6
After Stephen’s confession, Cooper seems more determined than ever to assert that our relationship isn’t headed down a similar road. In bed one night, he wraps himself around me and whispers that he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, reminding me of the conversation I hoped he’d forgotten, at least for a little while longer. In the darkness, I keep my eyes closed and focus on deepening my breath so he’ll think I’m asleep. I hate myself for it, and for my indecision but I just can’t hurt him anymore. He drifts off with his heavy arm still draped over my chest, smothering me.
I sneak into the house late on Monday night. The lights are off, and Cooper and the puppy are asleep, like I hoped they would be. In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of water and look around me, at what my life has become. There’s a potted orchid on the windowsill in the kitchen that’s half dead from lack of watering. The daisy seeds are hiding in their pots next to it. Pictures line the shelves in the living room, all of them a couple years old, as if Cooper and I died shortly after we moved in and someone kept the house open as a memorial. My high school and college basketball trophies sit on the shelves in the hallway without a speck of dust, thanks to the woman who comes to clean once a month. They all stand at exactly the same angle. Everything is so pristine, so organized, so untouched. I bite at the inside of my cheek when I realize it shares those qualities with my mom’s house. In hers, it’s because she works so avidly to keep up the appearance that she’s holding everything together. In my house, it’s because there’s hardly anyone here to live in it in the first place.
But I love our house. We bought it after Cooper had been at the practice for three months. It was his idea. I wasn’t so sure we were ready, but he insisted we could afford it, that our life was only going to get better. He had desperately wanted to get me out of the studio apartment we’d been living in, seducing me with a kitchen big enough to cook meals together, a shower that didn’t make it impossible to retrieve a dropped bar of soap and a few extra bedrooms for guests, “or whatever.” Even back then, we had no time to cook, and everyone we wanted to spend time with lived in the same city. I’d humored him by looking at modest homes I knew neither of us would fall in love with. I pretended I didn’t hear the insinuations about what our future would entail if we chose one.
But one evening, after a double shift at the hospital, he picked me up and drove me to the outskirts of the city, past the hustle and bustle and traffic noise, to a neighborhood with more trees than sidewalk cracks. The houses were set an acre apart and strained to reach the treetops. Many of them were so hidden behind nature it seemed as if the driveways led to nowhere, but then we rounded the corner, and in front of us stood a house with sleek lines and never-ending windows. They winked the sunlight back at me.
It was this house.
Cooper had a key, and I told myself I didn’t know why. He walked me from room to room, saying nothing, just letting me fill in the gaps. “This would make a great office... This could be the guest room... This would be our room...”
“So let’s make it our room,” he said. I laughed.
“There’s no way we can afford this. It’s too much. We don’t need that big backyard.”
Cooper took my hands in his. His expression held so much pride and hope. I already knew I wouldn’t say no to him, no matter how much my conscience nagged at me.
“I know how much you’ve always wanted a yard of your own. This way, you can go out there whenever you want,” he said. “I never want you to feel like you’re sacrificing. I know life would be a lot easier if we accepted the money your dad is always trying to trick us into taking.”
“He’s not—”
Cooper stopped me with a raised eyebrow.
“Okay, fine. But, Cooper, I’m not sacrificing. A big, fancy house isn’t important to me.”
“I know. And I love that about you. But don’t think of it as a house. Think of it as a daily reminder that I’ll never forget how much you’re worth...and that I’ll always try to make you feel like you made the right choice in loving me, even if it meant living in a glorified matchbox for the first few years of our relationship.”
I laughed, then pressed my lips to his until my tension and exhaustion dissipated. “I did make the right choice. I don’t need the reminder.”
With a wry smile, Cooper asked, “Is that a yes?”
I looked around me. I never would have picked it for myself, but Cooper always did know what I wanted better than I did. I groaned.
