Chapter 13 #2
“I don’t know anything about my biological mom,” I said. “Her name. Her face. Her health. Her history. I don’t even know if she wanted me and couldn’t keep me, or if she didn’t want me at all.”
Micah’s jaw flexed.
I lifted a hand, touching my own throat like I could steady myself through contact.
“My parents—my real parents, the ones who raised me—they gave me everything,” I said quickly, because I always felt the need to defend them, even when no one was attacking.
“They’re the best people I know. They adopted me, then four more kids.
Five of us. Like it was normal. Like love was something you built a house around. ”
Micah’s eyes softened a fraction.
“But there’s still a part of me,” I admitted, “that wonders what I came from. And what I carry.”
He didn’t interrupt.
“So, when I think about pregnancy,” I said, voice quieter now, “it’s not just about being a mom. It’s about … proof. Continuity. Knowing something about myself that I can’t find in any file or story.”
Micah’s hand moved, slow and deliberate, resting on my hip. Not possessive. Grounding.
“And I’ve always wondered,” I continued, “if I could even have biological children. Because I don’t have any family medical history. I don’t have a map. I don’t have—”
A tremor hit my voice, and I hated it.
Micah’s thumb moved once, a small stroke against my skin like reassurance.
“You don’t need a map,” he said.
The certainty in his voice almost broke me.
“You say that like it’s simple,” I whispered.
“It is,” he said, and then his gaze sharpened. “And it isn’t. But it’s real.”
I blinked hard.
My body, my stupid heart, reacted to his steadiness like it was water in a drought.
“I’m not religious,” I said, because the thought had been circling my mind in a way that felt too honest to ignore. “I mean—my family talks about God sometimes, gratitude, being blessed. But I’ve never been the kind of person who thinks everything happens for a reason.”
Micah watched me like he could tell I was circling something important.
“But,” I said, “I do think … some things happen and then you have to decide what they mean.”
He nodded once.
“And being adopted,” I admitted, “has made me … weird about choice.”
His brow furrowed. “Weird how?”
I stared at the slice of sun on my wall. The dust glittering.
“I didn’t get to choose my beginning,” I said softly. “I got to choose what I did with it. I got to choose who I became. I got to choose to believe I was wanted, not tolerated.”
Micah went very still.
“And sometimes,” I said, voice barely above a whisper, “I think if something happened—if I got pregnant—I don’t know if I could see it as a mistake.”
Micah’s eyes sharpened.
“You’d want to keep it,” he said, not as a question.
My throat tightened.
“I think I’d want to let … nature decide,” I admitted. “Like fate. Like something outside me making a choice I didn’t have to force.”
The words sounded strange out loud, even to me.
Micah’s face went unreadable.
“Joy,” he said slowly, “that’s—”
“I know,” I interrupted, cheeks burning. “It’s a lot. And it’s not logical. But it’s true.”
Silence.
Downstairs, someone laughed again. Life kept moving, completely unaware it was carrying my world on its back.
Micah’s gaze stayed on mine for a long moment.
Then he said, very quietly, “I don’t make children by accident.”
The words were blunt. Not cruel.
A boundary.
A confession.
My heart knocked hard against my ribs.
I nodded slowly, forcing myself not to shrink. “Okay.”
His jaw flexed, as if he expected me to argue.
But I didn’t.
Because I understood.
Because a man like Micah didn’t get to be careless. Not with bodies. Not with consequences. Not with life.
“And,” he added, voice rougher now, “if there’s a possibility, we’ll handle it.”
We.
The word hit me low in my chest.
Not you will handle it.
Not deal with it.
We.
My eyes stung.
I hated that, too—hated how quickly emotion rose when I felt held. Like my nervous system didn’t know what to do with steady.
“I’m not trying to trap you,” I whispered, because the fear was old and automatic and humiliating.
Micah’s expression flickered—something dark and protective.
“If you think that’s what I believe,” he said quietly, “then you don’t know me.”
I swallowed.
“I don’t,” I admitted. “Not really.”
He stared at me for a moment, then reached up and brushed his knuckles along my cheek, slow and careful.
“You’re right,” he said. “You don’t.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth again—brief, controlled.
Then back to my eyes.
“But you will.”
A shiver went through me.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Because that wasn’t romance.
That was inevitability.
Micah shifted, propping himself up on one elbow, his body angled over mine without fully pinning me. His presence filled the small bed like a storm cloud pressing against glass.
“You regret it?” he asked suddenly.
I blinked. “What?”
“Earlier,” he clarified, voice tight. “Do you regret … choosing me.”
The question was so raw it shocked me.
Micah didn’t look like a man who asked questions like that.
He looked like a man who assumed.
Who controlled.
Who never gave people the power to reject him.
And yet here he was, watching my face like my answer mattered more than anything else.
My chest tightened.
