Page 49 of The Secret Play

“What do you mean?”

“You invited me over,” he said, gesturing around the room. “Just the two of us. No Winnie, no distractions. Feels like you’ve got something on your mind.”

I considered lying with a, “Can’t a girl ask her boyfriend over for a romantic dinner?” kind of line, but that was disingenuous, and Casey was too smart to fall for it. I opened my mouth, then closed it again, my heart pounding.

“I just…” I hesitated, gripping the edge of the table. “I wanted to apologize. For the other day. For how I reacted when you brought up Winnie.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Gemma. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

“No, you were right to ask. We’re involved. You’re bound to have questions,” I said quickly, my throat tightening. “It’s just…it’s a hard topic for me. I’ve spent so many years being a single mom, and people judge. They judge everything. Not just me, but who the father is, why he’s not around…I’ve gotten used to keeping it to myself.”

He nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful. “I get that.”

“Not to play the woe-is-me card, but I don’t think you do. Society judges women on everything we do. Our hair, our bodies, our clothes, the way we sit?—”

“The way you sit?”

A nervous laugh escaped me. “When I was twelve, a friend’s mom told me to cross my legs, or I’d look like a whore with my legs open for men.”

His eyes bulged. “Well, damn. That’s messed up.”

“Exactly. And when it comes to child-rearing, it gets worse. If we don’t want kids, we’re selfish. If we have a child out of wedlock, we’re harlots. If we have a child, when are we having another one, and on and on and on.”

“That’s exhausting.”

I nodded. “It really is. So, I’m sensitive when it comes to this topic, and I reacted poorly. I’m sorry for that.”

“Understood.” He drew a deep breath as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table. “But I need to ask you something. And I need you to be honest with me.”

My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. I knew what he was going to ask, and I still wasn’t ready. “What?”

“Am I Winnie’s father?” he asked, his voice calm but firm. “No deflecting, no dodging. Just tell me the truth. Whatever it is.”

The walls closed in around me as his words lingered in my heart. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.

“Look,” he said, his voice softening. “If I’m not, you don’t have to tell me who her father is. But if I am—if there’s even a slight chance—then I deserve to know, don’t I?”

I stared at him, my hands trembling in my lap. My mind raced with a thousand thoughts, each one louder than the last.

“Gemma,” he said again, his voice quieter this time. “Please.”

Fight, flight, or freeze. Those are the common human reactions to fear. I’d always been a fighter, save for the two times in my past when I was in a bad situation. The first had been when a boy who was bigger than me cornered me in the school hallway and tried to forcibly feel me up. I slipped between the lockers and him and ran.

The other time was when the principal had caught Megan and me smoking behind the gym. It was the one time I had ever tried cigarettes, and of course, I got caught. I had apologized, said we would never do this again, that we never smoked, ever. Instead of three days of out-of-school suspension, we got one day of detention, helping clean the cafeteria.

The thought of Casey breaking up with me or not wanting anything to do with Winnie was too much for my brain to bear. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words were trapped, tangled in the sea of emotions swirling inside me. I couldn’t force them out. For the first time in my life, I froze.

Chapter 19

Casey

The silence in the room was all I could hear. That and the blood pulsing in my temples. Worry sweat trickled down the back of my neck. That hadn’t happened since the last playoffs. We’d won that night, but I didn’t think my luck would hold out here.

And I wasn’t sure what answer would qualify as winning this game.

Gemma sat across from me, her face pale, her hands trembling in her lap. I had asked her the one question I couldn’t let go, and now I waited for the truth to drop like a bomb between us.

If I wasn’t the father, why else would she not tell me? Did she not know who the father was? I’d never judge her for that, but after explaining the whole society-is-judgmental thing, I understood why she might not want to admit that. Maybe if I assured her I would never think less of her for that, she’d tell me.

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