“We’ll landscape the backyard,” he added quickly. So many mornings we had stood on our second floor balcony and stared out at the city streets below, sipping our coffee, while I imagined a waterfall, flowers, a wide plot of grass to lie in and read. I no longer had the desire to do the gardening myself, but I’d grown up used to having something beautiful to look at while I daydreamed at the back windows or outside sunbathing on the grass. Back then the dreams were a lot more fanciful.
My answer was a tired grin.
“Good,” he said with finality. “Because they accepted my offer.”
I rolled my eyes and nudged his shoulder, making him laugh. He wanted so much to give me everything. I let him carry me into the empty living room, where he rested me on the floor in front of the bay windows and made love to me. I felt unbelievably lucky to have a man who loved me so much, and as he pushed into me, slow and steady, I held his gaze to keep myself in the moment, hoping he wouldn’t one day regret this choice, or regret loving me.
“You’re home,” a sleepy voice says from the hallway, pulling me from my memories.
The tinkling of the puppy’s collar echoes through the quiet space. I start and busy myself with pouring the remains of my water into each of the plants as Cooper opens the back door to let the puppy out. He joins me in the kitchen.
“Did you eat?” he asks.
I set my glass in the sink and shake my head. “I’m not hungry.”
I finally turn to look at him, leaning against the counter. He presses himself against me and wraps his arms around my neck, pulling my head into his chest. I breathe him in, the scent of his sleepy sweat.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs against the top of my head.
I pull away from him so I can see his face. His features are soft and relaxed, and even though I sense he needs to say something important, I can’t stop myself from kissing him. I bury my fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and pull him to me, entwining my mouth with his. He pushes against me harder, lifting me onto the counter with one swift movement. I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him closer, drawing his energy, his love, his faith into me, losing myself in him and finding myself in him all at once. I shiver as my mind goes blissfully blank—no Abby, no Mom, no Megan and Stephen, no grant.
Our kisses turn from feverish to lazy as his stillness seeps into my pores like the effects of a good drug. I press my forehead to his, both of our eyes closed.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, determined. I wish he wouldn’t. There’s nothing he needs to be sorry for. “I’m sorry for not being supportive these last few months. I’ve always known research was what you wanted to do. It’s not right for me to expect you to change your mind just because I...”
Because he changed his mind. Because it made sense at the time we set our lofty goals, but reality isn’t quite as fulfilling as the fantasy.
I sigh and run my thumb over his cheekbone, the stubble there abrasive under my skin. My heart rate picks up, sensing this is the time to finally tell Cooper about how I could have stopped my sister’s death—to help him understand and get him back on my side. As much as I like to pretend I can, I can’t do this alone.
“Cooper, there’s something I haven’t told you.”
His body stiffens, but otherwise he doesn’t move, careful not to break the moment. I take a deep breath, searching for the right words. I’ve been close to telling Cooper a dozen times, but I’ve never been able to break through that final wall. And like all the other times, Abby’s face flashes into my mind—the very last time I saw her without an oxygen mask, without the stretcher and the EMTs. Her face was framed by the light blue trim of her car window, pale with pain, yet lit by her smile as she tried to reassure me.
“I’m fine. Go have fun. And, Dylan...”
She’d paused, both of us aware of how long it had been since we’d had a heart-to-heart.
“Thank you for always being there for me when I need you.”
I feel my eyes tear up again as her words echo through me, as clear as if she were sitting in front of me now. But for the life of me, I can never remember what I said in return. I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying to recall my final words to my sister. In my worst nightmares, I bring my fingers to my mouth and find that my lips are sewn shut. Did I know in that moment that mere hours later, I wouldn’t be there when she needed me most?
With Cooper looking at me, his brow furrowed in concern, my throat closes. I can’t speak. The fear is a physical thing, like an animal in a box it’s desperate to escape from, while at the same time being terrified of what it will find outside its familiar walls. It claws at my rib cage—the fear of saying it out loud, of admitting the real reason my mother never speaks to me anymore.
“What is it, babe?” he asks. “It’s okay. You can tell me.”
