Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)(103)

She pulled her face back. “What? What do you mean you’re not going to stay with him? Oye, estás siendo ridícula!”

“Mamá, just stop.”

“Pregnant, with a perfectly good man who loves you—do you think being a single parent is fun? You don’t remember how it was?”

“I can’t, Mamá.”

“Why?”

“Because it will hurt too much when he leaves!” I snapped.

She went silent.

“I can’t do it again,” I said, my voice wavering. “I can’t. Especially now. You don’t think I want to? That I don’t wish the idea of being pregnant and shacked up with a man I’m in love with didn’t scare the absolute shit out of me? I don’t even know what to feel right now. I don’t. I don’t even know if there’s going to be a baby in a week. And if there is, I don’t know that I can give her the childhood I had. It’s better this way, so when he leaves, it doesn’t break her—” I cracked on the last word and I buried my face in my hands.

I felt like a short-circuiting toy. Sparks popping and wires frayed. I’d been fine. A fully functional, happy human being. And then all at once I wasn’t.

I just sat there and cried. My sobbing was so loud I was glad Benny had a life now and he wasn’t home to hear it.

A hand squeezed my shoulder, and after a few minutes, I started to settle down.

Mom handed me a wad of tissues. “I’m sorry,” she said, softer now. “I never knew it affected you like that. I always thought it was me and you, and we did okay.”

I took a few deep, steadying breaths. “We did. We did do okay. That’s the only way I know how to be okay. On my own. Where I don’t have to trust anyone to be there.”

Mom paused for a long beat. “Briana…I know your dad wasn’t a good man and Nick wasn’t a good man. And maybe I taught you that none of them are and that’s my fault. I just wanted you to protect yourself, not to be afraid of loving again. I did. I found Gil. I’m happy. It’s the greatest revenge to be happy. To have a good life. So have one. With him.”

I took a deep breath. Then another. I looked up at my mother with wet eyes. “I love the quiet gentle life of that quiet gentle man,” I said. “I want to be brave enough to love him with my eyes closed. I just don’t think I can.”

I wished I could. Or I wished I loved him less. Because then the stakes wouldn’t be so high. There wouldn’t be as far to fall if he let me down—when he let me down. And I was already so far gone.

Jacob had managed to slip me into his life, so gently, so seamlessly, that I didn’t even realize how much of myself I’d already surrendered until I stood in his house this morning, suddenly fully awake.

When I was looking around his living room, it was like I’d blacked out three months ago and woke up pregnant and a common-law wife to a man I’d just met. That was the reality of this. I’d just met him. We hadn’t even gone through a full season yet together, and I was living with him and expecting his damn baby.

If I didn’t know Nick after twelve years, how could I possibly know Jacob after just a few months? And no matter how well you know someone, or for how long, you can never be in their head. You can never know what they’re really thinking. Even if it feels perfect, even if they feel perfect—perfect isn’t actually perfect.

There’s always the chance of rejection.

My heart wanted to believe that maybe Jacob was different. Maybe we were soul mates, and that’s why it had all happened so fast and so easily. But my brain screamed that I was just stupid—making impulsive, irresponsible decisions with a stranger. And it was one thing to do this when only my heart was on the line. But it was something else to do this to a child.

I had no doubt Jacob would be a wonderful daddy. He’d always want our baby. But he probably wouldn’t always want me. And I didn’t want my kid to have to see me crumble into a million pieces when that time came. Watch us separate one day, him packing his bags and moving out the way I’d watched my daddy do once.

I had to make choices now to protect her later.

I blinked into the room, staring through tears at the dark spots on the walls where posters used to be.

I couldn’t explain the intense, panicked flight response I was feeling. The need to run. Push him away before he hurt me, like all the other important men in my life had. Get myself to safety before it was too late, insulate myself before history repeated itself.

I put my face to my knees again.

I was desperate for him to tell me I hadn’t made a horrible mistake. I wanted Jacob to make me all the promises and tell me it was going to be okay, that I was safe and loved and he wanted this and he wanted me. I wanted him to tell me we were different, and I wished to God that I was the kind of undamaged person who could believe something like that.

But I wasn’t. And I probably never would be.





Chapter 46

Jacob



Briana called out of work on Monday and the day after. Those were the last two shifts we had until the time off for the surgery.

She had called me the night she left. She’d apologized in tears for snapping at me and told me she just needed some space. She’d asked if I could come over on Wednesday to talk. And so I waited for Wednesday. That was all I could do.