CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | London #2
When I come to a stop next to him, looking out over the dark water, I’m not sure which is easier, opening my mouth to speak or simply throwing myself overboard and letting the sea sweep me away forever.
I don’t know how long we stand there, the ocean lapping around the boat the only sound, before Penn finally breaks the silence between us.
“I named her after you.” His voice is so full of emotion it nearly breaks me wide open.
“Huh?” I don’t immediately follow.
“You once asked me what she was named after—Northern Star. I named her after you.” When he turns to face me, I suck in a hard breath at the sight of him. Eyes dark. Skin pale. He looks like he hasn’t slept in two days.
“After me?” I finally manage to push the words out.
“You were always my northern star, the one thing that would always lead me home. Because you are my home, LV. You always have been.” When he reaches for my hand, I don’t pull away. “When you wouldn’t answer my calls, I thought... I thought you left.”
“I am leaving.” I force myself to say. An array of emotions passes over his face. “I can’t stay, Penn. I can’t be the reason your child grows up without both of his parents under the same roof. And I can’t watch you raise a child that you have with her.” I can’t even say her name.
“I don’t want to be with her. I want to be with you.”
“I don’t think it matters what we want,” I admit, pulling my hand from his.
“So that’s it? You’re giving up without even giving me a real chance?”
“I did give you a real chance. Look where it got us. We tried going back. We didn’t address all the time and hurt between us, not really.
We just jumped right back in like nothing happened.
We were fooling ourselves, Penn, and it was only a matter of time before real life brought us back down to earth. ”
“You speak as though happy endings don’t exist.”
“I think they do, maybe just not for us.”
“Or maybe you don’t love me enough to put in the effort.”
“Is that what you think? That I don’t love you enough?
Look at me, Penn. Look me in the eye and tell me that if I were pregnant with another man’s child, it wouldn’t change anything between us.
” When he doesn’t immediately say anything, I continue, “You can’t, can you?
Because you know it would. It would change everything, no matter how much you wished it wouldn’t. ”
“I don’t want to lose you, London.” His voice breaks around my name, and I swear my knees tremble at the sound.
“I’m sorry I came back. I’m starting to realize maybe it would have been better for everyone involved if I had stayed away forever.”
“That’s not true. Even if it meant I had to lose you all over again, I wouldn’t trade getting to hold you one last time for anything in the world.”
“Penn.” Unshed tears fill my eyes, and it takes everything I have in me to keep them from spilling over. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.
“I love you, LV, and no matter where you go, no matter how far, that will not change. I will love you forever.”
“I will love you forever.” A tear slips out despite my best efforts to hold it at bay.
“You have no idea how much I wish it were enough.” More tears fall, one after another.
“And for what it’s worth, I think you’re going to make an incredible father.” I wipe at my cheeks.
“Please stay.” His request hits me straight in the chest, the pain radiating outward, taking over my entire body.
“You know I can’t. It will kill me, Penn. It’s already killing me.”
He takes my face in his hands, dipping so he can look directly into my eyes.
“We could be happy. As long as we’re together, we’ll make it work.”
“With Cat involved, I seriously doubt that.”
“She’s irrelevant. She doesn’t matter.”
“She’s the mother of your child. She matters more than you’re willing to admit.”
“I just want you,” he croaks.
“But it’s not just about what you want anymore, is it?” I grab his wrists, pulling his hands from my face. “There’s a baby involved now. A baby that’s going to need their father. And not just some of him—all of him.”
“This isn’t fair.” He runs a hand through his hair, tugging on the ends in frustration.
“You’re right. It isn’t. But life isn’t fair.”
“None of this would have happened if you had never left.” Sadness makes way for anger.
“Some might argue this would have never happened had you not decided to stick your dick inside the one person on this planet that I despise with every fiber of my being.”
“It wasn’t about you.”
“Yeah, okay.” I roll my eyes, not buying that for a second. “Well, whatever it was about, I hope it was worth it... Daddy,” I tack on just to be an a-hole.
“I should have known you’d jump ship the second things got too real for you,” he spits, nostrils flaring in anger.
“You got another woman pregnant. I’d say that’s more than just real,” I fire back.
“You want to be angry with me, fine. Be mad. It seems that’s what you’re best at anyway.
But while you’re over there convincing yourself that I’m the one who ruined your life, perhaps you should take a long, hard look in the mirror.
I left, yes. But that doesn’t make me the scapegoat for everything bad that’s happened in your life since then. ”
“You know what, now that I think about it, you are the bad thing that’s happened to my life. You’re right. You should’ve never come back.”
Hearing him say it is much different than saying it myself and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t break something deep inside of me.
“If you’re going to leave, leave. Wren Cove is better without you here. I’m better without you here.”
“Glad to know how you really feel.” I start to back away. “Goodbye, Penn.”
I spin around, not able to get off the boat fast enough.
“Goodbye, LV.” I hear just as I reach the gangway and while every pore in my body is screaming to turn around and go back, to beg him to never let me go again, my pride simply will not allow it.
He made this bed.
He can enjoy lying in it.