“I...” I clear my throat.
“Dylan, there’s nothing you could tell me that would change how I feel about you. Trust me. Trust what we have.”
I nod. The animal scratches.
“I feel...lost again. And I’m afraid of what I might do. I’m afraid of hurting you.”
It’s not what I need to say most, but it’s the truth. I know this feeling well, and I know what it makes me capable of. So does Cooper. It’s how we got together.
Cooper’s face falls blank, like he’s purposefully trying to avoid letting me see his true feelings. Over our last nine years together, we’ve had ups and downs, backs and forths, but no matter what setbacks we faced, we always knew where we were headed. We had a Point B, a map, a compass. We could always refocus. But here, in this place, the map has been stolen from us, and we’ve reached a fork in the road.
I wait for his reaction. Finally, his features reanimate, and he takes my hands in his.
“You’re not lost, Dylan,” he says. “You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. You’ve just been working toward the same goal for so long, you don’t know what to do now that you’ve reached it.”
“But I haven’t—”
“I know,” he says. “But you’re so close. Another grant will pop up soon. And you know you’re going to get it. No one has worked harder for it than you. So it’s natural to feel the need to reassess, set new goals. Especially for you. You don’t know what to do with yourself when you don’t have a goal.”
A laugh bubbles up from inside me and Cooper smiles. “It’s like you know me better than I know myself sometimes.”
I have been keeping my eye on grant listings, but nothing new has come up. Not that I expected it to.
Cooper lowers his voice and says, “You can’t be a great doctor without being a great student,” quoting our genetics teacher, making me laugh harder. He presses his smile to mine. In his own voice, he adds, “And you’ve always been my favorite subject.”
He traces kisses over my jawline, on one side and then the other.
“You’ve always been my home,” I say.
“Come to bed.”
I nod. He goes to the back door to let the puppy in, then I follow him to our bed. I curl up in his arms, exactly where I’m supposed to be.
* * *
“New consult, undetermined EGA, no complications,” Enrique rattles off as he comes out from behind the nurses’ station. We walk through the halls of the clinic on the way to my first appointment of the day, and I latch on to the medical jargon to focus my distracted mind. An undetermined due date means I’ll need an ultrasound, otherwise standard procedure.
“Got it,” I say. I trade Enrique my triple shot latte for the chart as we reach the exam room door.
“I grabbed the finished charts off your desk and piled some more on there for ya. One of your patients is in L and D getting checked out. Not admitted yet.”
“Perfect.”
“Do you need anything else?” he asks. He takes a swallow of my latte. I shake my head.
“A nurse who’s actually concerned about spreading viruses?”
“You look healthy to me,” he says. “And I look healthier with caffeine in me.”
“Oh, Enrique, you always look good.”
He flashes me a Cheshire cat grin.
I enter the exam room and glance down at the chart in my hand for the patient’s name.
“Hi, Dylan.”
I hear the patient’s voice at the same time I read it in all capital letters, printed across the top of the paperwork, and my heart drops. I squint at my chart to be sure and then at the woman sitting on the examination table in the hospital gown, those all-too-familiar blue eyes shining back at me.
“Megan?”
She gives a bashful laugh. “I was going to ask you to lunch today, but I thought, ‘Hey, if I get pregnant, we can make it a standing date.’”
It’s funny. I want to laugh. She clearly needs me to laugh. Instead I stand there, mouth agape, as my two worlds converge, and the implications settle like ash around me, suffocating.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to shock you. Not any more than I’ve shocked myself.”
I should have realized at the last family dinner—the nausea, the weight loss, the fatigue.
“No... It’s just... Wow. Does Stephen know? It is his, right?” I ask more quietly. I don’t know how long things have been bad between them, I realize now more than ever.
“It’s his. And no, he doesn’t know.”
I shake my head in disbelief. I still haven’t accepted that they’re separating, let alone the talk of divorce amongst the family. Part of me dares to hope this could bring them back together.
