Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
WADE
Dani practically jumped out of her chair, spinning around to turn off the propane burner.
I barely registered what she was doing. In the few moments it took for her to add some water to the milk and chocolate mixture, I tried to gather myself together.
She sat back down across from me. The room was so quiet, the sound of the marshmallow vodka as she poured it into the mugs was loud.
When she handed me a mug, I wrapped my hands around it as if it were a rope and I was drowning at sea. I felt tossed asunder, caught in a riptide of emotion I didn’t even quite understand.
I finally rasped, “What?”
Dani stirred her cocoa, the sound of the spoon clinking around the edges sharp. After a moment, she replied, “That kind of came out really fast. I’m sorry.”
“Jesus, Dani. You don’t need to be sorry for anything. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I wanted to tell you, but it was all kinds of crazy.”
“So, you’re telling me we had sex once, and you had the bad luck to get pregnant and then have a miscarriage and almost die?”
She swallowed, sadness entering her gaze before she stirred her cocoa again.
She took a sip before lowering her mug slowly.
“That woman, the one who was talking to me in the parking lot?” At my nod, she continued, “She was one of the nurses on duty that night. She told me it’s really easy to get pregnant when you’re seventeen.
She said you can even get pregnant through your clothes when you’re that young.
” Dani’s smile was sad, and I sensed she was trying to find humor in an experience that had none.
Her shoulders rose and fell when she took a breath before lifting her mug to take a sip.
“I’ll say it a little slower this time. We had sex.
One time. I got pregnant. If you recall, I was gone the whole summer because we were out visiting my dad’s parents at their place in Colorado.
I don’t know if you remember, but at first, I texted and I even sent you that card. ”
Her lips curled in an actual smile then, and my heart felt bruised.
Because I’d tried not to remember. I kind of shoved it out of my mind, but just now, I knew exactly where that card was.
It was tucked in a box of things from my bedroom when I was a kid in a closet somewhere at my parents’ house.
While I was absorbing this shocking truth, my emotions felt battered as everything else I’d tried to shove away rose from the mists of my memory like visceral blows.
“I found out early that I was pregnant because I had morning sickness pretty bad. My mom figured it out. She promised she wouldn’t tell my dad, but he overheard us talking about it after she went and got me a pregnancy test. He was furious.
” Dani sighed, lifting a hand and winding one of her curls around her fingers.
She wasn’t often nervous, so when she was, it nearly broke my heart.
“So, there you go. That’s why I stopped talking to you. I didn’t want him to freak out on you.”
I stared at Dani, unsettled, disoriented, and almost afraid. More than anything, it killed me to grasp how she must have felt. I took a gulp of the hot cocoa, distantly noticing the marshmallow flavor and savoring the burn of the vodka.
This time, when I reached for her hand, she didn’t pull away. It was clammy and cold in mine. When I brushed my thumb across her wrist, I could feel the shallow, rapid beat of her pulse.
“When you had a miscarriage, was that when you were at your grandparents’ place?”
Dani shook her head quickly, her curls swinging around her shoulders as she did. “No. It was right after we got back.”
“I’m so fucking sorry, Dani,” I finally said, my voice thick from the emotion clotted in my throat.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for, Wade.
I shut you out. I never even told you what really happened.
I just threw a slushy at you when you tried to talk to me at school that fall.
” Her smile was bitter. It faded quickly, and she bit her lip as she looked at me across the table.
“I’d like to say I would have even if you hadn’t heard what must’ve been a confusing bit in the parking lot there.
But I don’t know. It just seemed easier to not say anything. ”
I felt compelled to explain. “Just so you know, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop the other night. All I heard when I was walking to my truck was something about you being in the hospital in high school. Needless to say, I was confused.”
“I can imagine.”
I finally took another sip of my hot cocoa. It slid down my throat smoothly. “I’d give your dad hell if he was still alive for me to do so,” I said as I gave her hand a squeeze.
Dani lifted a shoulder in a tiny shrug. “It’s all water under the bridge now.
I think he just kind of freaked out. I’m not a father, so it’s hard for me to know what it might be like to find out that my seventeen-year-old daughter was pregnant.
While he was furious and forbade me from talking to you, he was basically no help whatsoever.
My mom was supportive. She told me I could do whatever I wanted and she would support my decision.
She’s a nurse, so she said she’d seen more than her share of young mothers feeling like they had no choice.
He did say he wouldn’t stand in the way of an abortion if I got one, but the choice was taken out of my hands. ”
“What did you want to do?” I asked. Manufactured from whole cloth, my mind conjured an image of Dani pregnant and our imaginary child with her dark curls and freckled cheeks.
“I didn’t know what I wanted. I was so freaked out, Wade.
I don’t know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t been away all summer when I found out.
It all blew up in such a weird fucked-up way, and I didn’t know what to do.
I was throwing up all the time, and then I was bleeding everywhere one afternoon and the decision was made for me.
Before I even realized what was happening, my mother was with me at the hospital bossing all the ER staff around.
She was pissed they wouldn’t let her handle anything, but it was a conflict because I’m her daughter.
Since she’s a nurse, she knew how serious it was. ”
My throat nearly closed up and my eyes stung. I could hardly bear the thought that Dani had to make her way through all of that mostly alone.
“Did anybody other than your parents know?”
