Chapter 27
The door clicked shut behind me. The hallway smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee. The stark white walls blinded me. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Somewhere down the hall a baby cried, and my knees buckled.
Rose.
Pregnant.
My kid.
I was going to be a father.
I pressed a hand to the wall, staring at the scuffed linoleum, searching for answers I wasn’t going to find there. The world narrowed, my mind drifting to peeling linoleum kitchen floors and a cigarette burning too long in an ashtray.
My father’s voice.
“I never should have married you. Biggest mistake of my life.” My father’s voice echoed in my ears, dragging me to a time I didn’t want to revisit. “What are you a fucking, idiot?” All these years later, I could still feel the smack upside my head.
Now I was going to be a father.
Father.
The word echoed in my skull.
I remembered my father’s heavy boots by the door. The way the house used to go silent when they hit the hardwood. The smoke that clung to everything. The way my mother braced before he even opened his mouth.
As a kid, I’d promised myself that I would never be him.
I would never raise my voice.
Never walk out.
Never make a kid feel like an idiot.
I dragged a hand through my hair, tugging hard on the ends. I stumbled down the hall in a fog, making my way toward the vending machine.
My mind kept churning up memories I had buried so long ago. A past I didn’t want to remember, let alone confront.
I remembered standing in the doorway, watching my father throw things into a duffel bag. My mom screaming. The door slamming. The terrifying silence afterward.
Another time I’d sworn to myself I’d never be that man. I would never be the reason someone felt abandoned, and without meaning to, I’d done exactly that.
Not even by leaving… by building walls so damn thick, Rose believed I would.
A nurse brushed past me, and I blinked into the present. How could I have a future with Rose—with our child—if the past still haunted me?
I was going to be a father.
The thought was heavy in my heart and in my mind. Everything before now seemed insignificant.
My heart nearly stopped when Rose tumbled down those stairs. I almost lost her, but not just her.
A baby.
Our baby.
We were having a baby.
I wasn’t even sure where we stood. We had sex, and it meant something. We said we weren’t going back to pretending… but a baby? That changed things, didn’t it? I still wasn’t sure if I wanted marriage. Did she expect a ring now?
I always knew exactly how to fix things when it came to Rose, but this… A ginger chew couldn’t fix this. A joke or a hug couldn’t fix this. Amazing sex couldn’t even fix this.
The only thing that could fix us was for me to stop running from my past.
Even if facing it broke me.