Chapter 17
Ryan walked down the stairs, ready to smell something coming from the kitchen, but either his mother wasn’t up or she wasn’t cooking—and he hoped it wasn’t the latter, because when Cece Palmer isn’t cooking, she’s mad, real mad.
“Ma?” he called out as he walked into the kitchen, but only the humming of the refrigerator could be heard. He looked in the pantry, then in the room she called the television room, and then he noticed the note sitting on the coffee machine.
Ryan was written across the front of the envelope. It took less than a second for him to rip open the letter, dreading what she’d written inside.
Went back to the city.
See you soon.
XOXO
Ma
He dropped into a chair, holding his head in both hands. How had the best night of his life turned out so badly?
Miss Wisconsin.
He groaned as the later events of the evening flashed through his mind. He rubbed his eyes hard, trying to forget how disastrous it had ended. When he’d arrived back home from his date with Thea, he’d come into the house to a screaming match between Cece and Ainsley.
“What’s going on?” he’d yelled out as he walked into the kitchen.
Both women had stopped yelling and looked at him. Both had had a face of contempt and indignation. His mother had pointed her finger at him.
“This is your problem.” His mother threw a dish towel on the counter and walked out of the kitchen.
He looked back at Ainsley, who had the smuggest look on her face. “I tried to explain.”
“Explain what?”
“That I might be pregnant.” She smiled, holding her hands by her belly.
He felt nauseous. “Pregnant?”
He couldn’t remember the last time they had spent the night together. Hadn’t they been careful? Or had he done something he didn’t remember? Why did he drink to the point he had to question himself?
This was when he wished he had listened to his mother.
“I haven’t had my period this month, and I didn’t want to find out alone.” She suddenly looked afraid.
“Of course.” He held out his arms and embraced her.
What a jerk he had been. He had only been thinking of himself and the situation from his perspective.
What about her? He had been raised by a single mother.
He understood the repercussions of raising a child on your own in this world.
How frightened she must be at the possibility of a pregnancy. What was he thinking?
“I love you,” she said, interrupting his spinning thoughts. “Do you think we could work things out if there is a baby? Or maybe, even, if there isn’t?”
“Look, this is all a lot to process.” He didn’t know what to say. What could he say?
“Yes, it is.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I might be having your child, so I thought maybe we could find out together.”
It seemed completely reasonable to sit in his bedroom to wait for the results. The five minutes felt like forever as they sat side by side. Longer, when she reached over and took his hand.
“I’m nervous,” she said as her usually sparkly smile had dropped.
He took her hand with his free one and held it. “If there’s something to be nervous about, we’ll work it out together.”
He didn’t know what he was saying, in all honesty.
He just felt for her in that moment. For him.
Finding out if he was becoming a parent was a lot.
He could feel the obligation to promise her something.
After all, he had been with her. He had made the decision, too.
He thought of Cece and the scarifies she made for him to live this happy and amazing life, all to end up putting another woman in the same situation.
That’s when the doorbell rang.
Then Cece was calling for him from the front door.
“Who’s here?” Ainsley turned her phone around to check the time.
He was about to get up, but she pulled him back to her side. “Please don’t leave.”
And that’s when he noticed Ainsley wasn’t all glittery.
She wasn’t wearing her usual amount of makeup or an over-the-top outfit.
She was in a pair of jeans and a plain T-shirt.
Funny, how she looked prettier than she ever had to him, but his feelings hadn’t changed. He didn’t feel anything toward her.
“If it’s positive”—she paused—“I think we should get married.”
He patted her hand as he silently screamed inside his head. What was he going to do? How could he let this happen when he’d finally started figuring things out?
“Look, Ainsley,” he said, making sure he was careful with his words. “I grew up with a set of married parents who hated each other and ended up miserable together. I think it’s best if we work together as partners, as a team, right now, to give this baby the best shot at having a happy home.”
She pulled her hands out from his grip. “Ryan.” She spoke harshly.