“I know,” Megan says. “Trust me. This isn’t how I expected things to go. How does the song go again? First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes divorce, then comes the baby.” She forces a smile, but her hands are shaking in her lap.
“How far along are you, Megan?”
“I don’t know. A few months, I guess. When I started to put two and two together, I tried to remember when my last period was, but with everything that’s been going on... I thought it was just stress. And then for a while I was too scared to tell anyone. I think half of me didn’t believe it...and the other half didn’t want it to be true.”
I frown and find my rolling chair, sitting in front of her. I search for the right words in an all too familiar situation.
“Megan, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Stephen, but I know this isn’t the ideal time for a baby.” Tears leak from the corners of her eyes, and she hides her contorted mouth behind her hand. “I also know you will make a great mother, and I’m not saying that just because we’re...” She’s not technically my sister, though that’s how I think of her. I know she understands. “Well, I just want you to know I’m here for you in whatever way you need me to be, okay?”
She nods emphatically and reaches her free hand out to grasp mine. Her fingers are small and fragile-looking, such a sharp contrast to her personality. This is the first time I’ve ever seen her cry.
“No, it isn’t the ideal time, but I want this baby,” she says through her tears. “Even if I have to do it alone.”
“And are you sure you want me to be your doctor? Sometimes it’s easier to work with someone you don’t know.”
She shakes her head. “You’re family, Dylan. I trust you. I wouldn’t even think of anyone else. You’re going to be my doctor, whether you like it or not.”
We both laugh. She wipes away her tears with a knuckle, while I swallow down my own.
“This is going to be hard without Stephen,” she says. “I’m not too proud to admit it. But with you to guide me through it, I feel like I can do this.”
My first instinct is to tell her she does need Stephen, not only because of the baby, but because they’re meant for each other. I bite my tongue, though. What she needs most is nonjudgmental support, and I, of anyone, know what that need feels like.
“I’m going to be right beside you,” I say. “Every step of the way.”
“Thank you,” she whispers. A wrinkle forms in her brow. “Can I ask one favor?”
Still floating on her show of familial love, I say, “Of course. Anything.”
“Can we keep this between us for now?”
I clear my throat, and my fingers slip from hers. I wipe my suddenly sweaty hands on the front of my slacks. It’s a simple enough question, but she has no idea what she’s asking of me. I think of how Cooper will feel if I keep this secret from him. I think of their parents, who have accepted me as one of their own and how I couldn’t stand to disappoint them. I think of Stephen. I think of all the things that could go wrong. I’ve always feared losing a patient, and as doctors, it’s a reality of the job—more so for some specialties than others. I’ve helped many patients through miscarriages, which is never easy, but I haven’t lost a single patient whose eyes I’ve stared into. It’s why I spend so much time at the hospital—to make sure it stays that way. Thankfully, in obstetrics, most of my patients are young and in good health. And for the babies, we have an incredible NICU.
But still, Megan is family. Taking her on as a patient is a whole new level of responsibility.
“Well, there’s doctor-patient confidentiality, so lawfully, I can’t say anything. But surely you want your family to know.”
“I can’t, Dylan. Not yet. You know how Mom is. She’d have a nursery fully stocked before I even got home.”
I smile. It hurts my cheeks.
I know if Stephen knew about the baby, he would move his stuff back into their house, against Megan’s will. He’s never considered himself to be kid-friendly, but he’s an honorable man, and he loves Megan. Once he got used to the idea, I know he’d be an incredible father. I wish I could tell him and bring their family back together. That’s my job. It’s what I do. But there was nothing in my medical training to prepare me for this.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I hear myself say. “Like I said, it’s not my place. As long as you promise to call me anytime, day or night, if you need anything.”
She thrusts her pinky toward me, herself again, and we smile at each other as I take it in my own.
In spite of my fear of ruining the moment, I can’t help but ask, “Did Stephen really do something that makes it impossible for you to forgive him?”