“The staff at the hospital, but that’s it. It’s pretty heavy, not exactly the kind of thing to vent about with my friends, you know? Maybe if I’d been home over the summer, I probably would’ve talked to some of my friends, but it was also kind of embarrassing.”
Emotion was spinning like a tornado inside of me, a mix of anger at Dani’s now-deceased father, at the world, at bad luck, and a stinging pain that she waited this long to tell me.
Despite that pain, I understood why. She’d only been seventeen.
Her father had always been strict, and I couldn’t even fathom how he handled this.
Life could be so strange. Ever since Dani had basically cut me out, I’d been confused until I decided it wasn’t worth it.
She’d been so easy to be with. We’d been friends first and danced around dating before we actually did.
There was always a push and pull with her because she was a bit prickly and feisty and that was her nature.
We traveled into a few months of pushing the envelope further and further, with stolen kisses when we were alone and then that one night.
One night that took her innocence in so many layers.
I fancied myself in love with her before she went away that summer.
With blinding clarity, I realized I still loved her although I’d barely let myself consider it.
I loved her in that soul deep way it’s so hard for so many people to find.
Yet, we had this tangled mess between us, and I had no idea how she really felt.
Oh, I knew we had chemistry, but chemistry was just that.
“Are you okay?” My question came out gruff, the ragged edges of my pain showing.
Dani looked startled, a little laugh escaping. “Of course I’m okay. I’m right here. It’s been years. See?” she said, gesturing her hand up and down her body before pausing to take a gulp of her hot cocoa.
“I didn’t mean physically.”
Her eyes searched mine. “It sucked. I won’t lie. I’m relieved, you know. Maybe now you understand why I was a little tense.”
“Tense? Is that what you were?”
“I don’t know how else to describe it. I felt like shit because I didn’t want it to be a thing with my dad with you, so I just never told you what happened.
And I hate it. I mean, it’s not like we were engaged, or we’d even been together all that long.
But we’d been friends first, and it just felt shitty.
I felt guilty about not telling you. It was scary and weird.
I don’t know if I would’ve gotten through it if it hadn’t been for my mom. ”
I gulped my hot cocoa again, needing the burn of alcohol in the moment.
“Need some more?” she asked when I set the mug down.
“I’d love some more. That marshmallow vodka is about perfect with it.”
If I could focus on the surface, maybe I wouldn’t lose my mind.
Dani grinned as she stood, fetching my mug as she drained hers.
She seemed to need something mundane to do as much as I needed the simple actions of acting like everything was normal to get me through this.
I waited at the table, almost stunned into silence.
The soft sounds of her pouring cocoa into the mugs and the spoon clinking the edges as she stirred in the vodka were somehow soothing.
After she sat back down and we both had a few more sips of the even stronger cocoa, Dani asked, “Can we not talk about this all night?”
Relief pierced me, because I was out of words and didn’t know what else to say. I chuckled, reaching over and squeezing her hand. “Deal. I guess it was pretty heavy.”
“Ya think?” she teased, her gaze sobering quickly.
“I finally tell you my big bad secret on why I cut you out like that. Yeah, it’s heavy.
Something else I’ve had to get used to is, there’s nothing I can do to fix it.
I can’t undo it. I’ve always hated that.
I want a do-over, and that’s not an option. ”
“Dani, you were seventeen. I think you probably did the best you could in a really shitty situation. You meant a lot to me, and it fucking sucked and I was confused. Now, I get it. But I sure as hell don’t blame you. I’m just as upset that I wasn’t there for you.”
She twisted her mouth to the side. “You couldn’t be. You didn’t know. And we’re still talking about it, although I guess I kept it going,” she said, before taking a gulp of her cocoa.
“I missed you.” My words slipped out. I hadn’t even known I was going to say them. But they were so fucking true it was as if they had to be said, the words themselves insisting upon it.
Dani’s eyes widened, and I felt that sense of defensiveness I knew so well from her start to rise. But then, she gave her head a little shake and straightened her shoulders. “I’m right here,” she teased.
“That’s all I get?” I couldn’t help but push, just a little bit.
A flush stained her cheeks and her breath came out in a little huff. “I missed you too, Wade.”
That meant more than she could ever know.
“I hate drama,” she said next.
“Is this drama?”
She rolled her eyes. “It feels like it. The saving grace in that whole fiasco was that hardly anyone knew what happened. Aside from my parents, the only people who knew where those who treated me at the ER that night. And they weren’t allowed to gossip.”
“I’d give anything for you not to have gone through that alone.”
“I know you would’ve,” she said softly.
“There’s one thing we can have a do-over on,” I added.
“What’s that?”
“Us.”
Dani’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly that. You know there’s a reason we just can’t get this chemistry to quit. We might as well see where it goes.”
Now, her eyes were wide as saucers, and I wondered if I had overplayed my hand. If there was one thing this last half an hour or so represented, it was brutal honesty. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew I wanted a shot, the shot we never got before.
She nibbled on her bottom lip, catching a curl in her fingers and twirling it. “I don’t know, Wade.”
“Is there someone else?” I finally asked the question that had been practically burning a hole inside my brain.
She shook her head swiftly. “Oh God, no. I mean, the other night wouldn’t have ever happened. You know that.”
“I figured, but what do we have to lose?”