“We are going to be a family if this test is positive. Not a partnership. Not a team.” She got up off the bed and faced him, crossing her hands across her stomach.
“And to be honest, I don’t want to be just a partner to my child’s dad, like we’re two individuals working together.
I want a family and that takes more than team effort. ”
He may have a child.
He dropped his head, trying to understand how this night went from him having a hopeful future to him feeling like a shackle had been put around his ankle.
This was not the way he’d wanted to start his next chapter or his family.
“Ainsley, please,” he said.
Ainsley started to cry and ran out of the room. She didn’t stop once she hit the stairs; she proceeded to take the steps as fast as she could and ran down to the front hall. Ryan tried to go after her, but he could hardly keep up with her.
“Ainsley, wait!” he called out, forgetting his mother’s call earlier, forgetting the sound of the doorbell.
As he hit the bottom of the stairs, he looked up at the open front door to see Ainsley stop right in front of Thea, who stood there with his mother.
All three women looked shocked to see one another standing there.
“Did you have Miss Wisconsin up in your room?” Thea said, and her mouth stayed wide with surprise.
Ainsley wiped her eyes, her own mouth fallen in indignation. She huffed as her tears escalated. She turned to face Ryan, and bawled out, “You’re dating already? When I might be pregnant?”
All three women stared at Ryan as he stood there not sure how to answer them. In a football game, during a crisis moment when the rest of the team had fallen apart, it took someone to stand up to the fear of defeat and reset the mood. They needed a reset.
“I know you’re scared about everything, but whether your pregnant or not, I can’t change my feelings for you.
I’m not in love with you. And I promise, I will be the best teammate for this baby, the best dad, and the best father you could ask for, but I will never be a good husband for you. And I think you know that.”
He turned to Thea, whose eyes grew with each second. “She’s pregnant.”
He shook his head. He would tell the truth no matter how hard it might be. “Possibly. Ainsley came to the island to take a test and didn’t want to be alone.”
He knew this looked bad. Really bad. Here was this perfect woman who had opened her heart to him, and now he had his ex-girlfriend up in his room taking a pregnancy test. Not to mention that he’d basically dumped Ainsley in front of her.
Did he look like a complete donkey? Or did the truth make a difference this time?
“I’m so sorry to both of you.” He shook his head. “I know I need to do better.”
Thea stood there looking around at everyone. Then she shook her head and turned and left.
She got into her Jeep without even looking back and took off.
If he had been a man in that moment, he would’ve ran after her. Just take off after that Jeep. But instead, he stayed.
“Can we check out the test?” Ainsley asked, taking his hand into hers, intertwining her fingers with his. She shook their locked hands. “Remember, this should be a happy moment. We might become parents.”
“You just love digging yourself into the sand, don’t you?” Cece muttered rhetorically as she disappeared into the house.
He let go of Ainsley’s hand, and they walked back upstairs to the bedroom. The test read negative, clear as day. Ainsley looked relieved. He felt numb.
When she’d fallen asleep on his bed, he’d gone to sleep in the guest room. He’d texted Thea all night, but she never responded, and had blocked him by the morning.
Now, he held his mother’s vague letter, not sure how to navigate sleeping beauty upstairs.
That’s what Ainsley felt like to him. A character who wanted a happily ever after. He wished he could make everyone happy, he really did, but he wasn’t and would never be in love with her.
When he heard her footsteps, he wished he could just leave and send for a car. But that wouldn’t be the gentlemanly thing to do, even if it meant risking everything. He’d keep his integrity.
“Let me take you to the airport,” he said, looking at her holding a very heavy, very large suitcase. She had planned on staying longer than one night.
“I’m good,” she said. “I’ve already called an Uber.”
He got up from his seat and dropped Cece’s letter on the table. “Ma went back to the city.”
“Did she leave because of me?” she asked.
Ryan sighed. “No, because of me.”
