Page 86 of Back to Willow

“Please, let me in,” I beg.

For a few moments, the silence stretches, but then I hear the door unlocking, revealing what I now know to be the bathroom. She’s sitting on the toilet lid with a piece of toilet paper scrunched up in her hand. Her body and head are slightly shaking from her cries.

Crouching down in front of her, I look up, trying to gauge her face. Her otherwise porcelain-toned skin is reddened, as are her eyes. Her pink lips are swollen as is her nose—probably from blowing it on the toilet paper. Her cheeks are also shiny from all the tears streaming down. Even with the ugly crying, she looksperfect.

My eyes burn, too, as tears threaten to break free. But I can’t cry; this isn’t about me.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard to tell me. I didn’t know and I—”Hell, I am a moron.“I was hurting, too. But fuck, this is nothing compared to the pain of what you—” I pause when she just cries harder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers between sobs.

“Don’t you dare apologise! Fuck, baby.” I wrap my arms around her waist, placing my chin on her knees and looking up at her. “It’s my fucking fault, Willow. I should have been there! If I had been—”

“Stop,” she cuts me off. “It’s not your fault; you didn’t do it.” A brief pause to blow her nose. “There’s no point in trying to think of what could have been done differently. There’s no changing it now.”

“But it is,” I insist. “If I had been there, you wouldn’t have gone back home alone and wouldn’t have been attacked.”

Her eyes flicker to mine for a second before they glance away, again with the embarrassment and the shame, only now, I know the reason. It breaks my heart because she has no reason to be ashamed.

“Tell me what happened.” I need to know. “Because I wasn’t there, you went back home and—”

“I don’t want to talk about that.” She shakes her head. “Please don’t make me remember it again.” Her pleading undoes my resolve.

Of course, she doesn’t want to remember a traumatic experience.

Man, I am so stupid.

All of this time, I blamed her for my pain. For ignoring me right when my brother got worse with the drugs, leaving me to deal with the aftermath of his disappearance. I blamed her for abandoning me at a time when I needed her. And all the while she was hurting, too,sheneeded me, too.

I failed her.

And here I was, being a pretentious asshole and accusing her of taking my son—

“So does that mean that Dylan is—”

“That’s what I always thought…” she trails off.

Well, not necessarily.

“There is still a possibility that Dylan is mine. Remember the broken condom?” I ask, scratching the back of my neck in embarrassment.

“The possibility of that having happened is like one percent, Liam.”

“It’s still a possibility,” I insist.

“Okay. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”

“We’re not. He has my eyes and looks a lot like me.” One of her eyes twitches, but I ignore it, the enthusiasm taking over me. “And I feel it in my bones. He is mine. I want to meet him, Lo.”

“I—no. Liam, we need to think things through. Dylan’s not a toy; he has feelings, and he wants to meet his dad. If you’re not—”

“I don’t care.” I shut her down.

I want this.

“At this point, and knowing what I know…even if I end up not being his biological father, I want to be his father figure for all it’s worth.”

“I didn’t put the responsibility on your shoulders back then and I sure as hell will not be doing it now. Liam, raising a kid is no joke. This is not like playing dolls. It’s a commitment for life, and you’re still single in your twenties—or you have a girlfriend, and I won’t intrude or ruin your—”

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