Best I Ever Had

Sitting back, I’m in awe of him. “I appreciate that you recognize the position I was in and that you’re not holding that grudge between us. I also need you to know that it was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. But your mother . . .” I shudder, remembering how inferior she made me feel. “She treated me so horribly.”

“I know I can’t make it better, but know that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for ever putting you in their path.”

“Once she threatened to have me arrested . . .” I wrap my arms around my belly. “She didn’t know I was pregnant, but I couldn’t risk the baby to see you. She made me choose. I was so close to you, but I couldn’t take the risk.”

His brow twists and pinches together in the middle. “What are you talking about?”

“When I came to tell you I was pregnant.” Judging by his expression, he doesn’t register what I’m saying. “I drove to the Haywood house. You didn’t come see me, so I went searching for you instead.”

The vinyl squeaks under him when he sits back and scratches the back of his neck. “When was that exactly?”

“I don’t know the date. I think Saturday or Sunday. After our big fight. When I found out about your involvement—”

“The fight in the rain?” He deflates, his expression falling with his shoulders. “You drove from Atterton to tell me you were pregnant?”

“I did, but your mother wouldn’t let me see you.”

Leaning forward, he takes my hand. It’s a bold move, but the dormant butterflies in my stomach are awakened as he holds it again. “I need you to listen to me, Story.”

“Okay, but you’re scaring me.”

His hold on me tightens. “I don’t mean to. I just . . . Wow. I . . .” He looks up at the ceiling and then takes a deep breath. When he turns back to me, he says, “I was never told you came by.”

“I’m not surprised.” I can’t help but inject my own commentary when it involves his parents.

“My phone was stolen, and I didn’t get a replacement for a while. You were going to tell me about the baby?”

“Of course. I never said goodbye.” I caress his cheek, trying to calm the frenzy in his eyes. “I knew that no matter what was said or happened prior, you deserved to know about our child.”

Water glistens in his eyes. “You tried to tell me.”

He’s not asking the question, but it lies in the greens of his eyes. “Yes. I drove to Haywood and made it halfway up the stairs before she told me I had to leave or I’d be arrested. I wouldn’t have put it past her to call the police on me.”

A mixture of sadness and anger weaves through his striking features. “Neither would I.” When he turns to me again, joy is populating his irises. “But you tried. You fucking tried for me.”

I nod as his joy catches fire inside me.

A darkness rolls in, tamping the joy he’d found. He says, “The fight outside your apartment . . . when you left, I went looking for your ex.”

It takes me a moment to piece together that time. “Troy?”

“We had a long-standing feud way before he met you.” Directing his gaze to our clasped hands, he continues, “I didn’t want to die. I just no longer wanted to feel.”

Fear unnerves me as I try to riddle through what that means. “Cooper, what did you do?”

“I didn’t have you, and I didn’t care about anything else, much less myself. I didn’t fight back because I didn’t matter.”

I find his eyes, returning him from the distant memory he was losing himself in. “You always matter to me.” The words come easy and flow from my tongue. Not past but present tense.

Reed stirs, and I’m on my feet. It’s a false alarm as his breathing evens again, and he stays asleep. With my little guy sleeping comfortably, I stand at the window and stare out again. Cooper looks up from the loveseat. “Until today, I never knew you tried to tell me.”

Leaning against the wall, using it to hold me up from the life that’s brought me down, I ask, “You threw yourself to the wolves because you didn’t think I cared.”

“I spent months bitter that I had survived while recuperating. Bitter I didn’t have you in my life.”

It’s a gut punch of information. “It’s frustrating because our lives could have been so different.”

He stands behind me and rubs my arms. “I could have been a dad this whole time.” He leans in and whispers, “I could have been with you all these years.” Those are the words that will haunt me—what could have been.

Does it matter now? We can’t change the past. Does an opportunity lie in the future?