The Hardest Fall(106)

It was true; I was not planning on bothering him after I said everything I needed to say. If he didn’t want anything to do with me, that was just fine. I wasn’t going to force him to have a relationship with me, but I was done waiting for the truth to be known.

After a half-hearted invitation, I got in the passenger seat and suffered through a painfully quiet car ride to a diner a few minutes away from campus. I assumed he didn’t want anyone to see us together, and when he’d told me to say whatever I needed to say, I’d flat out refused to do it in a car.

I sat in the booth and waited for him to settle across from me.

He took his hat off and placed it on the table, messing with his hair. “I’m listening.”

I licked my lips and leaned forward. My hands were shaking in my lap under the table, but I thought I looked pretty zen on the outside, at least I hoped so. “This is not gonna sound good, but I’m gonna try to—”

“Hello, I’m Moira. What can I get you kids?”

I closed my eyes, willing my heart to slow down and not make a mess of everything.

“I’ll have a coffee, please,” Chris said.

Moira’s smiling face turned to me, and the warm smile shifted into a frown. “You feeling all right, honey?”

I managed a nod and had to clear my throat before I spoke. “Can I have some water, please?”

“Of course. I’ll be right back with those. Let me know if you need anything else.”

When Moira walked away, I looked at Chris again. He was watching me, eyes judging.

After years of waiting, I should’ve been ready for the talk, but there was still a big part of me that was afraid of rejection, and then there was the rest of me that was done with the whole thing.

I reached into my bag and took out the envelope. Squaring my shoulders, I placed it on the table and smoothed it with my hands.

“Here you go. Coffee for you, and water for you.” Moira placed a big mug in front of Chris and a gigantic glass of ice water in front of me. “You let me know if I can get you some tea with honey, okay? And maybe a slice of pie to go with it? It works wonders for me when I’m feeling off.”

I gave her a genuine smile and she left us alone.

“I can’t help you with Dylan. I have no idea what you did to him, but I’m not going to get—”

“This is not about Dylan. I told you that.” I smoothed the envelope again and his eyes dropped to watch me do it.

“Then I have no idea what you want to talk to me about, and I can’t really say I feel comfortable sit—”

Fuck it. I decided to just go for it.

“You won’t believe me, so I thought bringing this would help.” I pushed the envelope toward him and clasped my hands on the table when he reached for it.

“What is it?”

“Open it.”

I watched him read the single sheet of paper with bated breath. With every passing second, his frown got deeper and deeper. After he was done, he pushed away his coffee mug, put his elbows on the table, and leaned toward me, reading it again and again.

“Is this some sick joke?”

Before I could answer, he started reading it again, only this time he was reading it out loud.

“The alleged father, Mark Wilson, is not excluded as the biological father of the child, Zoe Clarke. Based on the genetic testing results obtained…the probability of paternity is 99.9999%.”

He glanced up at me.

“He wanted to make sure I was his, so we had it done three years ago.”

His brows moved up toward his hairline. “You…had it done three years ago?”

I swallowed. “Yes.”

He licked his bottom lip and leaned back, the test result still clutched in his hand. He read it again and again, and I waited patiently. I took a sip of my water and placed it back on the table, getting ready to tell him the rest. What surprised me the most was that I no longer felt like the world was about to end. I also didn’t feel light and happy, or anything close to it. Sure, I needed to pee very badly, but that always happened when I got really nervous about something. I was just relieved that it was happening and he finally knew at least fifty percent of it. The rest would be harder to hear and accept, but I wasn’t scared to tell him.

When he finally looked at me, I was ready to explain the rest.

“This…” He shook the paper in his hand. “Three years?”

I nodded.

He threw the paper on the table and rose to his feet.

“Chris, I—” I started, surprised that he was leaving. I scrambled to my feet, but he lifted his hand to stop me.

“Give me a minute.” He slowly backed away from the table, from me. “Don’t leave. I’ll be back.”

I nodded. “I won’t. I have more to say.”

Without another word, he walked out of the diner.

Trying to calm down, I patiently folded and stuffed the document back into the envelope then put it back in my bag.

Moira caught my eye and winked. God knows what she thought was going on.

I checked my phone. I sat back and listened to the family sitting behind me for a few minutes. They were talking about which movie they were going to watch that weekend, the little girl trying to convince her brother to go with her choice and the dad and mom weighing in. They sounded happy.