Page 82 of Her Ex's Father
The air leaves my lungs in a violent rush. My vision narrows to a pinpoint, the hallway closing in around me as night does the same.
It’s almost nine p.m., and the sun is setting.
She’s gone.
She’s gone, and I didn’t even know. Just this morning she told me she needed space. But Philadelphia? My hand braces against the wall, palm pressed to cool plaster as if I need proof the world hasn’t dissolved beneath me.
“Her flight?” The words scrape out of me like gravel.
“It left about an hour ago,” Hugh says softly. “She’s well on her way there. Ben, I swear, I thought you knew.”
It takes everything in me not to roar at him, not to put my fist through the wall. But none of this is his fault. The fault is mine. Mine for pushing her so far she thought she had to lie. Mine for making her believe she couldn’t tell me what she needed.
And underneath all that—fear.
Raw, suffocating fear.
She’s five months pregnant. Five months, and boarding a plane without me at her side. My chest constricts, a dozen worst-case scenarios flooding me. What if something happens mid-flight? What if she goes into early labor? What if?—
I grip the wall harder, fingertips tingling with the force of it.
“Ben—” Hugh’s voice is uncertain. “It’s safe. Women fly at this stage all the time. She’s five months; the doctors clear it?—”
“I don’t give a damn what’s considered safe,” I snap. “She’s my wife. Carrying my child. And she’s out there alone.”
Silence.
I drag my hand through my hair, rough and violent. It doesn’t help. The pressure only builds, climbing higher in my chest, up my throat until I feel like I might choke on it.
We haven’t even chosen a name.
The thought slams into me, sharp and senseless. But it sticks. We’ve skirted the topic, teased around it when she touched her stomach and smiled, but we never settled. Never carved letters into permanence.
If something happens to her—if something happens to them—I won’t even have a name to whisper when I grieve.
The panic spirals. I can’t catch my breath.
I need air. Space. Something to ground me before I unravel completely.
My feet are already moving before I realize where I’m headed. Out the front door, across the cobblestones slick with a sudden summer shower, into the car. The engine growls, headlights slicing through twilight and fat raindrops as I take the familiar road toward the cottage at the far edge of the property.
Caroline.
If anyone can stop me from tearing myself apart, it’s my sister.
The drive feels endless, though it’s barely ten minutes. Trees blur past, dark silhouettes against the indigo sky. My hands are clenched on the wheel so tightly the leather creaks.
When I finally pull up, the cottage is warm-lit, smoke curling from the chimney. Normal. Stable. A world apart from the hurricane in my chest.
I slam the car door, stride up the steps, and pound on the front door.
It swings open to reveal Leo, hair a mess, headphones slung around his neck. Music bleeds faintly from them, some thumping beat I don’t recognize. His eyes go wide.
“Uncle Ben?” He pulls the headphones off, blinking. “Uh… you okay?”
No.
“Where’s your mother?” I push past him before he can answer.
