Page 22 of Second Chance with Seth

“So you think it’s okay to interrogate me, do you?”

“Interrogate might be a slight exaggeration, Everly, but no, I don’t think that’s okay, either. Although the greater felony has to be leaving you, doesn’t it? I should never have done that, and I’m sorry I ever did.”

I feel sick.

Why now?

Why not two weeks after he left, when I found out I was pregnant? Why not four months later, when I first felt our baby move? Or on the day of my sonogram, when I decided against learning what sex it was going to be? Why not later that evening, when I chose to name our baby River, regardless of whether it was a boy, or a girl? Or on the day she was born, when I held our daughter in my arms for the very first time, and cried because her father wasn’t there.

My head’s spinning and a lump forms in my throat. It’s one I can’t possibly speak around, and for a moment, I can’t decide whether to cry, to throw up, or to faint. The latter seems like the best idea. At least I won’t be conscious and have to witness my life disintegrating around me.

Why did he have to say that?

Why did he have to mean it, too? Because he did. I could see it in his eyes. They were so filled with regret… and I know exactly how that feels.

It’s not like I haven’t dreamed of him walking through the door, and telling me he got it wrong, is it?

It’s not like I haven’t asked myself whether I’d take him back, and resolved that I would.

He’s not asking to come back though, is he? He’s just saying he shouldn’t have left, and I guess that’s something we can agree on. Although I can’t help wishing he could have timed it better.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, sitting forward again, his hands resting on the table between us. I gaze down at them, studying his fingers, trying not to think about the way he used to touch me, driving me wild with need.

“N—Nothing,” I say, my voice working its way around that lump.

“Then why are you so pale? I know you better than anyone, Everly, and you’re never normally this pale.” He glances over my shoulder again and shakes his head. “Are you seeing him?” he asks. “Am I too late?”

“It’s got nothing to do with Owen,” I say, wishing I’d thought harder before speaking, and found a better way of phrasing that… a way that didn’t confirm his doubts about me. Or at least about there being something wrong with me.

“But there is something?” he says. “Or someone?”

I can’t deny that. There is someone. She’s fast asleep in her crib, just a few yards away from her father. The man who knows nothing about her. Not even that she exists.

I feel even more sick, my stomach churning, as I wonder how he’ll react if he finds out.

If…?

Who am I kidding? He’s here. How can he not find out? Even if I somehow manage to get him out of the coffee shopwithout him seeing his daughter, someone in the town is bound to mention River to him…

“Tell me,” he says, interrupting my internal panic.

I stare at him, trying so hard not to be swayed by how much I still want him… by how hard it is just to breathe in his presence. No matter how often I’ve dreamed of this, and longed for it, I wasn’t prepared to see him again, or to hear his voice, reminding me of soft whispered words, urgent entreaties, desperate pleas… and love.

“You can’t come back here and tell me you got it wrong, just like that,” I say. I know I’m deflecting, but what can I do? This is neither the time, nor the place to tell him about River.

“Why not?” he says. “It’s the truth. I made a mistake, Everly. I should never have left you. And I should never have stayed away for so long, either.”

Is that supposed to help, when I know that if he hadn’t walked out the door, or even if he’d come back through it sooner, things could have been so different?

I can’t help the tears from forming in my eyes, as I think about the nights I’ve fallen asleep without him, and the mornings I’ve woken up alone. He clearly notices, and he reaches out, my name a whisper on his lips, his concern obvious, although I pull back, shaking my head.

“Y—You can’t do this.”

“Yes, I can,” he says. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

I pull right back, my chair scraping on the floor. “Those are just words, Seth.”

“They’re a lot more than words.”

---