“Why?”
“Because he thought I should know. He thought that it might explain a little bit why you suddenly broke up with me.”
“I see,” I said. Now it felt strange to be sitting here with her, knowing that she knew the one secret I had never thought anyone else would ever know.
“I could say I wish you would have told me, but I understand why you didn’t,” Allie said.
“Would it have changed anything?”
“No. Well, it wouldn’t have changed how I felt about you. How I feel about you. I love you, Cole. I still love you, even though you broke up with me. I think I can understand a little bit better why you did, but that doesn’t change how I feel. I can’t just stop feeling something for you, even if that would make my life a whole hell of a lot easier. And I didn’t come over here tonight expecting you to change your mind about anything. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be thrilled if you did, but... I just wanted you to know that I still do love you, and that I get why you felt like you had to end things, but...”
Her voice trailed off, and I could tell that she was trying not to cry. I reached over and took her hand.
“Allie,” I said. “I hate to see you like this. I hate to think that I hurt you, because you don’t deserve that. And it’s funny, you coming over here tonight to talk because I’d just been thinking that I wanted to talk to you, and I was trying to decide when a good time for that would be. I shouldn’t have broken up with you like that. I didn’t want to; I was just so freaked out by what had happened with Declan that I reacted, and it certainly wasn’t in the right way. I realize that now, and what I’d been planning on talking to you about was whether or not you thought we could get back together. Because that is what I would really like to see happen. And I’m sorry for putting you through all of this in the first place.”
“I’m so glad to hear you say that,” she said. “I’ve been miserable without you.” She took a deep breath. “There. It feels good to say it out loud. Even if that’s not what I’m supposed to be saying.”
“What are you supposed to be saying?”
“That I’ve moved on, that it doesn’t matter, that I’m going to go out on some rebound.”
“Rebound? Did you?”
She gave me a sheepish smile. “Well, Amy tried to set something up for me, but we just went out and ended up getting some food. I just couldn’t do it. It felt too weird.”
“I see. I’m sorry, Allie.”
“You don’t have to apologize. I get why you did it. I’m sorry that I had no idea about everything with Declan. That’s so intense, Cole! Do you...do you want to talk about it?”
I did, and I didn’t. There was so much to say, yet at the same time, I wasn’t sure even where to begin. And that was the thing—after all these years, I didn’t talk
about it, so starting now seemed strange. I took a deep breath.
“I know I told you some of the history there,” I said. “I did leave out certain parts. That’s the real reason Marissa got sent away—she was pregnant. My parents just couldn’t believe it, though she didn’t tell them until it was she was almost four months along. She was able to get away with wearing big sweaters and stuff, and even if they’d found out sooner, she said there was no way in hell she was going to get an abortion.”
“That must’ve been such a hard thing for all of you,” Allie said. “I can’t even begin to imagine.”
“It was really hard. For my mother, especially. I had just finished my residency, and I was thinking about what my next steps were going to be, where I wanted to go, and then all this happened. But, you know, I really did what I felt like I had to do. For a time, I thought that maybe my parents were going to be the ones to raise Declan, but it was obvious they just couldn’t do it. They could be there to help out financially if need be, and they’d take him out every Sunday, but doing the whole raising a child again? They just couldn’t do it. Not again, not after what had happened. Not because they didn’t want to or anything, but I just knew they wouldn’t be able to do it.”
It felt undeniably strange to be speaking these words out loud to someone, yet I also felt an overwhelming sense of relief. As if I’d been needing to confess this, like talking about it would somehow absolve me from something.
But what? If I felt I needed to be absolved, wasn’t that admitting that I had done something wrong?
“Oh, Cole,” Allie said.
Originally, the plan was for Marissa to go away, have the baby, and come back. She’d live with my parents, and they would help her raise him. If Sam or his family ever got word that she had a baby and figured out that it was his, my parents were going to offer him money to go away. They figured if they offered enough, he would, and if they had to, they would move, somewhere that Sam would never be able to find them. But I think they knew that because of how he was now, and because of the limited resources his family had, that they wouldn’t do something like that to begin with. But Marissa killed herself, and everything sort of fell apart.”
“So whose idea was it?” Allie asked. “The whole thing just seems so... I don’t know, so crazy.”
“It is,” I said, “and at the same time, it isn’t. It’s just kind of what had to happen. Declan was born at the treatment center, and Marissa stayed there for a few weeks after he was born. She was on methadone at that point, so when he was born, he was addicted to opioids, too. He went through withdrawal, and it was awful. My parents had gone up there when she’d gone into labor, and I could tell after I talked to my mother on the phone that she was not going to be able to handle any of this. She had this whole idea in her mind about how things were going to be, but that was so far from the truth. I mean, they would have done it if I said I wouldn’t, but it would’ve been so hard on them. Getting to see Declan every week like they do works for them. They wouldn’t want to hear me say it like this, but they’re too old to be raising a little kid again.”
Then we were both quiet, watching the fireflies. I did feel better. I felt as though a weight had been lifted from me, as though talking about it like this was what I had needed to do all along.
“Come with me,” I said to Allie.
I got up, and she followed me inside. We went upstairs, and I closed the bedroom door, twisting the lock in the doorknob, too, though Declan rarely ever got up in the middle of the night. Allie and I sat down on the edge of the bed, and I brought my hand up to the side of her face. There was enough moonlight spilling in through the window that I could see her features, I could see the way her eyes closed when I touched her, how she started to smile. I put my other arm around her back, pulling her toward me. I cupped her chin and tilted her head back a little, and then we began to kiss. She was tentative at first, as though she was afraid I was going to push her away at any moment and say I had changed my mind about us getting back together. But then it was as if a switch had been flipped, and she was pressing her mouth against mine, her hands going to my lap, grabbing for my cock through my pants.
My own hands moved down to her breasts, my fingers first feeling her through the thin fabric of her shirt, then pulling the shirt off, reaching around to unhook her bra. She shrugged her shoulders out of it, and I made a trail of kisses from her throat to her left breast, and I slowly ran my tongue over and around her nipple, squeezing her other breast in my hand. I felt her nipple tighten in my mouth, and Allie groaned softly. I pulled my own shirt off, and we laid back on the bed. I slid my hand down between her legs, feeling her grab my cock and give it a squeeze. She was wet, and I was easily able to slide two fingers into her; her muscles clenched around them as I did so. She pressed her hips against me, moved her ass back and forth, working herself up and down on my fingers. I didn’t even have to move my hand, though I did after a moment, twisting my wrist enough so I could rub her clit with my thumb. She bit into my shoulder, trying to muffle the sounds she was making.