Chapter 52
CHAPTER 52
HAYES
I could see the shock and anger in Dixie’s eyes. Good. I was glad she was feeling betrayed. It mirrored what I was feeling. She got up and started pacing. I didn’t think she was talking to me. She was rambling about her mother.
“Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. I told her I wanted to be the one to tell you. It was my news, my moment. And she just… she just goes behind my back and, what, calls you? Texts you? How long has she known? How long have you known? And you didn’t say anything? None of you said anything! You just sat there, letting me think… letting me—” She stopped abruptly, turning to face me, her eyes wide and her voice trembling. “God, who else knows about this before I could even process it myself?”
I didn’t say anything because I found it kind of funny she was upset someone told me. She should have told me.
She ran a hand through her hair, tugging at it slightly like she was trying to ground herself. “I can’t believe this. I trusted her.”
“Sit down,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended.
She stopped mid-step, turning to glare at me. “Excuse me?”
“This isn’t about your mother,” I said, trying to keep my tone even. “This is about us. About what we do next. And about the fact that you didn’t feel like you could come to me as soon as you knew you were pregnant. This affects me, too. You’ve known for two fucking weeks and instead of telling me what was going on, you told me you had a secret but refused to tell me what the secret was. You obviously told everyone else.”
She didn’t sit. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest, her expression defiant. “I needed time to process.”
“Why couldn’t we process together?” I asked, my frustration bubbling over. “You don’t think I need time to process? You don’t think I should have been told?”
She didn’t answer right away. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Or how to approach this.”
“You start by telling the father of the baby,” I said. “Unless I’m not the father.”
“No! I mean, yes. Yes, you are!”
“Then why in the hell would you keep this from me for two fucking weeks? Two weeks, Dixie. You kept running around this circle saying you wanted to tell me but you didn’t want things to change. Do you know what it’s been like to wonder what the hell is going on? You cannot possibly imagine the many scenarios that have run through my mind. What the hell? Please, give me something here. Explain why you thought you couldn’t tell me.”
“I’m loving every second of dating you, but we’re not exclusive,” she said. “I mean, I am, but I don’t know what this thing between us is. We haven’t had any conversations about what we want or where this is going. Heck, I’m not even sure if I can—or should—call it a relationship. I had no idea where I stood with you, and I didn’t want the pregnancy to cloud both of our aspirations. We said we were falling for each other, but that’s still not anything real. And we never talked about tomorrow or next month. What if you stayed with me only because I was pregnant? What if the momentum we were gaining, getting to know each other and developing feelings, was sabotaged by all things related to the baby?”
I frowned, my mind racing. I wished she’d said all this to me when she was struggling with it. I wished she’d given me the chance to sit with her through it. I never would have pressured her into one decision or another. I never would have made her feel like she was alone.
But she hadn’t. And that hurt more than I expected.
I stood there, staring at her, trying to process everything she’d just said. Her reasons for keeping this from me were all so raw, so honest. And yet, they cut deeper than any lie ever could. She thought I might stay with her only because of the baby. She thought I might resent her, or worse, that I’d leave her if it wasn’t for the pregnancy. Did she really think so little of me?
“Dixie, you think I’d stay with you just because of a baby? That’s not who I am. That’s not who we are. Or at least, I didn’t think it was.”
“I don’t know what I think anymore, Hayes. This was never something I planned for. It’s not something I was ready for. It happened. I don’t know how it happened.”
I smirked. “I don’t know either. It just happened. That’s why they say like ninety-eight percent effective.”
“Hayes, trust me, this has been a lot to process,” she said.
“And you didn’t think I should be allowed to process this news?”
“I’m not saying that,” she said. “I just wasn’t ready to talk about it.”
“With me.”
“What?”
“Your sister knows. Your mom knows. And fucking Simon knows. Anyone else? You weren’t ready to talk to me, the guy that put the baby in there in the first place, but you didn’t have a problem telling everyone else.”
“That’s not fair.”
“But it’s true,” I said with a sigh.
“I didn’t tell Simon. And I didn’t tell my mother. I told my sister.”
I sat quietly for several seconds. There was a lot I wanted to say, but I just didn’t know how to put it into words. I had been thinking about it all night and there didn’t seem to be a right way to say it.
“I’m disappointed,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
Her expression fell, her eyes widening. “You’re disappointed?” she whispered.
“Yes. Among other things.”
“You’re disappointed that I’m pregnant?”
