Chapter 15 #2
At that moment, time stood still. I took a chance, went unfulfilled.
A hotel suite, a chance encounter.
My hand moves toward the console, ready to change the station. I don’t need this right now. I can’t hear the pain in his voice and be reminded of what we lost and what we’re about to lose all over again. His voice cuts through my thoughts.
Love lingers in this empty soul of mine, with it the slow tick of time.
Though I can’t deny I roam with hearts untrue, I only want you.
It’s true, it’s only you.
I’ll always love you.
The tears come without permission, hot and fast down my cheeks. How am I supposed to tell him? How am I supposed to look him in the eyes and say I’m pregnant with another man’s child?
After what I took from him…our baby. This news is going to be a stab in the back.
He’s worked so hard to pull himself out of the darkness. He’s built a life, a career, and himself into someone worthy of a second chance.
And I’m about to shit all over it.
He won’t understand. To him, this will be a betrayal. It’ll look like I chose Jax over him, like everything we’ve been rebuilding was a lie.
It’s not a lie. I want Callum in my life, but how?
He doesn’t know about my relationship with Jax. Nobody knows about the two-plus years I spent falling in love with a man who taught me things about myself I never knew. Callum only knows that I disappeared to Paris and came back different.
Oh, I wish I could turn back time.
Erase the hurt, rewrite the rhyme.
Vixen, forget Paris. Please, forget Paris.
I suck in a ragged cry and wipe the tears off my cheeks. I can barely make out the road and the cars. My vision blurs as I tighten my grip on the steering wheel.
Callum continues to sing about wanting me to forget my time in a city where I found myself and found the man I’m in love with. My time there was meant to be.
Just as Jax has always said, we’re tied together by fate. This baby is proof of that. I can only hope and pray that he’ll want this as much as I do. But what if he doesn’t?
Callum’s voice continues to haunt me as I drive in a daze. The Malibu place is only minutes away.
The song plays on. I should change the station. I should turn it off. But my hand stays frozen on the steering wheel, knuckles white, and tears blurring the road ahead.
I try to bat the rivers of waves off my face to clear my vision. It doesn’t help.
I try to focus on the road and on the car in front of me. Anything except the impossible conversation waiting for me at the end of this drive.
I’m pregnant and the baby is yours.
That’s all it’ll take to put everything on a different path. My chest tightens.
What if Jax doesn’t want this? What if he looks at me with that cold business expression and tells me this complicates things too much? What if he offers me money to make it go away?
No. Jax wouldn’t do that. He’s not that kind of man.
But what if the man I think I know isn’t real? What if the time we spent together was just an arrangement that got out of hand? What if I was fooling myself into thinking it meant more than it did?
That’s impossible because Jax told me he loved me yesterday. Even though he told me to move on with Callum, Jax wants to talk to me. Maybe he’s changed his mind, and he wants to work out this terrible situation.
My life is spinning. I take a deep breath, trying to calm the panic rising in me.
The song is on the last portion of the lyrics.
Now I walk through shadows bare, haunted by your whispered air.
In the silence, love remains, a bittersweet and aching pain.
Though the world keeps spinning fast, I hold on to what we had.
In every dream that fades away, I still cherish you this very day.
Come back, vixen. Forget Paris. Please forget Paris.
Callum’s voice is raw with emotion as he sings about loss, regret, and a love he won’t let go. I’m going to break his heart all over again, and it’s too much for me to bear.
A stoplight ahead turns yellow. I press the brake, coming to a stop as it shifts to red. Two cars idle in front of me.
I close my eyes for just a moment, letting the music wash over me. I let myself get used to the weight of what I’m about to do.
Callum will never forgive me. Even if he tries, even if he says all the right things, this will fracture something between us that can’t be fixed. The tattoos on his body will become bitter reminders of what I took from him and how I ruined his life once again.
Because I’m not the woman he thinks I am anymore. I haven’t been for over two years.
My phone is in my purse, dark and silent. I imagine it lighting up with Callum’s name. I imagine answering and hearing his voice, warm and full of love, asking how my afternoon went.
How am I ever going to tell him that I’m pregnant? How will I be able to do it knowing it’s going to hurt him?
The light turns green. The car in front of me accelerates. I press the gas pedal, moving forward through the intersection.
The melody of “Forget Paris” fades out, and I can only think of how it reflects how my relationship with Callum will end. No matter what Jax says, Callum and I will be erased to nothing.
It’s a devastating thought. I don’t want to lose his friendship, but there’s no other way around it. Everything suspends, as if the world is holding its breath.
I’m halfway through the intersection when it happens. Something black flashes in the corner of my eye.
I try to brace myself as metal bends and screeches. My head slams against the window. Everything goes quiet and disappears into the black.