Sparrow

“She is a child,” she announced. “Your marriage was supposed to be an arrangement, you said so yourself. You said she was a burden you had to deal with for your dad.” Her body shook, and it wasn’t from the cold. “I need you back, Troy.”

She was crying, talking about Sparrow, and as much as it surprised me, I wasn’t so hot about seeing her shattered.

“Let it go.” I huddled in my soaked pea coat. “We had our farewell fuck, said our goodbyes in my apartment months ago. We’re done.”

“Troy, baby, no.” She fell on her knees in front of me, mud splashing everywhere around us. She clasped my legs like they were an anchor as tears streamed down her face, mixing with the raindrops. “Please. She is nothing, no one. She doesn’t want you. Doesn’t need you. Doesn’t deserve you. We’ve got history. Chemistry. We’ve got something fucked up and twisted, but it’s ours. It’s us. It’s always been us.”

“You really should’ve thought about that before you let Brock get you pregnant.” My tone was harsh, but the edge was gone. I wasn’t high on fucking Brock’s wife anymore. Everything about the situation felt tasteless. Worthless. Guess I’d moved on.

“You told me to marry him.” She sniffed, her nose dripping, her fingernails still clawing into my pants. “You said it’d be the best thing for everybody because of that goddamned pregnancy. Oh, Troy.”

“Cat,” I growled, “the goddamned pregnancy is now a kid. Maybe you should consider taking care of him.” But I knew what Cat never said out loud. She resented Sam, because Sam was the final straw between us. I couldn’t take her back after that betrayal.

“This could have been us. Married. Happy,” she pleaded. “I belong in your bed, in your house, in your mind. I’ll do anything. Tell me what to do to bring you back to me.”

“You’re a wreck.” I turned around and started walking to my car. I hated that she barged into my time with my dad.

She stalked after me, crying hysterically, stumbling to the ground and then lurching back to her feet. Stiletto heels weren’t exactly the best footwear for a muddy graveyard. But Cat had always liked putting on a show. Twenty-something-year-old Troy admired that. Thirty-something Troy knew this shit got old.

“Don’t do this,” she warned. “I’ll ruin this for you.”

I sighed. “Catalina, baby, you can’t even ruin your own fucking life successfully, let alone someone else’s. You’ve never been the overachiever type.”

“Go to hell.” She shoved me and then flailed at me with her fists.

I dodged her girly jabs and captured her wrists, walking her backward into the high stone fence that surrounded that graveyard and pinning her back to it. It felt so vacant to hold her between my arms. For a moment, I wondered if I ever really did love her.

“Enough,” I said. “This stops here. Now listen to me carefully, and get it into your head, because I won’t say it twice. You had your chance. I gave you everything. Worked my fucking ass off so you could afford your fancy shit. Took risks. Built a business, opened a French restaurant just ’cause it was your favorite food—all for you. But you betrayed me. You got coked up on my money, snorted through the majority of it, and I had to send you off to rehab, where you fucked up more. We had our fun, and now it’s time to let go. Got it?”

Catalina threw more aimless punches at me and screamed, “Stop saying these things!”

I knew she had a hard time hearing this, but the funny thing was, I no longer had a hard time saying it, admitting this to her and me. I’d sent Cat to a Malibu rehab shortly before we broke it off. The most expensive fucking rehab in the States. Sauna rooms and twenty-four-hour spas. Only the best for my girl. She came back pregnant with her counselor’s baby. With Brock’s baby.

I still remembered the day I found out my initially unpregnant girlfriend had come back after two months in rehab with a new addition in her belly. She tried to convince me the baby was mine. Hell, I fought hard to believe it myself. But then I went with her to her check-up and the OB-GYN had spilled the dates. Cat was six weeks pregnant, and not with my child.

“No, no, no, no.” She shook her head violently, raking her long fingernails down her face, streaking her cheeks with bloody scratches.

“Don’t mistake my sympathy then for feelings.” I said, surprised that the rage was gone. “When you were pregnant, I didn’t throw your ass out of my apartment because I didn’t want this shit on my conscience, not because I still loved you.”

“Troy!” she pleaded, throwing her bloody fists in my face and crying like a tortured animal. “Stop this now!”