Chapter 36 Xander
XANDER
“Tea?” If I had it my way, Snow would still be in the hospital and wouldn’t leave until her incisions from Fred’s surgery were nothing more than a shadow against her skin.
If I hadn’t fucked up, I’d still have that power.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Snow replies in a small voice.
She sits at the kitchen table with all three cats around her, each one smothering her with affection.
They missed her as much as I did, but I keep that locked up for now.
There’s no telling how this will go.
I’ve had time to think and calm down.
Hopefully, Snow has as well.
As the water bubbles to a boil in the kettle, I watch Snow in the reflection of the glass cabinet holding my plates.
Her head is down while she runs her fingers through Rustle’s fur as she spreads across the table.
Willow lounges next to her while Tiger weaves around her ankles, then decides enough is enough and flops down on the floor next to her.
She’s pale.
The shadows under her eyes are darker than before and her form seems smaller than before.
My chest aches.
As much as I want to reach out to her and comfort her, we have to be honest with each other first.
With two mugs of tea, I approach the table and place one in front of her, then I sit across from her.
She wraps her hands around the mug and blows lightly on the top but she doesn’t look up at me.
Instead, she remains focused on the drink.
The silence stretches out between us until my churning stomach can’t take it any more. “Not to be blunt, but I need to know why you lied to me.”
Snow doesn’t move at first.
She continues to stare down at her drink while her lips purse as if they’re preventing something from escaping her mouth, then she lightly shakes her head and tucks some of her hair behind her ear.
“Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t entirely intentional?”
“Is that the truth?”
She finally looks up at me. “At first, it was.”
I grit my teeth. “No more lies. Please. Just tell me the truth.”
Something about her deflates and she slumps back in her seat.
“I was scared. I got the news after I’d scraped everything about Caleb out of the living room and the kitchen of my apartment, only to find out that he’d put a baby inside me.
We’d gotten drunk some months back at my birthday and I was lonely.
He was sweet. I was a fool. He just wanted laid and now I have this. ”
Her hand drops under the table, presumably onto her belly.
I drink slowly.
“I needed help at first. I was panicked, so I called my friend, but I somehow ended up helping her through her issues, and then she hung up on me and I felt so alone. I didn’t fully know how I felt about you other than the fact that I didn’t want to mess anything up.
We’d just slept together, Christmas was coming, and I wanted one good thing this year, that’s all.
I didn’t want to lose you and I knew that dropping a baby out of the blue would scare you off.
It would scare anyone off. So…” She inhales deeply and the next words rush out of her.
“I put it out of my mind and forgot about it so I could focus on you. On us.”
I continue to drink, fighting the urge to interrupt her with my feelings so that she gets out everything she needs to.
“And then it just… got bigger. I realized I was falling for you, and you were being so kind and attentive.” She leans forward and sinks one hand back into Rustle’s fur.
“It was addicting. After Caleb, being treated like a desirable human was addicting. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.
I loved being here. I even loved our secret.
It was like everything I ever wished for was coming true and I just wanted to keep it all in this little bubble until after Christmas and New Year’s.
That’s all. I wasn’t lying to hurt you. I was scared.
” She pauses and her eyes close briefly. “I still am.”
When she opens her eyes, she finally looks right at me.
“I didn’t hide it because I thought you would be a bad father, but I did think you wouldn’t want anything to do with another man’s baby.
Or me. I mean we’ve been dating, if you want to call it that, since before Thanksgiving.
That’s no time at all. A baby’s huge, and I just wanted to enjoy you for a while longer before my life truly changed. ”
She lays it out in a rush, some words tripping over one another, but her points are clear and it sounds like she’s truly being honest.
“But,” she continues before I can speak, “my reasoning doesn’t change the impact of my actions. Even if you understand what I did and why I did it, that doesn’t change that it hurt you.”
My lips part but the words catch on the back of my throat, so I swallow and glance down at my half-drunk tea.
