Southern Chance (Southern 1)

“You stood there in front of me and admitted it,” I say, angry with him, and I jump up.

“I never admitted anything, Kallie,” he says softly. “Trust me, you think I forgot the moment my world shattered around me? I never said it was mine. I never ever said those words.”

“But you said you could explain,” I say, the night coming back to me. “Why would you need to explain anything if it wasn’t yours?” I sit back down, looking into the same eyes of the man who stood in front of me eight years ago begging to let him explain.

“You made me believe you cheated on me,” I say now, getting back up again and going to the fireplace where I can walk back and forth and make sense of what he just said to me. “You made me doubt everything!” I yell. “You fucking broke me. Why?”

“She was desperate,” he says. “Her back was against the wall, and she was drowning. After you left town, I figured I had nothing else left. There was no reason to tell my side of the story, so I kept her secret.”

“Who knows?” I ask.

“My father,” he says, and my hand goes to my mouth, “and you.”

“What about Beau?” I ask. “Surely, the three musketeers would fill him in on that secret.”

“There is no way that we could tell him,” he says and looks down and then up. “It’s Liam’s.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I shout, and I want to throw something, break something. “This whole fucking thing is a—”

“Yeah,” he says, cutting me off.

“You chose her,” I say softly. “Out of all this, you chose her.”

“I never chose her,” he tells me, getting up. “I chose Ethan.” He says his name, and I look at him with tears in his eyes. “In all this, I chose my son.”

When he says the words, my body starts to shake. I start to shake. “Your son,” I whisper.

“Yeah, I have a son,” he says. I look at him, and at that moment, everything comes out of me.

“You have two sons,” I whisper, my secret now free from Pandora’s box.

“What?” he says, getting up now and looking at me. “What did you say?”

He gave me his truth, and now it’s time to give him mine. “I said you have two sons.”

“Oh my God,” he says, putting his hands to his mouth.

“I found out I was pregnant a month after I left. I was beside myself. I lost so much weight. I was sleeping and vomiting. I couldn’t keep anything down. I just thought I was depressed.” I don’t stop, knowing that if I stop, I won’t have the courage to continue. “My mother came and finally forced me to go to the doctor. I was twelve weeks along. They turned off the lights in the small white room and put gel on my stomach, and then I saw our son for the first time. His heartbeat was strong, and at that moment, I knew that whatever you did, we created this amazing boy.”

“My son.” His voice is a whisper.

“It wasn’t an easy pregnancy,” I say. “I ate for him, I drank for him, I lived for him. My baby. My son.”

“Our son,” he reminds me, and I look down.

“When I was twenty-one weeks, I got a sharp cramp, and I thought it was just stomach pains.” I put my hand to my stomach, feeling the emptiness. “Then the bleeding started.”

“Kallie …” He says my name, but I’m in a trance as I’m back to that day.

“I rushed to the hospital,” I sob out, “calling my mother along the way, and she rushed there. When I got to the hospital, they put me in the bed, and I lay there while all this blood poured out of me. I tried to stop it, tried to close my legs, thinking it would stop it. In almost the same room that I listened to our son’s heartbeat, I was told there was no more heartbeat.” He roars out a sob and falls to his knees in front of me, and I want to do the same. “These things happen, they told me. I was in a state of shock by the time my mother got there. Catatonic almost, but it wasn’t over. I had to deliver our child. He was perfect.” I sob. “He was the most beautiful baby in the world. I held him for as long as they would let me. I told him that you loved him more than anything in the world. I told him that he had to be our angel now.” The crushing blow was even more now than it was on that day. “I blamed myself for everything. If I wasn’t depressed, then maybe he would have survived. If I ate more, maybe he would be okay. If I didn’t cry every day, maybe he would have known how happy I was to be his mommy.” I walk over to Jacob now who sobs with his hands covering his face. “So you don’t have just one son, you have two.”