Page 64 of Lake + Manning (Something in the Way 4)

Manning had asked if I’d thought of names—of course I fucking had.

He made me feel like a princess. His love turned me invincible, setting the world at my fingertips. Or so I’d thought. I’d taken that for granted, and now it was time to crash and burn.

The door opened behind me. I didn’t need to hide my crying from Manning, but I hated for him to see me this way. He took my tears as hard as possible. They hurt him in a real way, and over the years, he’d bent over backward to make them stop. Like the time right after I’d moved in and found a fallen baby bird out back. He’d helped me put it in a shoebox—trying to be as delicate as he could with his enormous, fumbling hands—and driven us to the animal hospital. Another time, I’d come home from school and tearfully relayed a seminar about the declining elephant population, and he’d promised to take me to Africa one day to see them in person. Then one winter when I’d been miserably sick and crying for no reason, and he’d held me, even knowing I was contagious.

Tonight was no different. The harder I tried to hold back, the harder my body shook. Manning came into the room and turned me by my shoulders, pulling me into his arms. I didn’t stand a chance. Pressed against him, surrounded by his warmth and comfort, I released all the pain I’d been trying to shield him from for the past couple months and beyond.

“Birdy,” he whispered into my hair. “Please don’t cry.”

“I can’t handle this,” I told him. “I can’t do it on my own.”

“You can do it. You can handle this.” He squeezed me so tightly, for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. “But you never, ever have to do it on your own. I’ll always be here.”

“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed into his hoodie.

“What for?” he asked. “This isn’t your fault.”

“I should’ve come to you right away. We’re supposed to be a team, and I broke that promise.”

“I get that you were scared,” he said, rubbing my back, “but you have to understand. I never want to be shut out, and I sure as hell don’t want anyone else to be let in.”

“I know,” I said, looking up at him. “I won’t do it again. But Manning, did you hear what I said out there?”

He moved a couple strands of my hair off my wet cheek. “I heard.”

“What if this is my fault?”

“It’s not.”

“But I took that pill. In New York, after you left my hotel room, I took the morning-after pill. What if I hadn’t? What if that’d been my chance to give us a baby?”

He peeled me back by my shoulders, shaking me a little as he looked in my eyes. “You know it doesn’t work like that. We don’t deserve this because you did what you had to do years ago.”

“I promised you so much—children, a family, a future—and now I don’t think I can give it to you.”

“You are my family.” He slapped the back of his shoulder. “I burned you, my star, right here on my fucking skin. You have already given me the world. The goddamn universe.”

I shook my head, and my voice broke as I said, “Not without a baby.”

“Lake, listen to me carefully. I love you so fucking much. You hear me? As long as I’ve had you, it has never once crossed my mind that my life isn’t complete. All I want is what you want. If you want a baby, we’ll have a baby. If you want a litter of mutts, then lucky us—we’ve already had our first one.”

“I want a baby,” I said, my voice breaking, “with you.”

He inhaled through his nose, and for a terrifying moment, I thought he might break down along with me. Instead, his expression cleared. “What’d the doctor say? What’s the issue?”

“She thinks I have endometriosis, but she won’t know for sure until she performs a laparoscopy.”

“What is that?” he asked. “I don’t know any of those terms.”

“I don’t even understand it myself. I was in shock when she told me.”

“I should’ve been there.”

I tried to steady my voice so I wouldn’t scare him any more than he already looked. “Endometriosis is a disease that causes my uterine tissue to . . . well, I guess the tissue has sort of blockaded one of my fallopian tubes. Literally keeping your sperm and my egg apart. And there are cysts on my ovaries—”

“Jesus, Lake.” He released me to run a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up. “You’ve known this for months?”

“It sounds more painful than it is.”

“But is it?” His face fell as he nearly whispered, “Are you in pain?”

I wanted to tell him no, not ever—as far as my protective bear was concerned, I was perpetually floating on cloud nine. But I also wanted to be honest. “Some women have a lot of pain,” I said. “I’m lucky that I don’t. It’s only slightly more severe around my periods.”

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