All I Ask(58)

I should’ve known this is where he’d want to go.

We pull up to the far end of the beach where we would meet all the time. In every way, this is our spot. The place where two kids found someone who would forever be a part of the other.

“You wanted to walk here instead of the town we were just in?” I ask as I exit my car.

“Was there any other option?”

I shake my head. “No. This is probably exactly the best place.”

Derek walks over with a blanket and takes my hand in his. “Come on.”

We make our way to the shore, set up a cozy spot, and sit. Twenty years ago, I would’ve sat in front of him, his arms around my middle, my head resting on his chest as I stared out at the sea, but now, we’re beside each other.

“Do you remember the night you told me you were pregnant?”

I release a half laugh because it wasn’t funny. I was more afraid of him than of my parents. Disappointing him was the last thing I wanted to do. Not to mention, I was horrified it happened.

“I don’t know that I could forget. I threw up four times before I saw you.”

“Well, you were pregnant.”

“It was nerves.”

He shifts so our shoulders are touching. “I felt so many things that day, it was really the first time I started to wonder if what I felt for you was more than friendship.”

“That was the day?”

“I was so pissed because I kept thinking it shouldn’t be Keith. He didn’t deserve to have that piece of you. I was beyond angry and couldn’t wrap my head around why. Which pissed me off further.”

I laugh. “Sounds like you.”

He wasn’t the only one pissed. I had the same emotions because I didn’t want to have a baby with Keith. I didn’t even want to be with him, but I was young and stupid. My feelings for Derek were growing by that point, and I knew he was who I loved, I just didn’t know how to express that.

Then I found out I was pregnant and it felt like I’d missed that chance.

“Yeah, but then…”

“Then you had Meghan.”

As angry or hurt as I was, I never told him how I felt. It wasn’t like he knew I was in love with him, but God, I couldn’t handle it.

I don’t know that it makes any of this any easier, but it’s the truth.

“I really didn’t know what I was feeling.”

“You don’t have to explain, Derek. We were kids, you were confused, I was pregnant, and it all fell apart. I will tell you, there is nothing close to the level of heartbreak I felt when I watched you marry her.”

I’ve never felt that level of emotional pain. Knowing he was going to pick her with me standing there. Watching them profess their love when all I wanted was for him to love me the way I loved him. It was excruciating. I wanted to be happy for him, God I tried, but I couldn’t.

There was the man I wanted to marry, marrying someone else.

I couldn’t do or say anything.

I was trapped, watching it, pretending my tears weren’t because my heart was being torn from my body.

When we stopped talking, it was different because he’d already hurt me once. I guess that makes me a fool, but…

He shakes his head. “I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t. But even if you did, would it have changed anything?”

Derek’s mouth forms into a thin line. “I want to say yes, but I really don’t know. I loved Meghan and I was so hell-bent on proving I loved her, then we got married.”

“And she was pregnant.”

He nods with a laugh. “Yeah, there was that. Were you angry?”

I shake my head. “I couldn’t be. You were doing the right thing by marrying her, where Keith was doing the opposite. Besides”—I smile and nudge him—“Derek Hartz is a good man who would always be the kind of man who married the girl he loved and knocked up.”

“Great. That’s what you think of me.”

“It was never a bad thing. I just was afraid that things were going to change even more than my life was already spiraling out of my control. I had hoped and prayed that I could have you at least as a friend. I would find a way, I knew I would, but I needed you.”

And he left me anyway.

“Do you think, in some way, it was what we needed?”

“Is there really a right answer to that?”

He shakes his head. “No. Probably not.”

“On one hand, we were so young and I was…not ready for a real relationship, being pregnant when I felt like my life had imploded, so who knows if we would’ve made it? On the other hand, I would’ve liked to have tried.”

Derek leans his arms behind him, looking up at the sky. “I think I had to lose you.”

I wait for him to elaborate and when he doesn’t, I decide to push. “You what?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but you were…you. You were Teagan, my Teagan. Even when you were with Keith, I knew we weren’t really like that. I had this ridiculous delusion as to what our lives would be and I was so fucked in the head that when that vision was shattered because you wouldn’t leave him, I rebelled. I knew that you would never love me, at least that’s what I convinced myself of. By the time I got my head out of my ass, it was too late. I was married with a baby on the way. I had done permanent damage and continued to destroy everything.” He sits back up and his voice is a little broken. “I didn’t deserve you then. I’m not sure that I do now either, but I know that I would like to try.”