Megan looks at her feet for a long time before she says, “He’s not fighting for me, Dylan. I didn’t want this. When I told him I needed more time with him, all I wanted him to do was say okay and do it. He acts like I expect him to live for nothing but me, but he knows it’s not true. All I want from him is to make me feel like I’m a priority in his life. Stop acting like he’s single and doing whatever the hell he wants without consequence. It isn’t just his life anymore. But he said he couldn’t. They need him too much at the hospital. And then when he’s not at the hospital, he’s out drinking with his friends. Or rock climbing. Sometimes both. I won’t get into the dangers of that.”
I laugh. It’s so Stephen. Megan shakes her head but smiles, too.
She continues, “When I told him we’d put off having a family long enough, he said he wasn’t ready yet. When I told him I was tired of spending so much time alone, he had nothing to say at all. I dragged it out as long as I could, and then I thought, maybe if he realizes he’s going to lose me, he’ll change. I asked him to leave, and instead of saying he would try harder, he left.”
I swallow hard and wonder if that’s how Cooper feels about me—that he’s not a priority in my life. I’ve always thought of Stephen and me as being cut from the same mold, but the thought that I could make Cooper feel this way steals my breath.
There is one difference between Stephen and me: I would never walk away from Cooper willingly. He’s the only thing that keeps me grounded—the only one who sees me for me.
“And now I’m waiting,” Megan says, almost a whisper. “And he’s still not home.”
I rest my hand on her knee. “If that’s all it is, let me talk to him. I know once he hears—”
“No,” she says. “No. Don’t you see? That wouldn’t help anything. I needed to know he was ready to commit to this marriage and this family.” She puts her hands on her belly. “I needed him to choose us and start living like a husband and father. I needed him to be there because he wanted to be there, not because someone gave him instructions, and he followed them. Definitely not because he feels obligated. All he was thinking about was what he needed, but relationships are about putting the people you love first sometimes.”
I open my mouth to argue more—which point, I’m not sure—but I find I have nothing left to say.
“You’re lucky,” she says after a long silence. “Cooper loves you so much. He would never let you leave him. He would fight for you until his dying breath.”
I avoid Megan’s eyes and grab the blood pressure cuff to change the focus of the conversation. Because she’s right. Cooper would fight for me. But after everything she’s said today, I wonder if he should. He deserves so much better than me.
I examine Megan, then I get the Doppler wand and squeeze a dollop of jelly onto her exposed belly that is already visibly showing. I run the wand back and forth across her abdomen. It doesn’t take long to find a strong heartbeat. As soon as she hears the swish swish, she opens her mouth to form a little O.
“Oh, wow,” she whispers, and I smile. I hold the wand there, letting her enjoy the moment. Despite my concerns about what happens after this, I enjoy it, too. I’ve heard the first acknowledgment of a growing child inside of hundreds of new mothers, but never from someone I love.
I will take care of her. I will protect all of them.
* * *
Running forty-eight minutes late for date night with Cooper, I burst through the front door of my house, throw my keys on the foyer table and peel off my tennis shoes. I shake the rain from my hair and stumble around Cooper’s Oxfords, where they’re always strewn in the middle of the foyer no matter how many times I ask him to use the shoe rack. The house is alive with him—the scent of garlic and the sound of Coldplay. Cooper’s flavor of romance.
“Sorry I’m late,” I yell to him.
I stayed late at the hospital to attend Megan’s ultrasound—she’s almost in the second trimester. How she plans to keep it a secret for much longer, I don’t know, but I can’t think about that tonight. If I do, Cooper will see it written all over my face. Tonight is about him, about us.
“Did you put the clothes in the dryer?” I ask as I dart through the living room. “I’m going to hop in the shower, and then I’m all yours.”
His swift footsteps thrum a rhythm on the hardwood behind me, then his hands grasp my elbows from behind before I reach the bedroom, stopping me with a jolt. I sigh, caught, then lean back into his firm chest.
