“Yeah,” she said with an uncomfortable laugh, shaking her head.
“I’m fuckin’ this up,” I muttered.
“You think?” she replied sarcastically.
“I wanna see where this goes,” I said, laying it out. I’d been watching her and making sure she was okay, but I couldn’t quite ignore the fact that I wanted her. Bad. More than I had ever wanted anyone in my life. Every day she grew stronger, I wanted her more. She brushed her teeth and I wanted to kiss her. She took a shower, and I stood outside the door imagining her naked. She slept and it took all I had to bed down on the floor instead of crawling in next to her.
It was frustrating, but not the way I’d imagined it would be. I mean, the sexual frustration was there, but it was more than that. I wanted her to look at me like she used to. When I looked in her eyes now, all I saw was suspicion and a sort of reserved acknowledgement of our connection. I wanted back in there, all the way in there, but she wasn’t giving me much to work with.
“We know where this goes,” she said softly. “I give you everything and you screw someone else.”
“Fuck,” I breathed, running a hand over my face.
“I’m thankful for what you’ve done,” she said, her voice still soft. “But whatever we had before is gone.”
“No it ain’t,” I replied, refusing to believe it. No one got worked up and angry like she did unless there was still something there. She’d said she loved me. That had to count for something.
“I came to tell you I was pregnant,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “When I found you…you know. That’s why I was there.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, the words tasting unfamiliar in my mouth. I could count on one hand the times I’d said them as an adult. The memory of that night was never far from my mind. She’d looked devastated as I’d scrambled to pull my jeans up. It hadn’t been my proudest moment.
“It doesn’t matter how sorry you are,” she said. “It still happened.”
“If I could go back and change things, I would.”
“But you can’t,” she argued. “There’s nothing you can do. There’s no way you can fix it.”
“I get that you’re angry,” I said, taking a step forward.
“Angry?” She scoffed. “I’m not angry anymore. I just don’t care.”
The words were flat, her voice monotone, but her eyes were so fucking sad that I had a hard time breathing. I’d done that. I’d done whatever the fuck I wanted with whoever the fuck I wanted and I’d never worried about the consequences, and now all of that was coming back to bite me on the ass because I’d screwed over the first woman that I actually cared about.
“You don’t feel anything for me?” I asked, reaching out to cup her face in my hand. “Nothin’?”
She leaned into my palm and I almost sighed in relief.
“I can’t do it,” she said, almost apologetically. “We can’t go back.”
“Nah, baby,” I said as her eyes grew wet. “We’ll go forward, yeah? Start fresh.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I do.” I pulled her to me and kissed the top of her head. “You’re already doin’ it. New place, new life, new man. It all goes together.”
“Until it doesn’t,” she mumbled into my shirt.
“Vera.” I leaned back just a little so she’d look up at me.
That moment was the moment for me. Young guys, they’re always askin’ “When did you know you loved her?” For me, I knew for absolute certain right then in that empty house, with her face all bruised and her hair messy from the ride over that she was it for me. After fucking up royally and ignoring the pull for weeks, it finally all fell into place. Everything I’d been feeling and thinking and worrying about suddenly made sense. She was the one. Of course, later in life when they’d ask me, I’d tell them something different. This moment was for me.
“My parents are still married,” I said quietly. “Did you know that?”
“No,” she replied, looking at me in confusion. Yeah, it didn’t make sense to me either, not until now.
“When my mom left my dad, she never filed for divorce, and he’d never file himself.”
“Why?”
“Because he wasn’t the one who left,” I said simply, finally understanding my dad’s position. “He let her go because that’s what made her happy—but he’d let her come back, no questions asked, if she changed her mind.”
“Haven’t they been apart for a really long time?”
“Fourteen years,” I confirmed with a small nod. “Doesn’t matter. She’s it for him.”
“Oh.”
“I never got it before,” I told her. “But I do now.”
“Charlie,” she sighed.
“You’re it,” I said with a chuckle. God, I was such a fucking dumbass. It had taken so much bullshit for me to figure it out.