CHAPTER 22
WINDY
I sit in my living room like a zombie. I’m sinking so deep into the couch it feels like it’s trying to swallow me whole.
My body feels like it weighs a ton, and I can barely raise my arms to do much of anything.
The television in front of me is off. It’s just a black, glossy rectangle.
But I stare at it anyway, because it’s easier than looking at anything else.
My reflection stares back at me, faint and warped—an image that belongs underwater. Hollow. Despondent. I look lost, so lost I can’t imagine anyone coming back from a place like this.
I haven’t moved from this spot. I only get up when my body forces me to the bathroom, then back.
Food doesn’t appeal; even thinking about eating makes my stomach twist. I can’t tell if it’s the pregnancy, the stress, or both tangled together.
Everything I try to swallow threatens to come back up.
My body feels like it’s rejecting everything—food, love, sadness, joy. Everything.
Since that day, since Wolf tore into me, I haven’t been the same.
All the fight drained out of me; I feel empty inside.
Something in me cracked at that moment—clean through, like a branch snapping under too much weight.
I felt it happen. The fight left me when I got to my car and shut the door.
The second silence enveloped me, I lost the battle to keep my emotions at bay.
I replayed every word.
Every tone.
Every look.
I replay everything. Watching from outside, I see myself shrinking until I barely exist.
Now, though, I sit here staring at this blank screen, trying to understand how my mind flipped so fast—how I went from holding myself together and fighting them, to the moment something crumbled inside me, leaving me feeling like I’m made of dust, threatening to blow away in the breeze.
I wait for the spark to come back, for that part of me that pushes forward and takes no prisoners.
But right now, all I feel is the weight of the silence and the echo of what broke inside me.
The moment I got home, I contacted Select-A-Mate and asked for a rematch. I’m still waiting to hear back from them because they need to ask Wolf, Amos, and Finian. It has to be mutual, or else there is no rematch.
There won’t be a problem getting the guys to agree to a rematch. It’s what they have been trying to do for months now.
The guys don’t want me.
They made their stance on the subject quite clear.
And finally, after all this time, I’m taking the hint and dipping out.
A woman can only be put through so much before she absolutely cannot handle any more.
I may have thick skin, but it’s not just me I need to think about anymore. I have a responsibility now.
Wolf mocking me when I was trying to tell them about the pregnancy was the last straw.
I’m more stubborn than the next person out there, but when my fighting leads to rejection as well as humiliation, I’m out.
Rejection by itself, I can deal with. I’ve been rejected so much in my life that I’m used to it.
But humiliating me in front of a crowd of people? Yeah. I can’t get behind that.
I just wish I could get my heart and my head on the same page. One knows what I need to do, while the other won’t allow me to do it. It still wants what it wants, even with everything that’s happened.
I don’t know how long I sit here before the doorbell rings sharply, metallic chimes slicing through the quiet living room. —I jump at the noise. Coming out of my trance, I notice it’s getting dark. The doorbell rings again, more urgent in the stillness.
I don’t move.
My eyes stay locked on the blank television screen, on the faint, ghostlike reflection of my own face staring back at me. My expression doesn’t even flicker. I’m not even sure I have the energy for that.
A few seconds pass.
A few more.
Next comes a soft, almost apologetic knock. Knuckles tapping wood like they’re afraid to disturb me.
I ignore it.
My body feels fused to this couch. My body is heavy and unwilling, as if, by staying still long enough, I might still disappear entirely into the cushions. I can disappear from the world and all the hurt I’ve faced.
The next knock isn’t a knock at all. It’s pounding. Hard, insistent, rattling the door in its frame.
Whoever is out there is determined. The pounding reverberates through the walls of my chest and my thoughts.
I sigh, scraping the sound out of me. Peeling myself off the couch, I stretch, my movement is stiff and reluctant.
My legs feel shaky, as if they forgot how to hold up.
The room tilts as I stand, and I blink until it settles.
The walk toward the door stretches on, longer than it should. The air is thick. I push through it, undo the lock with fingers that don’t feel like mine, and pull the door open.