“All that can wait,” he says. His breath stirs the loose hair around my ear and sends goose bumps down my right side. “It’s time to eat. The noodles are only so forgiving.”
“And are you?” I tease, though the moment the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could take them back, sure I don’t want to know the answer. Thankfully, he seems to be in too good a mood to pick a fight.
“You can make it up to me,” he says.
Cooper turns me around and tilts my head down so he can place a kiss on my forehead. Even after all this time, my heart still flutters every time he looks at me like the world really could stop turning for us. Sometimes I wish it would.
“Date night in scrubs?” I ask.
“Date night now,” he says. “You look beautiful in everything. Including mashed-pea-green scrubs.”
I purse my lips and narrow my eyes at him. “You make it hard to say no.”
“That’s the goal.” He kisses me again, on the lips. “C’mon.”
I let Cooper guide me to the dining room table. He pulls my chair out for me, and I sit in it while he returns to the kitchen to serve the fettuccine. He’s already showered and dressed in a pair of jeans, barefoot, a white T-shirt covered shamelessly by a blue-and-white-striped apron. He doesn’t find this at all unusual, having been raised by an apron-wearing father. The apron-wearers are the good ones, I’ve decided.
“You’re cute,” I say from where I sit formally at the table, hands in my lap. He puts on a sultry half smile, never looking up as he ladles Alfredo sauce over each plate.
Cooper ducks out of his apron, lets out a deep breath and pats down his pockets, including the nonexistent one on the front of his T-shirt. He joins me at the table with the plates and a bottle of red wine.
“Are you okay?” I ask as he fills our glasses. He doesn’t quite meet my gaze.
“Of course,” he says. His eyes shift away almost imperceptibly when he says it, but I’ve loved this man for nine years. I notice.
“I really am sorry for being late,” I say. If I could tell him why, I know he’d understand. But I can’t.
“Don’t worry about it. Seriously.”
It’s quiet as we take our first bites. Date night is something we started after we moved into our first apartment. The four years of med school were busy for both of us, and Cooper, having always been more knowledgeable about how relationships are supposed to work, pointed out that studying next to each other in bed wasn’t exactly considered quality time. Happy to follow his lead, I agreed to monthly dates, though I wasn’t sure how we’d find the time. We did. In fact, it was easier back then. It’s been months since Cooper and I have blocked out work and family and other responsibilities for even an hour, and as I watch him suck a noodle into his mouth, the pain of missing him blooms in the center of my chest.
Cooper sets his fork down on his plate and rests his hand on my knee under the table. “Dylan,” he says softly, just as my phone rings, a shocking buzz of vibration against the glass table. We both lean forward to look at the caller ID. It’s the hospital. I glance at Cooper, then set down my own fork and pick it up. Cooper leans back in his chair, his face instantly hard.
“Cooper,” I say, beseechingly.
“You promised,” he says, and nothing else. He doesn’t need to say another word, because we both know this is our life.
He sits up again and sighs.
“Go ahead,” he says and motions toward my phone.
I excuse myself and take the call in the office, out of earshot of Cooper. After I forgive a mistaken labor and delivery nurse for not calling the on-call doctor, I breathe a sigh of relief and return to the dining room table, where Cooper’s pasta sits untouched since I left. The CD must have ended because the only sound I hear is the echo of my phone ringing in my ears.
“It was nothing. I’m sorry,” I mumble and hate the taste of the last word in my mouth. But I see the effort Cooper puts into smiling and into erasing the last five minutes of the night, so I try to do the same.
“There was something you wanted to talk about?” I ask as I sit and take another bite of dinner. I no longer have an appetite, but I’ll be damned if I don’t eat every last bite in restitution.
“Yes,” he says after a moment. He touches his absent breast pocket again. “I’m really proud of you. You know that, right?”
“I know,” I say. I’ve always known. It means a lot to hear him say it anyway. “Thank you.”
“And I just keep thinking about our conversation before. About focusing more on us.”
