’re all together. She ran from you like the plague throughout the reception. I was watching.”

“Which was why you bullied us into dancing together?”

Her gaze met mine before darting away, cheeks going pink. “So you started up again. I thought you might have been hiding something. Now that I know you were thebaby’s father, I have to admit, none of this makes any more sense than it did before.”

“I didn’t know you knew about the baby.” How completely insane it was, sitting there, opening up this way. I had never talked about the baby after the phone call from Valentina the morning after the miscarriage.

“She wouldn’t have told me if I didn’t walk in on her almost passed out on the bathroom floor that night.” I heard it all in her voice. How terrifying that must have been for her, for both of them.

“Oh, Jesus,” I muttered, gripped by nausea.

“She wouldn’t tell me who the father was, and I’ve wondered through the years. It’s not like I sat around thinking about it all the time, but every now and then, I would catch her, you know… staring at a baby or a pregnant woman a little too closely. But you know how she is,” she concluded with a sigh. “God forbid anybody thinks she is less than totally fine.”

Guilt plagued me, wrapping its way around my throat in a chokehold. “I should have known she wasn’t fine.”

“You’re right. You should’ve known.” Her nose wrinkled, eyes crinkling at the corners when she winced. “Sorry. You couldn’t have known. We were kids. Both of you did the best you could.”

“That’s not true.” Her features pinched together like she was in pain, but I shook my head anyway. “I could have done better. I should have done more. I took the easy way out and pretended it was for the best. Hell, I saw how upset she got the night of the engagement party when Colton announced Rose’s pregnancy. I could’ve stepped up then, but I told myself too much time had passed. I’ve been making excuses all these years, now more than ever. I don’t deserve understanding or sympathy.”

“I appreciate your honesty.” With her elbows on the table, she leaned in, hitting me with a hard stare. “She changed after that. I don’t know if you noticed it because you always spent more time with the guys. She’s my twin. She’s the other half of me. I felt her pulling away and… I don’t know. Getting harder. That natural light she had… remember it?”

“I sure as hell do.” The memory of the day we met was as sharp and clear as ever. She had drawn me to her light like a moth to a flame.

“It seems like everything after that was forced. She’s still bright and amazing, but she has to work at it. She may have recovered physically, but emotionally?” Shaking her head, she concluded, “She’s never been the same.”

I saw it all so clearly now that Aria laid it out that way. “What can I do? She hates me. She should, she has every right to. I thought maybe we could move forward, start again, but she may as well have spat in my face.”

“Maybe that’s where you need to leave things,” she suggested in a soft voice. “Some things aren’t meant to be. If being with you is hurting her, it might be for the best to let her go.”

She made sense, but then certain things didn’t follow logic, and this was one of them. “We had something real. I felt it again when we were together these past weeks. That natural connection. If I hadn’t been such an ignorant coward, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”

Her mouth pursed thoughtfully as she sat back, picking up her cup and taking a sip. “You’re going to try to get her back, aren’t you?” she asked with a sigh.

“I have to. I can’t let her go without trying.” Gazing toward the park across the street, an idea came to mind. “And I might know how to find her.”

19

VALENTINA

The breeze stirred my hair as I sat with an iced coffee on my usual bench. The weather was almost too perfect, which meant there were people everywhere, hanging out on blankets spread across the emerald grass, walking dogs, and jogging. Kids shouted and laughed while waiting in line for the carousel. Somebody was playing music somewhere, and the happy beat left me swinging my foot after I crossed my legs.

I wouldn’t say this out loud to anybody since I knew how it sounded, but there were times when I felt more at home on a bench across from the Central Park carousel than anywhere else.

Sometimes, I liked it better here during gloomy weather. I would put on my raincoat and sit here alone with my thoughts and talk to the baby who only existed in my head. Good thing I didn’t feel super low today. Troubled, torn, but not super low. The sight and sound of so many other people enjoying a beautiful day didn’t feel like a blade to the heart the way it sometimes did.

Spotting a little girl with dark brown pigtails, I thought,She looks like I’ve imagined you would look if you ever had the chance. You would be much bigger than her now, almost ten years old. What would you like to do? What would you be good at? I wonder all the time. Would you be creative? Artsy? Would you play an instrument, or would you rather play sports? Not that you would’ve had to choose. I would have encouraged you to do anything you wanted. No limits.

Before Rose announced her pregnancy, it had been a long time since I came here to talk to Chloe. That was what I’d named her in my head. My beautiful girl.I didn’t forget you. I will never forget you. But sometimes… it’s easier to carry you quietly in my heart and try to move on. I thought I had, really, I did. I was wrong.

I needed to. There was no way I could live otherwise.

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