Chapter 54
FIFTY-FOUR
Lewis sat in his flat with his head in his hands. His mind was racing. He winced as he saw Gracie’s name flash up on his phone screen, not once, but twice. He couldn’t talk to her yet. What on earth could he say to make her feel better? He had no answers. She would just end up screaming at him. He felt a dark smear of guilt wash over him like sticky tar.
Gracie had always said that when someone loves you even the way they say your name is different. She always said she thought her name was safe in his mouth. But it hadn’t been, had it? He had betrayed her at her lowest and now this was too big a monster for him to comprehend.
The worst thing was there was nothing he could say to her to make it better. He thought back to the night he spent with Annalize: the drink-fuelled night of flirting and lust. He racked his brains; had they used a condom? He couldn’t remember much. If he hadn’t, how bloody foolish was he? Then suddenly he remembered laughing at the red dot on her bedroom ceiling and asking her what it was for. ‘It’s so I never forget to take my pill,’ she had said. He cringed at the memory. Why had he not had some self-control that night?
But pill or no pill, the girl was obviously pregnant. Surely if it was his she would have told him? The worst thing was that he wanted to know. And if the child was his, didn’t he have a right to know?’
But he was caught between a rock and a hard place here. If he were to have a biological child of his own, as much as he felt guilty admitting it, he would be over the moon.
But if he decided to confront Annalize to ask her, then he would have to tell Gracie that he was doing so, because he could never go behind her back again. And then if she was pregnant with his child, well, Gracie would be destroyed, and they could never be together again, anyway. Because just seeing Annalize pregnant had sent her over the edge, let alone knowing if it was his.
He poured himself a large whisky and gazed at the photo of him and Gracie on the windowsill. He pushed open the door to ‘the nursery’. Although he knew that he should start selling things off, he still hadn’t got round to doing it. Looking at it now, he understood how hard it must have been for Gracie to let go. He’d been such a bully telling her to get over things. He didn’t deserve to get her back.
He leant back against the cold wall and slid down it. Looking at the two empty beds for an answer he said aloud, ‘What the hell am I going to do?’