it worse, aren’t I?” I asked.
“No. Because I’m taking you back to my apartment and taking your phone away from you.”
“Good. Thanks, bro. I love you.”
“Eat another lousy crab puff and drink some water.”
Eighteen
“I think you need to just stop and think this through for a minute,” Isla said to me on the phone, while I paced in the gate area, pulling my rolling bag behind me.
I was flying back to England on Christmas Day because the airfare had been substantially cheaper. It was depressing as hell, but at the same time, I had wanted to escape. Put an ocean between me and my heartache and confusion. “Think what through? I have one week before my visa expires.”
“That’s seven days from now. Hang out for a few days, make sure you’ve approached this from every angle, let your emotions even out. Talk to Michael…”
That made my stomach tighten. “He broke up with me. I’m not sure what there is to talk about. He said if I walked out, we were done.”
“There is always something to talk about after a fight. That’s what this was. A fight. You can’t just end it without at least having a rational conversation.”
I blew my air out of my eyes and stopped pacing. “You of all people should be supporting me right now. He gave me an ultimatum. No one should do that to someone else.”
“I totally agree. But he just found out you’re pregnant and then you said you’re going back to England, which if we’re being honest here is a bit of an ultimatum in its own right. Maybe you both overreacted. Your relationship has been going at warp speed since day one. Slow it down and talk.”
“He’s never once said he loved me,” I told her. “Well. Once. After I told him to tell me and he did. God, worst proclamation of love ever.”
“Is he supposed to love you?” she asked. “Can he just care about you a lot and be falling in love with you? Again, it hasn’t been that long.”
“I love him.” She was starting to irritate me.
“Yeah, but, and don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t exactly wear your heart on your sleeve. You’re very hard to read.”
I wrinkled my nose. “How exactly am I not supposed to take that the wrong way? Look, I told myself not to fall in love with him until I knew he was in love with me, so I wouldn’t get hurt. But what did I do? Oh, I fell in love with him. Like, instantly. Probably within days if I’m being honest with myself. I’m hopeless.”
“I feel like you’re bringing your past relationship trust issues into this. You don’t trust his feelings.”
I plopped down on a hard plastic chair and pulled my suitcase between my legs. She was right. I knew she was right. How annoying was that? “I don’t know if it’s me he wants or the baby. I wish we’d talked before I took the test.”
“That ship has sailed, babe. You can’t go back. You have to decide if you want to fight for this relationship or not.”
“I don’t know what to do.” I rubbed my temple. “I’m trying to not get in trouble with American immigration and do the right thing for both me and my baby. I’m trying to be mature.”
“The mature thing to do is to call your fiancé. He is your legit fiancé, by the way. It was written all over his face at the party. He’s into you. Also, given what a prick his brother is, Michael seems to be a really nice guy.”
I groaned. “This is such a mess. How did this happen?”
“It happened because of a million weird little things. Like you talking to him as Savannah. Like him having clothes he needed you to sell. You leaving your tablet and group texting you wanted to shag him. You failing to mail your application.”
“That was the mailman’s fault.” It wasn’t really, because ultimately the buck stopped with me, but I was feeling a little bruised at the moment.
The overhead speaker announced boarding for my flight to Heathrow.
“That’s not my point. My point is that maybe your relationship was meant to be. You got pregnant basically your first night together. Maybe this is all the way it’s supposed to be.”
That made me wonder who had kidnapped and brainwashed Isla. That was not her approach to love or hell, life. “Who are you? Where is my friend Isla?”
She laughed. “Screw you.”
“You sound like Savannah.” It was unnerving. I relied on Isla to be the cynic in any given situation. I always used them both as outliers so that I could land somewhere in the middle.