Page 24 of Fight for Me
“Because what I said came out wrong.”
That pulls me up short. I turn, and he skids to a stop with apprehension clear in his beautiful green eyes. “What came out wrong?”
“The whole thing.”
“So, you want to love someone enough to marry them? I mean … clearly, you didn’t love me enough, and you let me know as much, but I’m just clarifying for the future women you may meet.”
Declan sighs. “I’m never getting married.”
“Okay,” I say very matter-of-factly. “Did I misunderstand that you wanted kids then?”
“No.”
One single word. One word that is so clear and unmistakable that it rocks me to my core.
“No wife. No kids. No Sugarloaf. What exactly am I misunderstanding?”
His hand grips the back of his neck, and he starts to pace. “It wasn’t the words or the meaning, it was how it was said. I know you don’t understand, but the shit I went through—”
“Absolutely not.” I cut him off. “You are not going to use your past against me. I was there. I watched it all go down just as surely as I watched you leave. You came back to my house two months ago and, what? Couldn’t help revisiting a woman who gave herself to you a million times? Because that’s all I am, right? A memory of the hurt and pain you endured in this town?”
“You were never the hurt and pain.”
I shake my head with a half laugh. “No, that was what I got as a consolation prize.”
His jaw is set, and I can see him working through it all. I’m forever giving him lectures, but this is going to stop. He is never going to change, and I am always going to want more. How can we be civil? How can we find a middle ground when we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum? It’s only going to hurt us both and the baby that is going to come into this world.
God, the baby.
My heart aches, and I want to cry.
When did he stop being the kind, sweet guy who would talk about the life we were going to have, including children, and turn into this cynical bastard?
“Hurting you then and now is the last thing I want.”
“Then maybe you should keep your mouth shut when I’m around—or, better yet, stay away from me, Declan. I can’t handle more heartache.”
With that, I get in my car, leaving him behind, and fighting back tears the entire way home.
* * *
“Why are you really here, Syd?” my sister, Sierra asks.
My nephews are running around, pretending to shoot each other, as I sit on the deck, staring out at the rolling hills, not even remembering the ride over.
“I needed to get away.”
I needed to forget the man who is in the town that has been my home. It’s been three days since that dinner, and I haven’t seen him since, but I still feel him.
My heart is heavy, my chest is tight, and I have this urge to go to him, tell him everything, and pray we can at least be friends, but I know better. He doesn’t want me, and he definitely doesn’t want a child.
“Because Declan is there?”
She knows me too well. “It’s hard being anywhere in his vicinity.”
“I can imagine. If I had to be in the same town as Alex and not be his wife, I don’t know if I could do it.”
She and Alex are the poster children for the perfect marriage. They met in college, she made him work ridiculously hard to prove his worth, and they married once they were sure they could last. I would’ve married Declan at eighteen.
