Page 99 of Unspoken Words
“I’m sure you did help.”
He shrugged. “I tried.”
We both sat there for a moment, him staring at his glass, me staring at mine.
“So then what happened?” I asked. “After Max was born?”
“Things were good at first. I mean, apart from not getting much sleep and not knowing what the fuck we were doing, things were good. We connected well as parents. Shared the responsibility. Max was such a good baby. He slept well, fed well, was … well … just all-round awesome.” He smiled a little and lightly nudged me with his shoulder. “A bit like his dad.”
I managed a small smile in response.
“But then things just got weird,” he added, his smile gone. “People assumed we were together, expected we’d be together. So we … tried.”
Connor paused, and I was happy he did. I didn’t really need nor want to hear about him and Lilah trying to be together. I wasn’t ready for that. Would never be ready for that.
Feeling my body shrink and curl into itself, I prepared for another knife to my heart.
“We tried to connect as a couple. I felt I owed it to Max to at least try but …” Connor let out a frustrated huff of air, “she wasn’tyou.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I blinked. I hadn’t expected him to say that. “No, she’s not me. And she never will be.”
His shoulders slumped. “I never tried to replace you, Ellie.”
“I never said you did.” Taking another drink of my water, I swallowed then forced a smile. “What’s done is done and is in the past. All of it. You and I. Everything. So let’s just leave it there.”
“Come on, Ellie. You know just as much as I do that we will never be in the past. Ever.”
“Then why have I been putting you there, day after day, for the past four years?”
“Because you didn’t have a choice.”
I scoffed. “Is that what you think? You think I didn’tchooseto leave and move on, that I couldn’t stay and remain in your life?”
“Yes. That’s what you told me. You said ‘I can’t stay here in this town and watch you live your life with another woman, the life we were supposed to live together’. That was the last thing you said to me.”
“Well,” I skolled the rest of my water, my throat bone dry that he remembered that. “You shouldn’t always believe everything you hear.”
“Fine. Think that if you must. But you didn’t have a choice because, if the tables were turned and you were pregnant with another man’s child, there’s no way in Hell I could’ve stayed and been a part of that. It would’ve killed me, slowly, piece by piece. So, yeah, I understood why you left and why I had to let you leave.”
Placing the glass down on the coffee table, I stood up to create some much-needed distance between us. “Exactly. Youletme leave. You didn’thaveto, but youchoseto because it was easier.”
“EASIER?” he shouted. “You think that letting you walk out of my life was easy? For fuck’s sake, Ellie, it was the hardest and most painful thing I’ve ever had to do.”
“Don’t talk to me about pain.That,” I hissed, pointing at the family portrait on his wall, “that is pain. You, her, Max; a family. It doesn’t get more painful than that.”
He lowered his head. “I know. I—”
“Waking up every day knowing that was my reality was pure torture. It still is. But feeling as if you’d let me go so easily, as if I was nothing, as ifwewere nothing, is what hurt the most.”
His eyes snapped up to meet mine. “Jesus, Ellie, I didn’t justletyou go so easily.”
“You did. Every minute of every day that I didn’t see or hear from you, I died a little until there was nothing left. No hope. No light. No ever fucking after.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Fight for me, damn it. Let me know I was worth more than any problem we faced.”
“You were.”
