Page 125 of Behind the Net

Her head whips up, and when she sees me, a big smile stretches across her face. She stands, and my gaze drops to her belly.

She’s pregnant.

“Hey, you.” She reaches for me, and I hug her. She still smells the same, like fruity shampoo.

We pull apart and take our seats, and I clear my throat as nerves rise.

“You find the place okay?” I ask.

She waves a hand with an easy smile. “Oh, yeah, I’ve been here with my agent.”

A server takes our drink orders, and when he leaves, my pulse picks up. I’m just going to get right into it and not waste Erin’s time. I take a deep breath, and across the table, it seems like she’s doing the same.

“I’m sorry—” I start.

“I want to thank you—” she says at the same time.

We stare at each other with equally confused expressions.

She gestures at me. “You first.”

“Okay.” Another deep breath. Every ounce of guilt and regret tightens into a knot in my stomach. “I want to apologize for what happened between us. I know it was a long time ago and we were young, but…” I fold my arms over my chest, thinking about how I told myselfnofor so long. “These things can have a lasting effect.” I lift my gaze to hers. “I wasn’t clear with you about what I could handle in a relationship, and that’s my fault.”

She wrinkles her nose in confusion. “Huh?”

“The way I reacted when you thought you might be—” My gaze drops to her stomach. The internet said she was married, and there are a set of rings on her left hand. I bet her husband didn’t stare at her in horror when she told him she was pregnant. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I shouldn’t have led you on about what we were. I ruined everything for you. Erin, I saw what they said about you.” My heart twists with pain. “You were going to be a supermodel until I broke your heart.”

She stares back at me, frozen, and there’s a weird prickle in my brain.

My eyes dart to hers, suddenly unsure. “Right?”

Across the table, Erin bursts out laughing.

I blink, confused, as she shakes with bright, surprised laughter.

“Jamie.” She shakes her head, eyes glittering. “You didn’t ruinanything.”

I frown as I flick through my memories. Her excitement at the potential pregnancy, her devastation at my reaction. Her pulling out of her upcoming fashion shows, dropping off the face of the earth for years. Her IMDb profile with a list of low-budget productions.

“First,” she starts, “modeling made me miserable. You read that I was going to be a supermodel, but all I read about was how I was too heavy, too skinny, too ugly, too tall, too short.” She swallows, and I see the pain in her eyes as she shakes her head. “I was never enough.” The corner of her mouth turns up in a humorless smile. “When I realized how late I was for my period, my first thought wasnow I get to leave modeling. That’s fucked up, right? That’s not a great reason to have a kid.”

A memory comes back to me of Erin skipping dinner because she was meeting with a designer the next day.

Her hand rests on her bump, and she shoots me a funny smile. “I already love this kid more than life itself, but at nineteen, being pregnant and having a kid would have beentough.”

My mind is reeling. “You disappeared.”

She shrugs. “I had to get away. I was a teenager with this insane life and more money than I knew what to do with. I didn’t even like most of my friends, I was hungry all the time, and I hated my life. So I bought a beach house in a small town and did yoga for a few years. I didn’t have the internet or cable, so I read, painted, and hung out with the retired women on my street.” She smiles again, and this time, it feels real. “When I was ready to go back to real life, I did, but it was on my terms.”

There’s a long pause where I take all this information in. I picture her life in the beach house, and my heart squeezes for her. She was miserable, and I didn’t see it.

“Look,” she continues, adjusting the position of her water glass. “You’re not the first person to feel bad for me because I’m on a crappy cable show.” Her expression turns wry. “I like the show, though. Josh and I love living in Vancouver, and the hours are really good. I’m home for dinner every night and I have weekends off. The cast and crew are cool, and they’ve been super accommodating with my pregnancy.”

When I swallow, my throat is tight. “I’m sorry I didn’t see how unhappy you were.”

She offers me a sad smile. “You had your own stuff going on that year. And besides, if you saw it, you’d have tried to fix it, and the only person who could fix it was me.”

Her words sink in, and I nod. She’s right, I would have tried to fix her situation without any idea of how.

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