19. “Stay” - Rihanna Mikky Ekko #2
Henry’s voice is quiet, and I have to lean closer to the window to hear him, grasping the car door for balance. “I already ordered a kit.”
“Great, then.” My thumbs press against the weather stripping.
“The test will almost certainly prove I’m his father. This isn’t some magic wand you can wave to make it all go away.”
I swallow, willing the emotion back down into my chest, where it belongs. “I know. I’m willing to accept it. Just please don’t go.”
He turns to look at me then, and I wonder which version of me he sees—the girl he fell in love with two decades ago or a madwoman in a sopping bathrobe with hair dripping in her face. “You don’t think I’m leaving because of Axel?”
“I don’t know why you’re leaving,” I say, throwing my arms wide.
Henry shakes his head and drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “I can’t do this anymore, C.”
A pause, a beat, until I bring myself to say it. “Can’t do what anymore? Us?” My voice cracks as I speak the word.
He just hangs his head like he’s bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. The rain is coming in through the window, leaving puddles in the creases of his jacket sleeves.
“Is it because of the pills?” I ask.
At first I think he’s not going to answer this either, but then he lifts his head and says quietly, “It’s because I don’t know who you are anymore.”
His words slap across my heart. I can physically feel their sting. I open my mouth to respond, but the hinge on my jaw isn’t working. It just trembles there, not allowing me to fully open or close it.
Henry won’t look at me, is embarrassed or repulsed by me—either or both, I don’t even know anymore.
I can’t stop staring at him, this man I love with every cell of my being but also find myself despising more and more every day.
How is it possible for love and hate to live together in the same space?
“You promised to stand by me through better or worse.” My voice surprises both of us. “This is worse.”
“I don’t think even God Himself would blame me for leaving,” he says.
“You said I could trust you.” My voice wobbles. “Now you’re leaving at the first sign of trouble?”
“The first sign?” He lets out a loud laugh. The sound is chilling. “I have dealt with so much from you for the past two years. The fact that you don’t even recognize that says a lot.”
“You think I haven’t gone through a lot?” How can he possibly think the past few years have been easy for me?
“Most of that was your own doing,” he snaps.
“I am trying to lead this country!”
“No one asked you to sacrifice who you are.”
Is that what I’ve done? Lost myself in this effort to be everything Wesbourne demands of me, everything she deserves from her monarch?
“I’m still me,” I say, but it sounds weak even to my own ears.
“Why did you do it?”
I don’t have to ask. I know what he means. “There were a lot of reasons,” I say.
“Give me one.”
I dig my nails into the rubber strips around his window as though I can attach myself to his car and keep him here. “I’m not ready to be a mother.”
“You could have just told me that.”
I shake my head, flinging wet strands of hair across my face. “You wanted this so badly.”
He whips sideways to stare at me. “You think I wanted it if you didn’t? God, Celia. Am I some kind of monster that you would think I’d put my own desires above yours?”
Tears are blinding me, or maybe it’s the rain, but I shake my head again. I clamp my lips together to hold back the sob rising in my chest, but I have to speak. Otherwise he’ll leave and it will be all my fault. “I hated to let you down.”
“So you lied?” He turns away, disgust leaking from his pores.
“I was going to stop, as soon as—”
“As soon as what? Everything fell into place? The stars aligned and the universe gave you a sign? It doesn’t work like that, C! There’s never a good time to have a baby!”
I gnaw at my lip, wishing I could go back and erase time, undo the past two years. Maybe if we had just talked about it . . .
He slowly turns his head, the wheels in his brain clearly spinning as he puzzles through something.
Finally he says, “That’s not it. You didn’t hide this from me because you weren’t ready.
” His jaw flexes, setting in place like concrete.
“What’s the real reason you don’t want to have a baby with me? ”
I grit my teeth against the sob that is dangling at the back of my throat. I cannot tell him. If I acknowledge this black hole, we will only get dragged into its depths, and I cannot allow that to happen.
“Celia, answer me.” That familiar warning tone triggers my jaw to relax. The sob bursts forth. I cover my face in shame.
Henry lets me cry, but his warm fingers snake around my wrist. After a few minutes, he tugs my hands away. “Tell me,” he says softly.
I open my eyes and focus on that handsome face, the one that has seen me at my worst, has loved me anyway. If I tell him, will he still love me? Or will he drive off, my heart stowed in the boot of his car like a piece of luggage?
Those eyes probe the depths of my soul like a fireplace poker discontent to let the fire go out. I’ve never been able to resist them, and I can’t start now. “I’m scared,” I say.
His fingers are still wrapped around my wrist, and he squeezes gently. “Of what?”
I shake my head, willing the words away, the ones I know will hurt him even more than they hurt me. How could they not, when I’m attacking the essence of who he is?
“I’m afraid . . .” I take a deep breath and wipe the wet strands out of my face, even though the wind just whips them right back into place. “I’m afraid you’ll become like your father.”
With the words out, I feel lighter. But at the same time, a searing pain replaces their weight, like I’ve been released from beneath a fallen beam only to catch on fire.
The rain thrums all around us, a sound I normally love because it means cozy fires in the library and musty old books in an armchair. But this rain feels different. It’s too cold, too spiteful, its drops hitting me like tiny pebbles hurled by an angry crowd.
Henry stares straight ahead like I haven’t said anything. For a brief interlude full of relief, I think maybe he didn’t hear me. But the way his jaw has tightened tells me he took in every word.
“I used to be scared of the same thing.” His voice comes out quiet and clipped, his words chopped apart by scissors. “That I would turn into him, do to my own children what he did to me.”
I wrap my arms around my middle and tuck my hands over my elbows in an effort to retain some warmth.
My robe is thin and became saturated within ten seconds in this downpour.
If he would just come inside, we could talk about this somewhere dry and warm.
Now that everything’s in the open, we might even end the night—
“The fact that you loved me in spite of everything . . .” His voice cuts through my fantasy of our warm bed. “That’s what gave me faith that I could be different. Rise above all of that.”
Something in his tone frightens me. The finality of it. Panic flutters in my chest, a trapped butterfly desperate to get out. “I do love you,” I say. “More than anything.”
He closes his eyes and swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement. “I never thought you wouldn’t have that same faith in me.”