It’s not what I expected. Things with Jovie Ross seldom are.

All I want to do is scream after her, to stop her from walking away from me again, but the farther she gets, the tighter my throat clenches.

I got what I wanted, right? She answered my question, but…

I look up and she’s gone.

“Hey, Will. Where’s Jovie going?”

I’m not sure who asks it. I don’t even bother trying to answer them. Instead, I walk down the hallway, following the trailing echoes of her shoes.

Not here. She begged me and I didn’t listen.

I reach the parking lot and there she is.

Flashes of a different age take over my mind. Jovie in her torn, pink dress and puffy cheeks, sitting on my old, crappy moped with a sweet smile and seductive eyes.

Does this POS seat two?

But she’s older now. Her dress wasn’t swiped off a bargain clothes rack. Her eyes aren’t obscured by a thick layer of pure black eyeliner. Her cheeks are still a little puffy but the tears streaming down her face explain that much.

She’s leaning against the passenger door of her car, waiting for me. I have the keys, I guess.

She sees me approaching and wipes her eyes and nose. Her head stays down as she turns to grip the door handle, signaling a need for silence and I don’t question it.

Not here.

The drive home is torture. I almost think to take the long way just to stall the inevitable pain a few minutes longer. She stares out the window beside her, carefully wiping her face as another tear sneaks out every few minutes.

God, what have I done?

First Street is quiet; deserted by those still at the dance. The creaking car door echoes down the street the moment I park as Jovie throws the thing open and steps outside. She’s already fished her keys out and unlocked the door by the time I catch up with her.

As she enters the hallway, she reaches behind her and grips the zipper along the back of her dress.

I hang the car keys on the hook by the door out of habit. I stand in the living room, listening closely to the shuffling of her feet in the bedroom. She rolls open a dresser drawer. Tosses her shoes into the closet. She sniffs quietly.

I wander slowly, following the isolated sounds to the bedroom and lean against the door frame to look inside.

Jovie sits on the edge of the bed with her eyes on the floor, wearing her jeans with the torn knees and an old, red sweater. Sneakers on her feet. Hair in a simple ponytail. Back to normal. No less breathtaking, though.

Her voice cracks. “I was pregnant.”

I stare at the top of her head. “When?” I ask.

“When you broke up with me,” she says to the floor, “I was pregnant.”

I shift as the pain starts in my gut. As if it were possible for me to feel any worse about that moment in time. I didn’t just call Jovie Ross a horrible, selfish child. I said it to the mother of my baby.

“For how long?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Not long. A month, maybe. I found out just before Valentine’s.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you broke up with me.”

“Jove…” I flex my jaw, “I think something like that transcends a breakup.”

“I was going to tell you,” she says, talking slowly, “but then you spoke first.”

“I spoke first? That’s your excuse?”

She wipes another tear away and looks up. “I was caught off-guard by what you said to me and how you suddenly didn’t want to get married anymore and I just…” She catches her breath. “I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t feel anything. So, I went home, cried for hours, figured I’d talk to you once everything calmed down but then it happened.”

My chest aches. “That night?”

“Yes.”

I step off the door frame. “You were alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did… did it hurt?”

She hesitates as her lip trembles. “Yes.”

“You should have told me, Jovie.” My voice rises on its own. “You didn’t have to go through that alone.”

“Well, I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it hurt!” She rises off the bed. “It really hurt! Between losing our baby and my dad kicking me out again and Sara threatening me—”

“Wait — Sara did what?”

“I packed a bag and I left. I couldn’t face you again because I knew you wanted to be a father so badly but I couldn’t give that to you and that’s what hurt the most…”

Her voice fades off and my heart breaks.

Losing our baby. Like she just misplaced my keys. I start to think that if we retrace her steps, we’ll find it again. Sooner or later.

But that’s not how that works at all.

Jovie presses her lips together, her chest heaving with each quivering breath. Tears coat her cheeks, endlessly dripping down her throat but I stand still, numb all the way to the bone.

After all this time, I finally know why Jovie Ross took off. I almost wish I didn’t. If I hadn’t have pushed her away that day, would it have happened at all? Pangs of guilt jab my chest. My lungs feel full of rocks. Is this how she’s felt for four years?

I step forward and wrap my arms around her. “It wasn’t your fault, Jovie.”

She sobs. “Yes, it was—”

“No, it wasn’t.” I kiss her forehead while she shakes in my arms. “You couldn’t have stopped it. It’s okay.”

“Will, I’m so sorry—”

“It’s okay.”

Jovie grips my suit jacket and buries her face in my chest. I feel her warm, wet tears bleeding through my shirt. She sways on trembling knees and I hold her tighter to keep her standing.

“Hank came home and heard me crying in the bathroom,” she says, her voice weak. “I thought that maybe I should tell him and he would… I don’t know, show some fucking compassion for once.” She steps back to breathe. “So, I told him what was happening and he just started screaming at me and hitting the walls. I got so scared. I ran to my room, stuffed my backpack with anything I couldn’t live without, and I got in my car. I never told anyone else about it.” She lays a hand on her stomach. “God, I’m gonna be sick.”

