“I’m sorry,” she spilled out, looking quite flustered.
I cocked an eyebrow. “Are you scared of me, Bianca?”
She swallowed and looked around the empty restaurant, nervously. It was only the two of us in the dining area. The other two employees were in the back, cleaning up for the night. “No. Yes. Maybe. You’re a… little intimidating. Sometimes. Especially right now.”
“Just say what you have to say. I don’t have time to play games. And please, don’t give me that I’m innocent bullshit look. Save that for someone who’ll fall for it.”
Bianca started rubbing her swollen stomach, as if to soothe the baby. I had to remind myself that she was pregnant, and I had to rein in my psychotic side.
“I didn’t want to come between you and Maddox. That wasn’t my intention,” she murmured, biting on her lips.
But she did. Except, I couldn’t fault her, really.
I rolled my eyes, looking indifferent. But every cell inside me was raging, hurting, breaking. “Why didn’t you tell Maddox when you found out you were pregnant? Why wait until you were six months along?”
“I was… worried and scared. I didn’t know…”
“But you had to tell him the moment our relationship became public,” I seethed.
“No,” she stuttered. What a fucking liar. “I talked to Maddox. I told him you guys didn’t have to break up. We can make it work…”
I raised my hand, halting her words. “I don’t need you to speak to Maddox for me. Maddox and I have been friends, way longer than you’ve known him. I know him better than anyone else, and he knows me better than he knows himself. If we want to figure this out, we will. We don’t need you to play mediator.”
Bianca nodded, looking teary eyed.
“Anything else?”
Her gaze flitted past my head, and she avoided looking at my face. She chewed on her lip, before whispering, “Maddox and his parents are going back to Manhattan. Brad wants to be in the comfort of his own home.”
What…?
Oh my God.
I stumbled back against the table, my knees growing weak. He was leaving. Maddox was leaving, and I didn’t know…
My lips parted with a silent cry, and my fists clenched.
Bianca put the last nail in the coffin when she confessed her next secret. “He asked me to come with him. He said… he wanted to be there for the rest of my pregnancy and when I give birth.”
“What about… his exams?”
“He dropped out for the rest of the academic year.”
My emotions throttled me, and barb wires twisted around my lungs. I couldn’t… breathe. Oh God. This was hell. Pure, absolute hell.
How… how did it come to this?
Oh, right. I left him.
And now he was leaving, going far away, and out of my reach. My lungs caved in, my stomach dropped… and the butterflies? They just died. The emptiness left a hollow ache inside of me. The silence that came with the aftermath; it was louder than any sound.
I swallowed back a cry and turned away from Bianca.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. I heard her feet shuffling away. The door opened, the bell pinged again, cold air washed inside the empty restaurant, and then she was gone. As if she was never here.
As if she hadn’t just trampled over my already broken, bleeding heart.
This had been my doing; yet, it still fucking hurt.
It hadn’t been an easy decision, but this was what I wanted for Maddox.
For him to grow up, for him to accept responsibility…
For this unborn baby to have a decent father.
I walked away for Maddox…
And, as much as it pained me, I didn’t regret it.
Two weeks later
I fed him another small spoonful. He accepted it weakly, chewing as if it took all his strength to do such a small act. He lost all his hair in three weeks. Lost all his weight, until he was skin and bones. Ghastly pale and wrinkled. His cheeks were drawn in, and his eyes had lost their vibrant colors – a hollow look in them.
Brad Coulter was frail, almost too weak, to even sit up straight and have his own meal. In three weeks, his health deteriorated, until he needed a wheelchair to move around, and one of us to feed him, help him in and out of bed. Taking his bath, alone, became out of the question, when he passed out in the tub a week ago.
Frail. Sick. Dying.
My mother refused to bring a nurse home. She was adamant about taking care of her husband herself, but she grew weary, as the days passed, so I was forced to jump in and help.
If you asked me why I dropped out of this academic year and moved in with my parents, awaiting my father’s death – I didn’t have an answer.
I didn’t want anything to do with my father or my mother – but here I was.