I look down. My breathing grows shallow. I wouldn’t exactly call what we had a conversation. Cooper expressed his desires and I avoided responding to them. I know where he’s going with this, and I can’t pretend to be asleep this time.
“Yes,” I whisper. When I look back up, I recognize the determined crease in his brow as he grabs my hand.
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” he says, then pauses to take a deep breath. I try for one of my own, but it gets caught in my throat. He slides off the dining room chair onto his knee. He looks up at me from beneath the strands of hair that stubbornly fall over his forehead. His eyes are bright and alive with anticipation—the opposite of my heart, folding in on itself and withdrawing. No, no, no...
“You know I’ve wanted to marry you since the night I met you,” he says, “but I wanted to wait until you were ready. I know this isn’t the perfect time, but like my sister once told us, there’s never going to be a right time. We just have to make the time. You’re beautiful and smart and caring, Dylan, and you’re everything I never knew I could have in a partner. If you’ll have me, I’d be so proud to call you my wife.”
I’ve stopped breathing, and I can’t seem to start again.
What is wrong with me?
I love this man and he loves me.
I do want to spend the rest of my life with him—what does it matter if we get engaged right now or in five years? It all amounts to the same thing. But thinking of the weight that comes with a small ring and another big promise makes my hands shake.
How can we promise forever? It’s a guarantee neither one of us can make.
I bring my hand up to cover my eyes, so I can’t see Cooper and he can’t see me. It’s then that the real reason I won’t commit to Cooper hits me: What right do I have to do what Abby will never get to do? What do I know about creating a family when mine is so broken?
The thoughts in my head are spinning so fast I can’t pin down any one of them except, He’ll never forgive me for this.
I let my hand fall to my lap and force myself to look at him. “Cooper, can we please just not do this right now? Not yet? You know I want to but...”
But I have to do something to make up for what happened to Abby. I’ll never feel worthy of his love or anyone else’s until I do.
“Babe,” he says, his voice still gentle, knowing this is a difficult subject for me even if he doesn’t know why. He’s always known better than me what I want and what I need; when I need space and when I need to be pushed. But not this time. This time it’s an impossible situation—he just doesn’t see it yet. “I know you’re scared, but we love each other. What could be more important than that? We’ve already been together for nine years. We have a house together. What’s really going to change besides your last name and the fact that we can start making plans for the rest of our lives together?”
“Exactly,” I say, latching on to his words. “What’s going to change if we wait another year...or two...”
His head falls and he clears his throat. He’s losing patience with me.
“Dylan,” he says with a dry laugh, “you’re kind of killing my confidence here. You say you love me, but people who love each other, they get married and have kids and pick out snobby preschools together. That’s what they do.”
“You know I love you,” I say, my voice coming back strong.
“Do you?” he asks, all signs of laughter gone. His eyes pierce straight through my heart, shattering me. “Prove it.”
“Cooper, I...I’m just too focused on my career to be a good wife to you, and that’s what you deserve. You deserve to have a wife who will be good to you, and I want to be her one day.” Tears spring to my eyes. It’s not a straight answer, but I know if I don’t give him the answer he wants, it could end us. Us being over will end me.
“Prove it,” he says again, softer but with an intensity that says he’s not going to budge. He would never say it out loud, but the purse of his lips says it all: it’s an engagement or it’s over. “Dylan,” he presses.
With my heartbeat thrumming in my ears, I stumble over words I don’t hear myself say, I pull my hand from his grip, and suddenly I’m outside with the rain landing on my cheeks. Without a ring.
I wander the streets, wet and muddy and in a daze until the storm clears, like a sign. Finally, I find my way home, but when I call out for Cooper, he doesn’t answer. I check the bedroom, the guest room, the backyard. I check the garage. Cooper’s car is gone. With my hands shaking so badly I almost can’t unlock my phone, I press Cooper’s name on my speed dial. It rings two times and goes to voice mail. I hang up and let my phone fall to the counter.