Page 63 of The Life We Left Behind

“You…you took my son?”

“I…I! Are you fucking joking right now? Trace, I was sixteen, and I did exactly what you told me to do. I signed the papers, and I got out of your life. You don’t get to throw that in my face now. No, I didn’t get the abortion.Istepped up. Do you know how hard it’s been? Do you know what it’s like to lose absolutelyeverything and have to start over again, sixteen and pregnant, thinking that no one in the world wants you?”

The tears were streaming down my face now, despite the rage flowing through my system.

But Trace was shaking his head. His eyes were clouding with tears, and he didn’t look angry. He looked so, so sad.

“I don’t understand what’s happening right now, Delaney. You’re telling me that I’m a father and I…we have a son.” He staggered back to the couch and slumped down, dropping his head into his hands before raking his fingers through his shaggy blond hair. It had always been his tell that he was stressed, and that, together with his staggered inhale of breath, had me suddenly re-evaluating this situation.

The horror of what he was implying was just too much, and I shook my head in denial. “I need you to be honest with me, Trace, because I don’t think I know how to handle this situation. Please tell me that you know all about Cade. Tell me that you know all about the night your mother ran me out of town.”

“Cade,” Trace whispered, almost like a prayer, and my heart shattered in my chest.

For me.

For him.

For the time that we’d had stolen from us.

I sank to my knees in front of the only man I’d ever loved and reached up to pull his hands into mine. Trace looked up at me as the tears finally slipped free of his lashes. “Please tell me this isn’t true,” he begged. “The boy at the farm…is he?”

“He’s your son,” I said quietly, not quite believing that this was happening.

How had we ended up in this place?

There was no way we could ever fix this.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

TRACE

“He’s your son.”

Delaney’s words echoed around my head, and I froze. I knew she would never lie to me, especially not about something as big as this.

But this all happened ten years ago. I had a son out there all this time, and I’d missed everything. I could never get that back.

“I need to know what happened, Delaney. I need to know everything.”

I could feel an anger starting to build inside, one I’d never experienced before. A need to protect what was mine. Even if it had been kept away from me for so long, both of them would always be mine.

Delaney dropped down onto her butt and blinked up at me. I could see just how much she was struggling with what they’d done to us. I couldn’t even imagine what she’d been through. I was lucky she’d even considered being in the same room as me. What must she have thought of me for all this time?

Delaney slowly shook her head and then she started talking, and my entire world fell apart as she made her way through her story. “I found out I was pregnant, and I had no idea what to do.We were still in school. We had so many plans, and I knew it was going to change everything. Chelsea helped me get the test. She knew no one would think twice if it was her buying it.” I wanted to rage at the mention of my ex-wife’s name. She’d known. All this time, and she’d known. “When it came up positive, she told me to go to my dad. To tell him everything and ask for his help. She didn’t say it, but I knew she meant for him to help me get an abortion. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that without talking to you. It didn’t seem right. I went home and sat in my room for hours trying to figure out what to do, and eventually, I knew that I needed you. I couldn’t make that decision alone. I always went to you with my problems. Why would this be any different?”

I slipped off the couch then, gathering her up in my arms and pulling her into my lap on the floor. As angry as I was right now, all I could see was a broken-hearted younger Delaney trying to come to me for help, and if I was going to make it through what I knew was going to be the worst part of this story, then I needed her in my arms to do it.

“I climbed in through your bedroom window like I used to do, but you weren’t there. The light came on, and your mom was sitting at your desk. She knew everything already. She told me that you’d told her and asked for her help. She gave me a check and told me that if I knew what was good for me, I’d get an abortion. She had all these papers she wanted me to sign saying I wouldn’t tell anyone you were the father. When I refused, she threatened…she threatened my dad, saying he had a mortgage on the farm, and she’d make sure we lost everything. I tried to call you. I promise I did. But it was sent to voicemail, and then when I called back, your phone had been switched off.”

I felt sick. I could remember that night. It was the worst night of my life, the biggest mistake I’d ever made. It was the reason why I thought Delaney had left me and never looked back. As she looked up at me with pleading eyes to believe her, I knew deepdown that there was a tiny part of me that was to blame for this, too.

“I signed the papers, and she threw me out. When I got home, I told my dad everything, and he got my aunt to take me in. I moved to Manhattan, and, well, the rest is a much longer story.”

“I want to hear that story soon,” I whispered, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head, taking a moment to breathe in her scent because I didn’t know if everything was going to change when I told her what had happened to me that night.

“Chelsea turned up at my house after school, and she asked if I’d help her with her biology homework. I didn’t think anything of it because we’d done it a hundred times before. But when we went up to my room, she was acting weird. I tried to brush it off, but she kept laughing and touching me. She was stroking my ego so hard that for a minute, I fell for it. You’d been acting weird all day and…I don’t know. I was just enjoying the attention, I guess. Then she kissed me. And for a moment, I kissed her back. But then all I could think about was you, and how wrong it was, so I pushed her off me. But she just laughed and pushed me back on the bed and told me to stop playing hard to get. I told her it wasn’t like that. I told her to stop, but she kept trying to kiss me. In the end, I threw her off me, and Gage came running into the room and saw her crying on the floor. He asked what happened, and she told him that I’d tried to kiss her and then threw her across the room when she refused.”

I could still remember that night. The shock of hearing her lies froze me to the spot, but Gage looked at me like he actually believed her. My own brother.

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