Indefinite (Salvation #6)(33)

This is even worse because he knows I did it to provoke him. Damn it. “Because I was feeling bitchy. I don’t want you following me around. I don’t want to know you’re there but not be able to see you. I don’t want to feel any of these things.”

“Feel what things?”

Oh, no. We’re not doing this. “I have to go to work.”

“You can’t have it both ways. You can’t want me to be there and not see me at the same time as you want to see me but not want me around.”

“You’re the one who came back and told me you love me,” I say the last word in air quotes.

“I want to show you that I’m not the same man who deployed six months ago. What I went through over there, it changed me. I just need you to give me a chance. Let me show you that I love you, Ashton. Let me prove it.”

All the fight drains out of me. Why does he have to say things like this? Why now when I finally have a plan?

“I . . . I need to go to work, Quinn. I have to think, and I . . . I don’t know that I can put myself out there again. I don’t know if I can relinquish my plans again only to end up alone.”

His blue eyes fill with disappointment. “I understand. I’ll be here when you’re done. I’ll be here until you can trust me again.”

I turn and walk toward my building, hating this day.

Broken trust is a long and hard road to repair. There are obstacles and hairline fractures that we don’t always see, and I worry that if we travel down that way, a patch will give out, sending us into the ditch.





17


Ashton





After the day on the street, I haven’t seen Quinn once. It’s been seven days of me moping around, looking for him, and trying to play Where’s Waldo, but coming up with nothing. This is what I wanted, but yet I feel broken.

Even with my best friend here to take me to my appointment, I’m miserable.

“What’s wrong? Today should be a happy day!” Gretchen says as she nudges me. “You’re going to get the medicine and give Clara your choice. It’s a big day, Ash and number twenty is a lucky guy. Be happy.”

“I should be, but . . .”

“But you miss Quinn?”

“Shut up.”

She laughs. “Look, you guys have a long history, and it’s normal to miss him.”

“It’s been a week. And almost three weeks of him being around all the time, now he’s invisible. . .” Her eyes cast down and toward the side. What is with my friends and their withholding of information. Jesus. “What are you not telling me?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you if I’m clearly holding back.” Gretchen trips over the words.

“Well, too bad.”

She starts to fidget. “Fine, he’s in Virginia Beach, which is why I came a week earlier. Apparently, you’re not supposed to be alone so . . . yeah.”

He left? He left and didn’t tell me? What the hell is that? And then, he sends my best friend to babysit me. This is ridiculous.

And then my brain starts to function and I put together why he would leave on today of all days. “He knows what is happening today doesn’t he? That’s why he suddenly had to go to Virginia?”

“No, actually, he doesn’t. Or at least, I don’t think he does. He’s meeting with some navy people or something. It was all official business, but if he does know . . .” She trails off, seeming to come to the same distinction I did.

“Yeah. It would make sense.”

“Well, we can’t change him, we can only talk about you and how you could be pregnant in a few weeks.”

I nod. “Yeah, it’s everything I wanted.”

Gretchen looks at me and then releases a soft sigh. “It doesn’t sound very convincing.”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay, if you say so, but you’re lying and we both know it.”

I seem to be doing a lot of that lately, mostly to myself. I know this is what I want, but I wanted it with someone. No one plans to live out their life like this. Most girls dream of the man, not just the baby. I know I did.

It was just the wrong guy in the dream.

Facing that reality today is the saddest part.

Gretchen hooks her arm around mine as we walk into the clinic. “Well, I am happy for you. Cat really wishes she could be here too.”

“Oh, that would’ve been a fun day. The three of us together as I find out when I can get knocked up.”

She laughs. “Of all of us, the most likely to be involved in a threesome is you.”

The sad part is that she’s not wrong. “I love you both but not that much.”

“Oh, please. You’ve tried to kiss me once.”

I burst out in a fit of giggles. Leave it to Gretchen to make me feel better. “I was drunk.”

“I know, but you laughed.”

I rest my head on her shoulder. “Thank you for being here.”

“Always.”

And that’s the thing about my life. I may not have the man that I thought I would, but I have friends and family that others would kill for. It makes this bittersweet moment not so hard to deal with, and I know that I’m going to be fine. I also know that, in time, I’ll find what I want . . . even if that man isn’t going to be Quinn.