She placed her hand gently on his chest. “I did a lot of soul-searching last night.”
He waited for the begging to begin again. The pleas and sobs to take her back.
“You’re a good man, Ryan Mathers.” Her eyes filled with moisture, but this was a different kind from last night. He could even feel that her energy was different, though it didn’t make much sense to him. “I’m sorry if coming here last night ruined things.”
Ryan shook his head. “It’s not your fault. I understand you were scared.”
But by the time the car arrived, she seemed giddy about a party she would be attending in the city when she returned.
“I’ll miss you,” she said as she left, her phone to her ear as she talked to one of her girlfriends about not being “preggers.”
“Preggers?” he said out loud, the weight of the world lifting from his chest. He wanted to run around the house screaming in joy. He wasn’t going to be a father.
But then the little bit of him, the tiny part that had thought that maybe this could be his shot at having a family stuck him in place. He’d always wanted to be a dad. Give a child the childhood he had always dreamed of having.
He just didn’t want a family with Ainsley.
He tried texting Thea, but his messages had been blocked.
It started as a walk, then he started to run down the street. He kept going toward her spot, the Wedge. He had a feeling that’s where she’d be. He needed to talk to her. He wanted to explain everything. Explain his feelings. Tell her how he felt.
But when he reached the beach and found the Wedge empty, the night seemed to come back differently, as he stood in front of the cacophony of waves crashing into the seawall built of granite boulders larger than him.
He looked out at the water, covering his eyes from the blaring sun. Not a single surfer was out on the water.
Then he thought about how he could leave a letter, like his mother.
He’d write down his feelings, explain everything, and have it in black and white.
Not through text messages, not through social media posts, or hashtag reveals.
He would lay it all out there like a man standing on the edge of a plank.
She just had to push with the tip of her finger to have him drop out of her life. Or she could pull him back onto the ship and continue their journey together.
It was what he’d basically written by the time he’d finished.
The empty house proved to be a quiet enough place to get it written, edited, and sealed. He showered, drove to the shop, and walked it up to the front door, expecting to drop it off at the mailbox when he realized the shop was closed.
A group of tourists were looking inside the dark store.
“It’s closed the week of Fourth of July?” a woman said with a sneer in her voice.
“Maybe they took a vacation to celebrate the holiday?” he mumbled, but he regretted it immediately.
“It’s Ryan Mathers!” a man said, recognizing him right away.
“What?” a woman said. “No way! It’s Ryan Mathers!”
Ryan backed away from the store, but it didn’t matter; people swarmed him.
“Can I get an autograph?”
“Take a selfie with me!”
He noticed a note on the front door, underneath the closed sign, but he didn’t get close enough to read it with all the tourists still hounding him for autographs. He just wanted to get out of there.
He rushed to his truck, looked out at the crowd, people on their phones, videoing and taking pictures of him.
He tried acting nonchalant about what was going on inside his head.
He gave a wave to a group of teenage girls holding their phones out at him, then started to reverse out of his parking spot.
He’d have to come back another time. Should he write another note?
As he pulled away from Thea’s store, he looked back one last time, and that’s when he saw her standing in the window, watching him leave.
He stopped the truck in the middle of the street, letting people come up to him, and got out, looking up at her.
He put his hand on his chest, hoping she understood what that meant.
That he was there for her. That he had feelings for her.
That they could be good together. They were good together.
That by putting his hand on his chest in front of all these people, he was declaring something to her.
A promise, a pledge, an affirmation that he would always feel this way.
But she stepped away from the window, dropping the curtain to cover it, and didn’t appear again.
When he got home, he reached in his back pocket for the letter, but it wasn’t there.
Did he put it in his front pocket. He stretched out his leg, stuffing his hand in his empty pocket.
He patted down his chest. looking at the truck’s floor to see if it fell somewhere.
He tore through the console, looking under the chairs, and checking in between the seats. If he dropped it, it wasn’t in there.