“I’m still not going,” I said, answering her unspoken question. “I don’t need to be there and I don’t want to see her, so I’ll just hear from my lawyer when it’s over.”
I almost gagged on the word. Lawyer. I sounded such a pretentious dick saying I had one. That word was usually reserved for rich people involved in huge cases, not twenty-three-year-olds who had been abused by their girlfriend.
“I hope she gets at least some jail time,” Evie said. “She deserves it.”
“She does. My lawyer thinks that with the severity of the injuries and the fact that I am still in counselling now means there’s a good chance she might, even though she has no other history of violence.”
“Good,” Evie said firmly, and I could almost see in her eyes that she was recalling how she’d found me in the hospital.
“Hey.” She looked up at me, and I said, “I appreciate you asking about the hearing, but you don’t get to avoid the real thing we’re supposed to be talking about.”
She wrinkled up her nose. “I wasn’t completely trying to do that.”
“I know.”
She clung onto her mug and let out a groan. “I don’t know, Ash. All day this has been circling around in my head, and there are only two things I’m certain of. One of them is that I don’t want to be pregnant, and the other is that I don’t want an abortion. Which makes this complicated.”
That was for sure.
“So…?” I prompted.
“So, I guess I’m going to have a baby.” Her eyes clouded over for a second. “But even the idea scares me. Because last time, I was so happy. I had a husband, and a home, and a baby was going to be the thing that tied it all together. The perfect life for us. And then it was gone. Just like that. One minute, my baby was alive, kicking around inside me, and then it all stopped. And now, well, I still have a home but I don’t have a husband. It’s not that that’s bothering me though. I’m not ready to be pregnant again and I never thought I would be. I stopped taking the pill because I was single and I wasn’t sleeping with anyone so, no problem. And it shouldn’t have been a problem that night with Jay because we used a condom. But as you pointed out, nothing is completely safe.”
Brushing over the thought of her with her ex, I said, “Is there anything that would make being pregnant easier? Is there anything anyone can do to make it better?”
She shook her head again. “Not really. I think this has to come from me, but I can’t feel anything. Last time when I found out I was pregnant, I felt an instant connection to the life growing inside me. This time, I don’t feel anything. I don’t want to feel anything, because if it doesn’t work out again… I don’t think I can handle it. If I don’t get attached, then maybe I’ll be able to get through it.”
I could tell from her eyes that she hated herself for saying those words, but I also knew she didn’t mean it.
That woman was born to be a mother, and when her hand rested lightly on her stomach, I knew she was already attached, even if she was trying not to be.
“You know that’s not true, right?” I asked carefully. “Attached or not, if something is wrong, it’s going to hurt no matter how much you pretend.”
She pushed her drink away and stood up, turning away from me, and I instantly regretted my words. I was trying to be helpful, but I was making matters worse.
This was a topic I knew nothing about. I’m not a woman, and I couldn’t understand. What I could understand, though, was that she was in pain and I was a twat because I was doing nothing to make her feel better.
If that was Natalie, that walking away thing would be while she figured out how she was going to punish me. Out of habit, I started to move my chair back, readying myself for when she flew at me before reminding myself where I was and who I was with.
“I know that,” Evie said quietly. “I know. But this is all so… it was not how I intended for my life to go. And I have to tell myself something. I have to try and avoid the pain because if I don’t protect myself, if I don’t prepare myself, I’ll be knocked sideways when it all goes wrong and-”
“It might not go wrong,” I interrupted. “I know what you’re doing, but it doesn’t work. I’ve been there. Not with this situation, obviously, but pretending not to care about the things that matter. And I know you have too because you told me. It’s like putting a bandage over a bruise. Sure, you won’t see it anymore, but it’ll still hurt.”
“So, what do I do then?” She spun around to face me, tears in her wide eyes, as if begging me to tell her the answer. Seeing her like that tugged at my fucking heart because she didn’t deserve to hurt. She didn’t deserve to feel so uncertain and afraid. She was special. Sweet, and kind, and she deserved the goddamn world.
“You feel, Evie,” I told her. “Just feel whatever it is you need to feel. And you talk. Talk to me the way I talked to you when I needed it. Don’t block people out.”
“You make it sound so easy.” She unpinned her hair from the complex updo it had been in when we went out to dinner and combed it out with her fingers, like she was trying to calm herself down, or distract herself.
“It’s not easy,” I said, trying not to stare at her. But she looked so beautiful as her fingers carefully eased her dark hair down around her shoulders. It had a slight curl to it, and it looked so much nicer like that than when it was straight. The only time it looked better was when she was working and it was piled up messily on top of her head.
Well, fuck.
It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed how pretty she was. Far from it, actually. But I never overthought it. Or, I tried not to. It was getting harder the more I got to know her. I knew my place, though. I knew she cared about me, but she saw me more like a younger brother than someone she was attracted to. There was nothing I could offer a woman like her, so I mostly pushed those thoughts about her far away.
Some days, like right then, she made it difficult.
“Evie,” I said hesitantly, because this part was really none of my business. I just needed to know. When she looked at me, I said, “What will happen with Jay? Do you… do you think you’ll get back together?”