The Space In Between(57)

I paused as he turned back to me and I stared into his eyes. “My name is Andrea.”
His body shifted as his eyebrows frowned, recognizing his mistake. “I know that.”
My body began to tremble. I could hardly hold myself up, but I did my best not to show it. “You just called me Iris. See? This isn't real. You and me. We are two screwed up people trying to get over those who screwed up our minds.”
“Stop,” he begged. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.
“Your mom tried to fix your dad and look how that worked out for her. Stop following in her footsteps. Stop trying to fix other people…”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your plan, Cooper. To try to fix people who are terribly broken. Iris messed up your first plan. She was too damaged for you to fix. So I'm your second choice.”
“That's not it.”
“Then what is it, Cooper? What happens when I mess up your plans? Do you run off and get a third?” He didn’t answer right away. His face fell to the ground and he rubbed his hands across his mouth, annoyed by my questions.
“Andrea.”
“But the truth is, you're my second choice. If Derrick were here...”
“He's not. He's dead Andrea. Derrick is gone.” He looked at me in the most sincere fashion, but his words bit me. His words slapped me. His words almost f*cking slaughtered me.
“Stop it.” I softly spoke. The trembling was getting worse. Crap.
“You're living in a lonely place. And it’s dark and scary. And whenever you get close to moving on you panic and run back into your shell. And the truth of the matter is you don’t even know who Derrick really was.”
“Don’t you dare talk about him!” How could he say that? How could he speak about the one person who loved me?
“He cheated on you, Andrea,” he said quietly. So quiet that I almost missed the words.
What a sick bastard. I couldn’t believe he would stoop that low. “Get out!”
His face dropped and he realized what he’d said. “I’m sorry…”
“You’re disgusting. You were so desperate that you actually paid someone to spend fifteen minutes with you in a dirty club.” I wanted to make him hurt the way he’d attacked me with his words.
“Don’t do this,” he begged, his concentrated eyes glossing over with water.
I had to. “You are so pathetic that you found the need to sleep with someone from the strip club. You’re a f*cking creep.”
He tossed his hands up in defeat. “What do you want from me? You want me to yell at you? Is that what you want?” He raised his voice to a level that was somewhat frightening. “You want me to f*cking yell?! You want me to tell you that you were, in fact, the whore I paid to spend fifteen minutes with?”
“You should leave. Really. Whatever this was was fun. But it's over.”
“So that's it?” I remained silent when he asked. “What’s going on in your head, Andrea?”
“I took a pregnancy test in New York.” His eyes widened and pure shock washed over him. My insides twisted tighter. I knew what I was about to say would make him leave forever. “It was negative. And you know how I felt? Happy. Because I would never want someone to have such an * as their father. You would make a terrible parent. And you would walk out on us just like you did Iris and your daughter.”
All color was drained from him. He was silent for a moment before he nodded his head in understanding. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he rocked back and forth. The same way he rocked the first night I met him in the club… “Maybe you're right. Maybe we are two people trying to make something work when, in all honesty, it just isn't there. “
He turned to leave and looked towards the magazine covers one last time. “And for the record, I would never abandon my child. It's kind of hard to abandon something that was never yours. Tell your tabloids to get their shitty facts straight.”
And with that, he was gone. My body continued to shake, but I turned to face the mirror, ran my hands across the back of my neck, and went back to smoothing out my dress.
I had a party to get to.





THE MOMENT I walked into the ballroom, I knew it was going to be a long night. But first, I had to dance. Thank God for dance. The group lined up. I avoided eye contact with Cooper and followed the steps. When I passed Ladasha, she whispered, “Are you all right?” I shook my head and kept moving. I switched to Cooper as my partner and looked away from him, our fingers hardly touching.
I overheard Bobby, Eric’s best friend, telling Michelle tonight was the night. I had no clue what they were talking about. But I didn’t care. I didn’t have room for more drama. I kept moving. Eric looked at me with worried eyes as I curtseyed towards him and moved to Steve.
“You all right, Andrea?” he whispered.
My eyes started to tear up when I heard him ask. I was breaking. We switched partners. I glided by Rachel and she looked at me with concern. She turned towards me. “You found out?”
Wow, the gossip queens got around fast. I nodded to her as we moved around the group again. Once again, I was the main talk of the town. As I danced past Rachel again, she said, “It only happened a few times after you went to college.”
My eyes froze on her as she flowed around again. I curtseyed towards Bobby, and kept moving with my eyes on Rachel. When she came back around I had a knot in my stomach and listened to her say, “And after you two got engaged it only happened once after that. We felt it was wrong.”