“You’re right,” I say softly. “I… in some regard, I thought I had earned your trust. I thought we had passed over a boundary because I trusted you. I let you into my life, I told you about Claire, and I no longer cared about my job because you made me feel like I was alive again. And then to find out…”
I shake my head. “For a moment, in the theater, I thought the baby was mine and I was happy.”
“What?” Snow’s eyes widen.
“I was happy. I knew we’d never talked about anything concerning our future, but so much about you and our time together felt right that when I learned you were pregnant, and I thought it was mine, I was excited.
The thought of having a family with you?
” My lips twitch. “When I learned you were four months along, I realized you’d hidden something from me and that trust I thought we had really wasn’t there. ”
“No, Xander.” Snow leans against the table suddenly. “It is there! I… I know it looks like it wasn’t, but I was so scared of losing you.”
“But you still couldn’t tell me. Was it something I did that gave the impression that my care and feelings for you came with clauses attached? That I would be so cold as to turn my back on you?”
“No,” Snow replies. “But Xander, it wasn’t about you.” Her lips press into a thin line. “It was about me. And Caleb.”
My head tilts and I remain silent, waiting for her explanation.
“You have been such a gentleman. Some days, I couldn’t believe you were real.
Everything about you is like a dream. Your kindness.
Your attentiveness. Your romantic touch on everything.
Even the way you pour your heart out. You’re a good man, I believe that.
But me?” She laughs dryly. “I came right off the back of a toxic relationship where everything flipped so suddenly at the drop of a hat, where kindness was a tool just to get me to sign a lease or into bed. You’re not like Caleb, and maybe it was shitty of me to tar you with the same brush, but you can’t fault me for being scared because as nice as you were, history taught me that the possibility remained. ”
In that moment, my perspective shifts.
While my hurt is justified, my way of viewing Snow’s outlook on things is flawed in the same way that I grew panicked while Auriela was in the hospital at death’s door, and the way I couldn’t operate on Snow.
Trust in my skill and the skill of others didn’t prevent me from being scared that history was repeating itself.
I can’t fault Snow for having the same fear.
“I understand.”
Her eyes dart up to meet mine. “You… you do?”
“I do.”
“I…” Abandoning her mug, she wrings her hands together. “Are you angry?”
“No, Snow. I’m not angry.”
Her eyelids flutter. “At the hospital, you sounded angry.”
“We’re not in the hospital now.”
“You could lose your job.”
“Snow. Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“I tell you I understand and your instinctual reaction is to try and provoke anger in me, as if you can persuade me that actually, I’m wrong and I shouldn’t understand.”
“I’m not trying to provoke you,” she says stiffly.
“Aren’t you? It’s like a defense mechanism, isn’t it?
Being understood is foreign so you look for ways to prove me wrong, as if there’s information I hadn’t considered yet.
I’m well aware of my work situation but I’m now aware of your thought process.
I’m not saying it stops the hurt. But I understand. ”
“But why?” She squints at me. “How can you just… hear all of that and understand?”
“Were you lying to me?”
“No.”
“Then why wouldn’t I understand? It’s what we do when listening to people you care about. You listened and understood me, didn’t you?”
Snow nods slowly.
“Then this is the same thing.”
“But…” She shifts side to side in her chair and her hands clutch tighter at one another. “I don’t like how that makes me feel.”
“How does it make you feel?”
Her lower lip wobbles and the next time she blinks, there’s a shimmer in her eyes. “Like you’re trying to trick me and I’m still in trouble.”
“Snow… we’re both adults so you’re certainly not in trouble. And I’m not trying to trick you. I’ve told you how I feel and you’ve told me how you feel. We understand each other more now, I think.”
“And you still care about me?” Her voice is as small as her fists have become, woven together until the skin is pale over her knuckles.
“Of course I do, Snow. That’s why it hurt me. What I feel for you is…” Suddenly, I’m off my chair and kneeling beside her, gazing up at her with a racing heart.