Page 22 of Return To You

Roughly, a week after I left, I concluded that we probably wouldn’t have made it. She would have missed her father too much, even though he treated her differently than her brother growing up. She would have wanted to attend college full time, hoping to learn all about marine life, she would have hated to tour, and we would have fought and most likely broken up by now anyway.

Well, at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Trying to swallow over the lump that’s formed in my throat, I take another hit of my smoke, inhaling deeply as my phone rings, but I ignore it, knowing it’s likely my mother.

It’s become the drill over the past few months. She’ll call, and I’ll ignore her; she’ll then try again, but I still won’t answer, so Nick will then call, and I’ll blank him, then message I’m rehearsing, and he’ll say alright and that he misses me, knowing I’m bullshitting to him.

He allows me to do what I have to.

I need to try and live my life and move on.

If she did cheat, as the photo suggests, then I did the right thing. If she didn’t and I left knowing I should have spoken to her and confronted her, well, then I still did the right thing.

No matter the problem, any girl deserves to at least have that conversation, but I didn’t respect her enough or our four-year relationship. I left without looking back.

By the time I finish my smoke, my phone rings two more times, right on cue. I go to take it out to message Nick our usual message, but I frown when it rings again.

Grabbing it from my pocket, my frown deepens when I see it’s my sister, and the three missed calls were hers.

Concern shoots through me, and I quickly answer it.

“Gina?” I answer.

Her sniffles enter my ear, my concern getting higher until she whispers, “I-I went to my interview and to look around the college in Fremont and-and I-I saw Rose, Noah….”

I swallow hard, ready to hang up, not wanting to hear this. I’m aware she no longer lives with her father and that he cut her off, something Alejandro mentioned at his wedding to Vanessa.

He said she wasn’t welcome for what she did to me, taking my side with Van, which makes a part of me believe the picture is what it seems.

No one knows where she’s moved to. After her father cut her off, she blocked his number. According to Al, he and Van had a confrontation with Rose a week after I left. He messaged her, wanting to meet, and she went, agreeing to meet two and a half hours outside of Kingston.

Whatever happened at that meeting caused Rose to be cut out of the wedding, not even allowed to attend, fuck, he even banned her from Cal’s funeral two months ago, and she was like a sister to him.

He was killed in action and, apparently, when Rose had found out, she called her father for the first time since leaving, or so Nick told me. Al stated he’d had her removed after Vanessa got pissed, not wanting to be around her. Al chose his wife over his sister, not giving her a chance to say goodbye, and now the only person she apparently has contact with is my mother.

I don’t know why, and honestly, I don’t care.

Gina clears her throat, bringing me out of my head. “She had a bump, Noah; she’s pregnant….”

Everything in me stops.

Pregnant….

Is it mine? Did I leave her alone and pregnant?

Oh fuck, please tell me I did not fuck up that badly because if I did, she’d never fucking forgive me….

Fuck, I need to unblock her. I need to call her….

Gina continues and stops my thoughts, tearing my whole world apart when she whispers, “She didn’t seem that far along, maybe four months….”

Four months?

She’s pregnant and looks to be four months along, which means….

I hang up, not wanting to listen anymore, and drop my arm, my gaze looking out at the heavy traffic.

She’s having someone else’s baby, so she did cheat, huh?

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