Justin reached out tentatively and captured the tear with his thumb. “You wanted our baby?”
I nodded, transfixed on his hand, which slowly moved away from my face.
“You can’t touch me,” I whispered. I wasn’t ready for physical contact after everything we had exposed.
He nodded and dropped his hand but remained standing in front of me. I could see the questions on his face, and I mentally prepared myself for them. Stepping away from him, I sank back down to the floor as the rest of the adrenaline left me. Instead of heading back to the opposite side of the elevator, Justin slid down the wall so he was sitting right beside me.
“Please tell me everything,” he said after we had sat in silence for several minutes.
His words opened a floodgate in me and for the next forty-five minutes I confessed everything. Some of it brought back raw emotions and I had to knuckle away a steady stream of tears. Halfway through, he reached over to hold my hand, ignoring my request that he couldn’t touch me. I described how awful the miscarriage was, not sugarcoating anything. At times, his grip on my hand tightened to where it was almost painful, and yet through it all he never released it.
“Why did you wait so long to tell me?”
“I figured it wouldn’t make a difference.”
“Make a difference? Brittni, do you know how hard it was for me to hate you?”
“You made it look pretty easy,” I answered dryly as he let out a low chuckle.
“Hating you made the fact that you didn’t trust me less painful.”
“I did trust you at first, but then I was scared after you broke up with me. Everything was so confusing and you weren’t making it any easier. You were being such an a—”
“Asshole,” he interrupted. “I was being an asshole,” he sighed, rubbing his hand across his head. “I let my insecurities get the best of me and I threw our relationship away. Why did I have to be such a jackass?”
“You were confused. I was acting like a complete zombie.” I found myself comforting him.
“So what? You had every reason to be a zombie. I confirmed all your fears by dropping you the second things changed. No wonder you hate me so much.”
“I don’t hate you. You were the love of my life, the father of my unborn child. I couldn’t have hated you if I tried. Believe me, I did try. My friend Tressa had to step up and hate you enough for both of us,” I joked through a watery smile.
“One day I’ll have to thank her for that.”
“For hating you?” I asked, confused.
“For being there for you when I wasn’t. For being your friend.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty fantastic in that category. I’ve been lucky that way. Melissa and Rob are pretty fantastic too.”
“Do they know all the bonehead things I’ve done?” Justin grimaced.
“Melissa does. She was never supposed to tell Rob, but I suspect he knows, considering he tried to get us together today,” I answered.
“I’m surprised he didn’t knock some sense into me,” Justin said as the floor beneath us shuddered slightly before starting to move. “Hot damn, we’re moving,” he said, surging to his feet and pulling me in for an excited hug.
Though my excitement matched his, I couldn’t help stiffening in his arms, unsure of how to react. A lot of shit had gone down between us in the nearly six hours we’d been stuck together. Just because we’d cleared the air didn’t mean we didn’t have a whole lot of baggage and past hurt bogging us down.
Whether he felt my resistance or sensed the doors getting ready to open, Justin abruptly dropped his arms as the doors parted to reveal a crowd of people, including Melissa and Rob.
Melissa rushed forward and gave me a tight hug. “Do you want to kill Rob? I could hold him down so you can at least get a good sock in,” she whispered in my ear.
“At the moment, I just have to use the bathroom really bad,” I said, dragging her along with me.
“In Rob’s defense, he didn’t know you two would somehow end up on the same elevator, let alone an elevator that would break down,” Melissa chattered away as I hurried to one of the stalls. “Was it awful? I’m so sorry,” Melissa continued.
Knowing Melissa as well as I did, I knew no comment was necessary at the moment. I stayed in my stall longer than needed so I could gather my mixed emotions. Having spent the last six hours with Justin with no more secrets between us made me feel jittery like I’d consumed heavy doses of caffeine in a short amount of time.
“Brittni, are you okay?” Melissa asked, standing right outside my stall door.