Unintended

“Well, how would you feel if I moved back?”

“To Stockport?” I thought about it for a minute. “I guess that would be useful, if it’s what you really want to do. I know you have a good job here though, so, if you wanted to stay-”

“No,” he interrupted. “Not just to Stockport. I mean, that would be a starting point, but what if you and I… do you think we could… Can we try again?”

His question caught me off-guard, which was stupid. Because a tiny part of me had wondered if he would suggest it. And a tiny part of me had also wondered how I’d feel about that.

But not once was I unsure of my answer.

“Is that what you want?” I asked him carefully. I swallowed down some orange juice, waiting.

“Maybe,” he said, his brown eyes on me, but as I looked into them, I saw his doubts swirling inside them. And they were valid. More than valid. “Do you want that?”

I shook my head. “No. Because, even if we wanted to try, there’s a reason our marriage ended. We let it all fall apart, and there’s no way to ever repair or replace that. We’d never be able to forget, Jay. You’d always remember me as the woman who let you down when you needed me, and I would always think of you as the guy who walked out on me for someone else. We can’t mend that. Not ever.”

He was quiet for a couple of minutes, as if thinking that through. Finally, he said, “You’re right. But…” He reached over and took my hand again. “If that was what you wanted, please know I would have done everything I could to try and make it work.”

I nodded, those damn tears burning my eyes again. “I know you would. And I would have tried too if I thought it made any kind of sense. But it doesn’t. We’re both different people now.”

“But, this does mean that we will need to break that no seeing each other rule.”

I laughed lightly, my tears disappearing again. “I know. I wouldn’t cut you out of your children’s lives, Jay. I want you to be there for as much as you can be. I have a scan in a couple of weeks, and if you can get down then-”

“I’ll be there,” he said, picking up his drink. This time it was less from shock and slightly more in celebration. “I’ll be there for everything you need me to be there for.”

Letting my head drop back against the couch’s headrest, I said, “Thank you. Thank you for being so understanding and accepting.”

And for not asking if the babies are actually yours. It spoke volumes about how well we knew each other though, even after everything. He knew I wouldn’t be there if he wasn’t the father, and I knew he wouldn’t question what I’d told him because I’d never lied to him before. Why would I start now?

“Evie, when I came to see you at New Year, everything was a mess.” I sat up straighter as his tone became serious. “I broke up with Julia a few months before, and you were all I could think about. Not trying to get back with you, but just seeing you and talking to you. It was like all the guilt I had for leaving caught up with me at once, and as much as I knew it would hurt you to talk about it, all I wanted to do was tell you I was sorry. And yeah, I could have sent a text, but what good would that have done? I needed to tell you. To be in a room with you and talk because it was the one thing we hadn’t done. Not properly. Not without one of us breaking down or shouting or storming out. I thought enough time had passed that we could do it, and I was right.”

I nodded. “You were. And it did hurt. I bet you never thought it would end up the way it did.”

“Not once. And I imagined a lot of things. But never that.”

“It was a strange time. Sometimes I think that, if you’d come a day later, or a day earlier, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. There was just something about that day, and all the emotion we’d kept inside.”

“The perfect storm,” he said, with another laugh.

It really was. That entire week, all of my emotions had been tied up with Ash. With helping him, and with making sure he was okay. Then, on that one day, I’d woken up with the mindset of blowing off everything that had been holding me back before. That was why I’d booked the tattoo for New Year’s Eve and why I was so determined to go to Keely and Nick’s, even for a little while. Just to see people, and get ready to start anew.

I wasn’t one of those people who thought the reset button could only be pushed at the beginning of a new year, but that particular time, it seemed to be the right thing.

When Jay had appeared at Keely’s, I’d been afraid but inspired. Inspired to say goodbye to him once and for all. If he could take the time to come find me, then I could take the time to hear him out.

“Do you wish we hadn’t… you know?” Jay asked, his eyes going back to the scan photo before he placed it back into the envelope. “Even before you knew you were pregnant. Do you wish we hadn’t?”

I shook my head. “No. It sounds like such a cliché thing to say, but we hadn’t really said goodbye to everything we had. And… that didn’t have to happen. But we went through so much together. I think people who loved each other as much as we did… all that emotion had to go somewhere.”

“I did love you, Evie. I loved you so much.”

“I know. I loved you too.”

We sat for a while in a comfortable silence. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t thinking about anything. I was just enjoying my mind being quiet for a while. It wouldn’t last long. It never did. But this had gone better than I could have hoped. No drama. No fighting. No awkwardness.

“So…” Jay said finally, looking at me over his bottle, a tiny but cheeky smile on his lips. “Do you want to tell me more about that guy from New Year’s Eve?”

After getting home from Nick’s, I knew I was in for a long evening, and I lay down on my bed, flicking on the TV but turning the volume down. It was just