With a hollow ringing in my ears I say, “I have this feeling, just this gut feeling, that I won’t be able to get pregnant. The moment the doctor mentioned infertility, it was like it just clicked.”
Kimberly grabs my hand on the table. “You don’t know that for sure. And not to be a downer, but Hardin doesn’t want kids anyway, right?”
Even with the small knife twisting into my chest from her words, I feel better now that I have told someone about my worries. “No. He doesn’t. He doesn’t want children or marriage with me.”
“Were you hoping he would change his mind?” She gives me a little squeeze.
“Yes, sadly I was. I was almost sure he would. Not right now of course but years from now. I thought maybe if he was older and we both were finished with college, he would eventually change his mind. But now that seems even more delusional than before.” I feel my cheeks flush in embarrassment. I can’t believe I’m actually saying these things aloud. “I know I sound ridiculous worrying over children at my age, but being a mother was always something I wanted since I can remember. I don’t know if it’s because my mother and father weren’t the best parents, but I have always felt this urge, this need, to be a mother. Not just a mother, but a really good one—a mother that would love her children unconditionally. I would never judge them or belittle them. I would never pressure them or humiliate them. I wouldn’t try to mold them into a better version of myself.”
At first, talking about this, I felt insane. But Kimberly is nodding along to everything I’m saying, making me feel like maybe I’m not the only one who feels this way. “I think I would be a good mother, if I was ever given the chance, and the idea of a little brown-haired, gray-eyed little girl running into Hardin’s arms brings my heart to my throat. I imagine it sometimes. I know it’s stupid, but sometimes I picture them sitting there, both of them with unruly wavy hair.” I laugh at the ludicrous vision, one that I have imagined far more times than could possibly be considered normal. “He would read to her and carry her on his shoulders, and she would have him wrapped around her finger.”
I force a smile, trying to erase the sweet image from my head. “But he doesn’t want that, and now that he has learned about Christian being his father, I know he never, ever will.”
Tucking my hair behind my ears, I’m surprised, and more than a little proud of myself, that I made it through all that without a single tear.
Chapter ten
HARDIN
I wish you could stay with me forever.”
Tessa had said that against my chest. It’s what I wanted to hear. It’s what I need to hear, forever.
But why would she possibly want forever with me? What would that even be like? Tessa and I in our forties with no children, no marriage—just the two of us?
That would be perfect, for me. That would be my absolute ideal future, but I know that would never be enough for her. We’ve had the same argument too many times to count, and I know that she would be the first to cave, because I never would. Being an asshole means being the most stubborn. And she would give up having children and a marriage for me.
Besides, what kind of father would I be? A shitty one, that’s for damn sure. I can’t get through the question in my mind without laughing—it’s ridiculous to even consider. As fucked-up as this trip has been, it’s been a giant fucking wake-up call for me when it comes to my relationship with Tessa. I’ve always tried to warn her, tried to keep her from going down with me, but I never tried hard enough. If I’m being honest, I know I could have pushed harder to keep her safe from me, but, selfishly, I couldn’t. Now seeing the way that her life will be with me, I have no other choice. This trip has cleared the romantic fog from my head, and miraculously, I have been granted the opportunity to have an easy way out. I can send her back to America, and she can get on with her life.
Tessa’s future with me is nothing but a lonely, black hole for her. I would get everything I wanted from her—her constant love and affection for years and years—but she would be left unfulfilled, and as every year passes, she will resent me more and more for depriving her of what she truly wanted. I might as well cut out the middleman and save her the wasted time.
When I arrive at Gabriel’s, I quickly throw Tessa’s bag into the backseat and head back to Kimberly’s hotel. I need a plan, a solid fucking plan that I will actually stick to. She is too stubborn and too in love with me to just give up on me.
That’s her problem, she’s one of those people who will give and give without taking, and the fucked-up truth is that people like her are the easiest prey for someone like me, who takes and takes until there is nothing left. That’s what I have done since the beginning, and that’s what I will always do.
She will try to convince me otherwise; I know she will. She will say that marriage isn’t important anymore, but she would just be lying to herself to keep me around. That says a lot about me, that I have manipulated her into loving me so unconditionally. The masochist in me starts to doubt her love as I drive.
Does she love me as much as she says, or is she addicted to me? There is a heady difference, and the more shit she puts up with from me, the more it seems like an addiction, the thrill of waiting for me to fuck up again so she can be there to fix me.
That’s what this is: she must see me as a project, someone she can fix. The conversation has come up before, more than once, but she refused to admit it.
I fish through my memories for a specific encounter and finally find it floating somewhere in my muddled, hungover brain.