Page 112 of Fluke
So I blink back tears as they start to form in the corners of my eyes.
He rubs my knuckles with his thumbs, waiting on me to continue.
“Jess, you won me over before we got here,” I say, my voice cracking. “And it scares the crap out of me to say this to you, but I know we have to have this conversation, so I’m trying to just be honest and lay it all out there.”
“Why does it scare you? I don’t understand.”
“Because …” I blow out a breath. “What are your life’s dreams? What do you hope for?”
“Happiness.”
“More specifically.”
I know his answer—he wants a family. Of course, he does. But I need him to say it, to admit it to me, so I can show him why I’m not sure what I want when we go home.
Or, rather, I know what I want and what I can’t have.
He lets go of my hand and sighs. He sits back in his seat, watching me. “Pretty sure happiness is a full sentence.”
“You’re not getting out of it that easy.”
“What do you want me to say? Do you want to go back to the kid thing? Because that’s the only argument you’ve ever proposed about why we could never work that made any sense at all.”
I still.
My heart pounds, and blood pressure soars. Panic rises through the bile at the base of my throat.
All I want to do is run.
But I don’t.
“Yes,” he says. “I’ve always thought that having kids was in my future. I saw myself doing the same things I did with my dad with my son or daughter. Is that what you want to hear?”
No.
He leans forward, his fingers locked around the base of his wineglass. “Why do you not want kids?”
“I don’t like them.” I give him my canned answer, but it’s the truth. It’s been the truth for as long as I can remember. “I’ve built my whole life around not wanting children, and it’s a relief every day when I wake up without a screaming kid. I’m genuinely happy with my life choice. I realize it’s not the popular one, but it’s how I feel.”
“All right.” He holds my gaze. “Now what’s the real answer.”
I push my glass into the center of the table. “I gave you my answer.”
“I’m not going to try to change your mind, Pip. I just want to understand you.”
Why do you have to be so fucking perfect?
Why do you absolutely terrify me?
I stand, needing to move so I can think. Sitting in one place and looking at him won’t help me recall years of trauma.
My heartbeat races, amping up another notch. My palms sweat, and I blame it on the humidity, even though I know that’s untrue.
I take a deep breath and blow it into the wind.
This is going to hurt. It’s going to be salt into a wound, and it might very well be the moment that I see the disappointment in Jess’s eyes. It’ll be the moment he realizes I’m not the person he wants forever.
“It took me a very long time to detach emotionally from my parents,” I say, my voice hollow. “I had a very … dark time when I felt this crushing loneliness. But it was that or allow myself to be reminded at every possible moment that there was something I was doing that wasn’t good enough.” I blink back tears again. “Or, sometimes, that me as a person was somehow flawed. It didn’t matter if I dotted all thei’s. I dotted them, so they were blemished.”
