Page 67 of Love Gamble

A soft knock at the door has me wiping my tears. “Corey? Can I come in please?”

My first instinct is to tell him to go away, and that I don’t want to see him. But I need to face this, and be brave, because this problem is not going anywhere.

“Do you want to talk to him now, or do you need more time?” Bella kindly asks me.

“I’ll talk to him,” I say, and Julianna opens the door.

He steps inside my bedroom looking like he’s aged several years since this morning. The girls leave and close the door behind him.

“I’m so sorry, Corey,” he starts off with, sitting down on my bed and looking over at me. “About everything. I don’t know if it’s true, but I’m going to find out. I might sound like an asshole, but if I’m being honest, I think she’s making it up to get back at me for breaking up with her.”

I don’t know what to say. I feel numb, and like my body isn’t my own. I look down at my wrists, remembering the last time I felt this way.

“She might be lying,” I agree, wrapping my arms around myself. “But if she’s not, would you be happy? I mean, you said you wanted kids and this way you’d get one—”

“I wanted kids with you, Corey,” he corrects, sliding closer to me and holding me. “I don’t want kids with anyone else. And if you don’t want them, that’s okay. I’d rather not have them at all, then.”

“But now you might,” I point out, tears dripping down my cheeks. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to make this about me when you must be struggling to process everything yourself. But it just feels like...”

“Feels like what?” he asks gently.

“Like my fairy-tale love story has been shattered,” I admit, wincing at how the words sound said out loud. “And I know how immature that sounds.”

“It doesn’t,” he assures me, kissing the top of my head. “You have every right to feel that way. But a few months from now we might look back at this and see it was just a ploy to try to make us as miserable as she is.”

“Or you could be holding your newborn child,” I remind him that there is another option. People have sex and get pregnant. No protection is one hundred percent. She could be telling the truth. Or she could be pregnant with someone else’s child. Who knows?

Either way, the truth will eventually come out.

We just need to try to hold on for the time being.

I’d hate to walk away from him because it’s all too much, and down the line find out she was lying.

Why is life suddenly so hard?

“We don’t know how it’s going to turn out, I just need to know that no matter what happens, you’ll be by my side. I love you, Corey. I know that it’s just early days with us, so it’s probably easy for you to walk away right now, but I don’t want you to. And maybe that makes me selfish, I don’t know. But I need you.”

I rest my cheek on his shoulder, and we both comfort each other. I need some time to think and clear my head, but I don’t see myself leaving him because of something that he didn’t choose. Yes, he slept with her, and that’s on him, and if it is his child, I need to be able to accept that fact, and that he will be a father. I know he will be a wonderful one, no matter the situation. Maybe Melinda knew that, too.

We stay like that for a while, talking it over, and decide that there’s nothing we can do right now until we know for sure.

What can we do?

Torture ourselves with the hypotheticals or try to not let it ruin us.

Damon joins the men and I stay in bed for a while, overthinking and feeling sorry for myself. Pathetic, I know. But I’m going to give myself today to feel all my emotions, before I put my big-girl panties back on to face the day tomorrow.

After a long, hot shower, I stand naked in the mirror and look back down at my wrists. The temptation is there, to just take a razor and do a few little cuts, to just release all of my pain and stress for the day.

Then I can start fresh tomorrow.

A clean slate.

I open the drawer, but then close it and leave the bathroom.

I’m not going backward anymore, only forward.

Chapter Thirty-One

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