None of that could excuse his behavior, but at least it helped me understand it a little.
But then again, given the way that he'd yelled at me at the hospital, getting frustrated with me for not convincing my mother to undergo chemotherapy, I had to wonder if it was about honoring his former wife's memory. It seemed like he was perpetually upset with me, even beyond the decisions that affected our relationship.
I swallowed hard, shaking my head. I didn't know what he was thinking, and he refused to tell me.
I turned the key, starting my car and preparing to drive off to somewhere, anywhere, to try to get him out of my head. But as I was backing out of the parking lot, I noticed Georgia Witherspoon pulling into a parking space.
Of course.
Maybe his refusal to believe that the child was his had nothing to do with Buck at all; that was just an excuse. Maybe he had finally decided to move on to Georgia, just like she'd been trying to get him to do for years. The woman was hot. I had to give her that. And she was persistent. I remembered the day she had run into us at the general store.The was that she had practically thrown herself at the doctor.
I had a sick feeling in my stomach, but it was nothing like morning sickness. No, I had a feeling that the real reason that Eric didn't care about this baby and refused to believe that it was his was because he had turned his gaze toward someone else. And after all, wasn't that the point of our relationship? We were just casual. I was just his rebound, preparing him for a real relationship after his wife's death.
I swallowed down bile and drove out of the parking lot, speeding down the road. I needed to put as much distance as I could between Eric and myself. Between Eric and Georgia and myself.
My tears started falling, and I had no choice but to pull over on the side of the highway, sobbing helplessly. It seemed like ever since I had heard mom's cancer diagnosis, everything in my life had been turning to shit. Every time I thought that I'd found a bright spot, that crumbled before my eyes as well.
Now, it seemed like I was losing my mom, as well as the man that I'd thought I could count on to stand by my side. Eric and I may have had our differences, but I had known him to be a good guy. I'd thought that if I t
old him about the pregnancy, we would be able to put aside everything that had come between us, that we would somehow make it work.
But instead, he had called me a liar and refused to even talk to me as a medical professional.
For the first time since finding out that I was pregnant, I began to have regrets. Maybe I should never have slept with Eric in the first place. I had hardly known the man. If I had known that things were going to turn out like this, I never would have gone out with him.
But he'd been so sweet and so charming that it was difficult to reconcile this side of him with the man that I'd had sex with. That man I had come to love, despite hardly knowing him. This man, though, I couldn't even face.
I put my hand over my still-flat stomach. As upset as I was, I didn't want any harm to come to the baby. It wasn't its fault that Eric and I couldn't make things work between us. I'd just have to try extra hard to show it, love, to make up for the lack of a father.
With that thought in mind, I grabbed the piece of paper that Eric had given me, which I'd tossed in the cup holder. Then, I called to set up an appointment with Dr. Lazaro.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eric
The evening after Olivia came into my office, announcing that she was pregnant, I still didn't know what to think. I felt like I was still processing everything. She had seemed so sincere when she informed me about the pregnancy, and so sure that the baby was mine. In fact, she seemed shocked that I would even consider that the baby might be someone else's. It was all just so confusing.
I kept thinking about the thing with Buck. I didn't really believe that he would have lied about sleeping with her, and not with so much detail. But it also didn't seem like Olivia to lie to me, especially not so repeatedly. And I knew that I had to trust her; we might not have said that we were in a relationship, but we almost had been.
I shook my head, trying to put those thoughts out of my head while I bathed Emma. She was playing with a rubber ducky, making splashing sounds as she zoomed him around the water, and I had to smile.
Would it be so bad, having another child? Even if the kid wasn't biologically mine, it would be nice to see Emma with a younger brother or younger sister.
I shook that thought from my head, though. I couldn't do that to Emma, not when Olivia and I were clearly not meant for one another. It seemed like we couldn't interact without fighting. You would think that everything with her mother and the fact that Olivia herself was now pregnant would bring the two of us closer together, but instead, it seemed to have only pushed us further apart.
“Daddy, what's wrong?” Emma asked, and I shook myself, looking down at her.
I forced a smile on my face. “Nothing's wrong, Boo,” I told her.
She gave me a look like she didn't believe me, and I had to laugh. “Only 3 and already so wise,” I commented teasingly.
“Daddy, I'm almost 4,” she retorted, rolling her eyes.
“I'm just thinking that it seems like you're having a lot of fun with Miss Tasha at daycare,” I lied. “Maybe Daddy's a little jealous. You don't want to run away and live with her forever, do you?”
Emma giggled. “Daddy, no!” she cried. “I had more fun with Miss Livia.”
I felt a pang in my heart. I still felt bad for yanking her out of one daycare and putting her into another one, especially so soon after yanking her away from Helen and forcing her to go to daycare. I knew that she was happy in the new daycare, but I still worried about her.