My breath catches.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” My mouth falls open.
For a second, I can’t process what I’m seeing. They look out of place here—too real, too solid, too concerned—framed by the doorway of my dim living room.
“We tried giving you space, but it’s to the point where we cannot anymore. We need to talk. Can we come in?”
My parents are standing on my porch.
My fathers stand stiffy behind my mother, their jaws tight, and eyes scanning my face like they’re trying to read a language they used to know but don’t anymore.
My mother ... she looks like she hasn’t slept in years.
Her eyes are sunken and red. There are wrinkles all over her face.
She looks like she’s aged fifty years since I left home over a decade ago.
My mother’s face crumples just a little, but she forces a tight, watery smile. “Please.” Tears cling to her lashes, ready to slide down her face. Her voice is strained, like she’s barely holding herself together by sheer will.
I look at all of them again, roaming my gaze over all of them. Finally, after several minutes, I nod and step back inside my home.
As they pass, they look around my home with keen eyes. What’s surprising is the lack of judgment based on what they see. There’s understated luxury—not flashy like my childhood home. My house is well cared for, and it’s clear it’s lived in, not just a show home.
“Your home is lovely, darling,” my mom says, awed.
I stop under the archway between the foyer and the living room.
The curve of the archway is cool against my shoulder as I lean there for a moment.
My parents move slowly through the space, touching picture frames of my friends and me, trailing their fingers along the back of my fluffy, bubble couch, and taking in every detail like they’re cataloging evidence for their case.
The air feels too still, too aware of them as they look around my space.
Without thinking, my hand drifts to the small bump beneath my shirt. It’s a habit I’m forming—an unconscious gesture of reassurance to ground me. My thumb makes tiny, absent circles before I even realize what I’m doing.
My mother’s gaze snaps back to me.
Her eyes drop.
She sees the way I’m cradling my small bump.
The sound she makes is both sharp and soft.
There is this tiny gasp that seems to echo far louder than it should from such a petite person like my mother.
I jerk my hand away from my stomach. Her hand flies to her mouth, and her eyes widen.
They flick between my face and the place where my hand had been.
Heat floods my cheeks. My stomach twists.
“So … why are you all here?” I ask, trying to sound casual, but the words come out brittle, thin. Even I can hear the crack in them.
It doesn’t matter why they’re here. The question hangs uselessly in the air, flimsy like tissue paper flapping in the wind. My mother isn’t listening to anything. She’s more caught up in the truth she just saw.
I’m pregnant.
Her voice trembles, and I’m almost positive I hear a note of excitement. “Are you … expecting?”
The blush climbs higher, scalding my skin.
I stare at the floor, tracing the pattern in the rug, searching for anything that isn’t her face.
The last thing I want now is to see the judgment there.
My mother—always the most judgmental—looms over me, and I can’t handle that right now.
If I do, I’ll break. My nerves cling to me by a thin thread; after the last few months, I’m not sure how much more I can take.
My throat feels tight, too tight for words.
All I can manage is a small, stiff nod. The nod feels like surrender—like admitting what I’ve been holding in.
When my mother reacts with a strangled sound—half sob, half disbelief—I glance up automatically, emotions swirling between dread and reluctant hope.
She’s crying.
She looks happy.
Not a single tear, not even a glimmer of tears. Her eyes are full, shining, and on the verge of spilling over. My mother, who has always been composed to the point of coldness, who never lets her emotions slip even in the worst moments, is looking at me like her heart is cracking open.
I freeze.
My breath catches.
Shock ripples through me so sharply it almost hurts.
She’s never looked at me like this.
Not once.
Not ever.
I never thought I’d see the day.
For a moment, the room feels suspended in the air, nothing moving, nothing happening.
My parents stand in the living room shadows; I’m rooted under the archway, tense as I sense a sudden shift—a new, fragile weight in the air between us.
I can’t move. I can’t speak. I can only stand here, feeling the shock of her tears transform into a strange, aching tenderness, leaving me raw and exposed.
The more I stand there, the more everything feels different. It’s like the floor is shifting beneath my feet, and I’m still trying to find my balance.