I lead her to the bed. “Sit down.”

She lowers to the edge and leans forward, taking deep, gentle breaths with my hand on her back. After a few moments, I ease her closer and she rests her weak head on my shoulder. I feel her shaking in my arms, shivering as if it were freezing cold but her skin is fever warm.

“Jovie, what did Sara do?” I ask.

She raises her head and wipes her nose. “She ran into me at the gas station off the highway — the one I went to purposefully to avoid people who knew me — and she waltzed over just as I was grabbing a pregnancy test off the shelf.”

I frown. “She knew about this?”

“She knew what it could have been. That’s all she needed to tell me to leave town or else she’d drive to my dad’s and tell him everything she saw. Told me that she wasn’t going to let a whore like me ruin her brother’s life.”

It’s almost unbelievable. My own sister. My best friend. But Sara’s hatred for Jovie was always there, boiling beneath the surface, constantly urging me to dump her and find someone better. She would have taken any excuse to drive Jovie out of town. And she succeeded.

I swallow my rage. It can wait.

“When I walked back outside,” Jovie continues, “I saw her slip a note under my windshield wiper before driving off. I went closer and saw it was a check for a thousand dollars with the words ‘get rid of it’ written on it.” She shakes her head. “I cashed it but I never spent a dime. I slipped it into the mailbox of some church out in St. Louis. Just… didn’t feel right to keep it.”

I stand to pace the room, cursing the sparks in my feet. They urge me to act. They want to run and kick and destroy something — anything at all — that will make me feel better about this. I could have been there. I should have been there but I couldn’t act on something I didn’t know about.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, struggling to keep calm.

“I thought you hated me.” She clears her cheeks. “Hell, you practically said as much.”

“I was angry but I would have listened if you’d have just told me.”

“Would you?” She tilts her head. “New Will would have listened but do you really think old Will would have been so rational?”

I pause, struck cold.

“You wanted to get married,” she says. “You would have wanted that baby even though we had no business being parents back then. I wasn’t ready. You weren’t ready but you loved this town, this culture—”

“I loved you.”

“But I didn’t fit. You must, at least, have the hindsight to see that much.”

“You were different.” I shrug. “You still are. That didn’t matter to me.”

“And yet… you dumped me for not instantly waving my hands and screaming yes after that proposal.”

I fall silent again, my guts churning as the truth wrecks me. That entire night plays in my head. Valentine’s Day. The proposal. The immediate fight afterward.

And the heart-to-heart with Sara the next morning.

She’s the one who told me to leave Jovie.

And I listened.

“Ultimately,” Jovie says, “I left so you could have the life that I failed to give you.”

We made a lot of mistakes. We should have done a million things differently back then. But I will not let her believe that she failed me. Not even for a moment.

“You didn’t fail, Jovie,” I say, choking on the lump in my throat. “You can’t think of it like that.”

She bites her cheek, fighting tears. “Stop.”

“No.” I kneel in front of her, trying to meet her eye-line but she looks away. “Jovie, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Stop it,” she says again.

I cup her face, forcing her to look my way but she clenches her eyes closed. “It wasn’t your fault.”

She shoves my hands and rises off the bed. “Will, I love you so much but I can’t relive this again. I’m sorry.”

I push onto my feet as she bolts for the hallway. “Jovie, wait.”

She doesn’t stop. I take extra-long strides to cut her off in the living room.

“Please. Jovie—”

“I just need to be alone for a while,” she says, shielding her face from me.

“For how long?”

She grabs her car keys off the wall. “I don’t know.”

I block the door. “How long?”

“I don’t know.”

I stare at the top of her downturn head. Tears fall directly from her eyes to the floor. They make soft, gentle splashes that echo in my head.

“Jovie…” I reach for her but she recoils an inch. “What can I do?”

She wipes her eyes but it doesn’t help. “Open the door.”

I lay a hand on the doorknob to buy a few more precious seconds. “Jovie, I don’t want you to be alone. Please, stay here. We don’t have to talk. You don’t have to say anything. Just, please, stay with me.”

“I can’t even look at you, Will,” she says, sobbing. “How can you even look at me?”

“Because I love you.” I jut forward, holding her face before she has a chance to resist it. “Look at me.” Her neck loosens and she allows me to turn her upward as I wipe a thumb along her tear-stained cheeks. “Jovie, I love you.”

She takes a deep, quivering breath. “Then, let me go.”

I stare her down as my own tears start to burn my eyes. “Will you come back?” I ask.

Jovie takes the doorknob. She twists it slowly and pulls the door open, gently nudging me out of the way.

“Jovie,” I whisper, letting my hands fall to my sides. “I love you.”

She pauses with one foot out the door. “I love you, too,” she says.

I look down, unable to watch as she leaves. The door latches closed. I hear the loud screeching of her car door as she climbs inside. The engine turns over. She drives away.

I’ll be here when she comes back.

Ignorance may have been bliss but truth is binding.

She’s still my Jovie.

Now more than ever.