Loving Dallas(79)

“Even if you don’t want them to tell you if you’re carrying a boy or a girl today, it’s good to check on the baby. And I’d like to see if they can give you something mild to calm your nerves while we wait for news.”

Her knuckles are white on the steering wheel. I’m stressing her out and I feel bad but I can’t hide this. I’ve always been so good at hiding my emotions, keeping up the tough-chick exterior, but I can’t anymore.

“Did I ever tell you why we broke up?” My throat is raw and my words are raspy.

Katie glances over at me. “No. I don’t think so.”

I lean my head against the window, agitated that the sun has the audacity to shine today. It’s cold out, but the damn sky couldn’t even cooperate with my gloomy mood.

“I was supposed to go on a six-week summer tour with his band, help with their outreach and social media and such.” I close my eyes. I can still remember it so clearly. I was so excited about the road trip. We’d both been so busy—me with school and him with odd jobs and the band—we were looking forward to the time together. “I had a music mix made and everything. A lifetime supply of beef jerky. All the road trip must-haves. That was supposed to be an epic summer.”

“Sounds fun.”

I swallow hard while trying not to lose myself in the memories. “It should’ve been. But then my mom got sick. She had stage two breast cancer. The lumpectomy wasn’t enough. She spent the summer in chemo treatments.”

“I’m so sorry, Robyn. I didn’t know.”

“She’s doing really great now and she’s big on looking forward, so I try not to dwell.”

“Sounds smart,” Katie says, side-eying me as she drives. “But surely Dallas understood. I mean it wasn’t like you just blew him off for no reason. It was your mom.”

“I didn’t tell him. I just bailed on the trip and told him I thought we needed some space. I can’t even remember exactly what I said. But it hurt him. It hurt us. When he came back at the end of the summer things were different. Over.”

I don’t tell her how many nights I lay awake wondering how things might have been different if I’d just told him the truth.

“Wow. Well . . . You were young, Robyn. People make mistakes. I’m sure Dallas has made plenty. He’s probably forgotten all about it by now.”

“He hasn’t. He mentioned it in Nashville, when I tried to blow him off the night I got sick. And we talked about it a little in the airport before he left.” Tears stream down my face as I continue. “I almost did the same thing with the pregnancy. I just didn’t want to stand in the way of his dreams, you know? Just like I didn’t want this baby to derail his success like I ended up doing that summer even though it was the last thing I wanted. But now I have this piece of him forever and I can’t even be grateful for that. I keep thinking, what if this is all that’s left? What if I never get to see him or hold him or kiss him again?”

“Don’t think like that. Let’s just focus on today, okay?”

Katie does her best to console me, but I’m gone, over the edge of sanity and dissolving into a puddle of misery. I can’t wipe my tears away fast enough.

Everything that happens after that is fuzzy. We go into the sterile gray offices and wait until they call my name. The technician does the ultrasound, placing it in an envelope and telling me the baby’s sex is printed on there for when I’m ready to look.

Katie, God love her, murmurs softly to the doctor about what’s going on with the father, but she doesn’t name him, which I am grateful for. I hear them talking about bed rest and keeping my stress level and blood pressure down.

I leave with my envelope in hand feeling grateful for Katie but knowing I’m going to have to start handling these things on my own. Just like I will have to face the rest of my life on my own.

Katie squeezes my hand as we leave the office and step out into the sunshine. I stare at the sidewalk. The not knowing is awful, but I think it might be better than confirmation that he’s gone.

“Robyn,” Katie gasps, squeezing my free hand. “Look up, sweetie.”

I rub my eyes behind my sunglasses. They’re still sore from crying. “Why? Can’t you be my Seeing-Eye friend? My head is killing me.”

“Because you need to see for yourself. Dallas is fine. He’s okay.”

“What? How do you know that?” My heart races nearly out of my chest as I look around for a newsstand or television screen or something announcing this.

She laughs, grips me by my shoulders, and turns me to face the opposite direction. “Because he’s standing right there.”





42 | Dallas

ROBYN COMES OUT OF THE BUILDING JUST AS I’M CROSSING THE street and I finally feel like I’ve found my center of gravity.

Two hitched rides, a flight with a layover that involved a dead sprint across an airport, and one smelly cab ride later, I made it. Judging from the envelope in her hand, I missed her appointment, but I promise myself that it’s the last one I’ll miss.

“There’s my girl,” I say as she bolts across the street and into my arms. “Hey, baby.”

She’s a wreck, crying and sobbing and saying incoherent words I can’t make a single bit of sense of. I look over her head at her assistant.