“No,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “That you didn’t feel safe coming to me with this sooner. I could have… I could have been there for you. This is something we should have been dealing with together. Me and you. This is our situation to deal with. I can’t believe you didn’t think I should know.”
She looked away, her arms still crossed tightly over her chest. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable that I needed a couple of weeks to process this on my own.”
It felt like an ocean of distance was opening up between us. I didn’t know how to bridge it. She didn’t even know if I truly wanted to be a father. And now, I was worried about how easily she could keep things from me. What if something else came up in the future that she didn’t deem me ready to hear or participate in? What if this was her MO?
I thought about Simon warning me about her and Frankie, about how they were always so secretive, so guarded. Shit. I couldn’t make sense out of any of this.
I massaged my temples, trying to clear my head. Dixie knelt in front of me. She opened a drawer in her coffee table and pulled out a pregnancy test, holding it up for me to see.
“This is supposed to be a happy moment,” she said, her voice trembling. Tears welled in her eyes, and I felt my chest tighten.
“I wanted to tell you so many times but then I just panicked,” she said. “That night you came over, I was going to tell you.”
“I believe you,” I said. “I’m sure you thought about it, but you just didn’t do it. What did you think I was going to do?”
“I honestly had no idea,” she said.
“I’ve never given you a reason to believe I was going to get angry,” I said.
“Can we erase the last two weeks and start over?” she asked. “Can we consider this me announcing my pregnancy to you?”
I stared at her, my heart aching. “I think that ship has sailed.”
“I want to do this with you,” she said softly. “I want to make this work.”
“Can it?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “The trust is seriously damaged.”
She shook her head, her expression heartbroken. “Hayes… I understand if you need time. I did, so it makes sense that you do, too. Just… please, don’t make any decisions until you’ve really had time to think about it.”
“You have to know it’s not the fact you’re pregnant that has thrown me. Although that is certainly a surprise. I can’t believe you kept this from me. It’s a fucking betrayal.”
She took a deep breath, her hands trembling as she put the pregnancy test on the coffee table. “I understand. I’m sorry. I wish I would have told you. I never meant to hurt you. Or disappoint you.”
“I don’t think you did, but I also don’t think you considered your choices and how they would affect me. That’s the issue.”
Once again, there was silence. She slowly stood, like she was trying to get away from me. I wasn’t sure what I expected this conversation to look like, but I didn’t think that was it.
“I’ll bow out as your wedding guest,” she said. “You can take someone else. I have to be okay with that. I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position. I guess… I guess I’ll be around if you want to talk. I know you need to get your head around this. Trust me, I get it. If you want to talk or you have questions, I’ll be here.”
“I don’t want that,” I said quickly.
“You don’t want to talk?”
“No. Yes. I’m saying, I want you there with me. I’ve already confirmed it with my father and Kathy. The wedding is days away. I’m not going to change things on them now. Let’s proceed as normal, but keep this between us for now.”
She nodded, her tears spilling over. “Okay.”
I got to my feet and took a step toward her. I couldn’t keep myself from reaching out and brushing a tear from her cheek. “We’ll figure this out, Dixie. Together. Do you need anything from me? Like, uh, food or whatever?”
She offered a soft smile and shook her head. “No.”
“And you’re feeling okay?”
She nodded, her hand instinctively moving to her stomach. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just tired a lot. And my emotions are all over the place, but I’m okay.” She let out a small, shaky laugh. “I guess that’s part of it, huh?”
“I guess so,” I said, my voice softening. “I’ll be there for you. For both of you.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
I reached for her hand. She let me take it, which I wasn’t sure she would. Her fingers were cold, but they tightened around mine as if she was holding on for dear life. “We’re going to be okay,” I said, more to myself than to her. “We have to be.”
I dropped her hand and turned to walk away. I paused at the door and looked at her. She was watching me. It was killing me to walk away from her. I wanted to go right back over there and pull her into my arms.
But I couldn’t.
“Goodbye, Dixie.”
I left her apartment. I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was slipping through my fingers. She was right there for the taking and I couldn’t bring myself to reach out and grab her.
I stood in the hallway for a moment, staring at the peeling wallpaper. My mind was a whirlwind of emotions I couldn’t even begin to untangle. I wanted to believe her when she said we could figure this out together, but the trust between us felt like a fragile glass wall, cracked and splintered.
I thought about calling Isaac and asking him to go out and get drunk with me, but that wasn’t the way a father should act. I needed to start changing my ways. I was going to be a daddy. Responsible for a whole damn person.