“No,” I said immediately. “I don’t.”
His gaze held mine.
I added, softer, “I’ve regretted not choosing things in my life. I’ve regretted being scared. I’ve regretted letting ‘later’ steal moments from me.”
Micah’s expression shifted—something like pain, quickly buried.
“But I don’t regret you,” I finished.
He exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath.
Then he leaned down—not to devour me.
Just to press his forehead to mine.
A quiet touch.
An intimate one.
The kind that said: I’m here.
My eyes closed.
For a second, I let myself simply exist in it.
Not thinking about consequences. Not trying to manage the future.
Just feeling the weight of him—real and warm and impossible—in my small, safe bed above a bakery that smelled like comfort.
I opened my eyes again and found him watching me.
“Can I ask you something?” I whispered.
Micah’s mouth tilted slightly. “Yeah.”
“Do you … always feel guilty after?” I asked, and my cheeks burned as the question left me. “After wanting someone.”
His eyes darkened—not with lust. With something heavier.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Why?”
His jaw flexed. “Because wanting is weakness.”
I frowned. “No.”
That earned me a slow blink, like I’d surprised him.
“You think you’re the only one who’s wanted something they didn’t feel worthy of?” I asked quietly. “Micah, I’ve been doing that my whole life. I just did it politely.”
Something in his gaze shifted.
I continued, because once I started, honesty was hard to stop.
“When you’re adopted,” I said softly, “you grow up knowing you’re loved. But you start to believe you have to be … worth it.”
Micah’s eyes stayed locked on mine.
“So, you become good,” I murmured. “You become useful. You become easy. You become someone who won’t be a problem.”
My throat tightened.
“And then you meet someone like you,” I added, voice trembling slightly, “and suddenly your body doesn’t want easy anymore.”
Micah went still.
“That scares you,” he said, not a question.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He stared at me for a long moment, then said, low and rough, “It should.”
That should have chilled me.
Instead, it warmed something deep in me, like a match struck in darkness.
Because he wasn’t pretending.
He wasn’t charming me with lies.
He was telling me the truth.
And my whole life, I’d been hungry for truth, even when it hurt.
Micah’s hand slid down my side, slow and deliberate, not rushing—just claiming space as if he belonged in it.
I inhaled sharply.
His gaze dropped to my mouth again.
Then he paused, like he was remembering the question he’d asked earlier. Like responsibility still mattered.
“If you want,” he said quietly, “we can go to a pharmacy. Today.”
The fact that he said it calmly—like it was normal—made my chest ache.
Not because of the pharmacy.
Because of the care.
Because he wasn’t vanishing into shame or fear. He was staying.
He was offering solutions.
He was acting like there was a future to plan for.
“I don’t want you to think I’m … reckless,” I whispered.
Micah’s mouth tilted slightly again. “You invited a stranger into your home.”
I flushed. “That’s not—”
“It is,” he said, and his eyes flickered with something like amusement. “But it wasn’t stupid.”
My heart kicked.
“It wasn’t?” I whispered.
He leaned closer, his voice dropping. “No. Because you knew what you were doing.”
I swallowed hard.
“And I did, too,” he added.
The way he said it made heat roll through me again, quick and familiar.
I wasn’t just awake.
I was hungry.
And that terrified me, because hunger made you honest in ways you couldn’t control.
Micah’s hand paused at my waist, his thumb pressing lightly like he was testing my reaction.
I didn’t pull away.
I didn’t tense.
I felt my body respond, immediate and traitorous, as if it recognized him the way it recognized sunlight and salt air.
Micah watched my face change and his eyes darkened—this time, unmistakably.
“Joy,” he murmured.
“Yes?”
His gaze held mine, steady and heavy.
“Tell me what you want,” he said.
The question hit me like a dare.
My mind tried to reach for politeness.
For careful.
For the version of me that didn’t ask too much.
But my body—my newly awakened, no-longer-sweet body—had its own answer.
And I could feel it rising in my throat, unstoppable.
I licked my lips, my voice barely there.
“I want you to stay,” I whispered.
Micah’s jaw flexed.
“I want you to stop looking at me like you’re about to leave,” I added, because the words poured out once the door opened.
His eyes flashed.
“And,” I finished, cheeks burning, heart hammering, “I want you to kiss me again.”
Micah went still for one beat—like he was deciding something.
His voice dropped, rough and quiet.
“Okay,” he said. “But you’re going to tell me if you feel overwhelmed.”
I nodded, breath unsteady.
“I will.”
His gaze held mine for another long moment.
Then he leaned in.
And as his mouth hovered just above mine—close enough that my whole body lit up in anticipation—I realized something with startling clarity:
This wasn’t just sex.
This was attachment.
And for someone like me—someone who had spent her whole life learning how to be kept—that was the most dangerous thing of all.