19. Freya
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Freya
My mare Penny whinnied the second I walked into the stable, and I burst into tears.
It wasn’t graceful crying. This was ugly, body-shaking, can’t-catch-my-breath sobbing that came from somewhere so deep I hadn’t even known it existed.
Penny pressed her nose against my chest, huffing warm breath through my shirt, and I wrapped my arms around her neck and let myself fall apart.
I’d been away from this place for three months, and until this exact moment, I hadn’t let myself feel how much I’d missed it.
The smell of hay and leather. The soft sounds of horses shifting in their stalls.
And the way the morning light slanted through the stable windows like something out of a painting.
This had been my home, even when everything else was falling apart.
Rex stood a few feet away, giving me space. I’d felt him tense when I started crying, knew his instinct was to rush in and fix things. But he stayed back, letting me have this moment with my horse.
He really was learning.
“I’m sorry,” I managed between sobs. “I don’t know why I’m… this is so stupid…”
“It’s not stupid.” His voice was soft. “Take your time.”
I pressed my face into Penny’s mane and breathed her in. My mother had given her to me, back when gifts in our family still meant something. After Mom died, Penny was the only piece of her I had left. Leaving her behind when I left Rex had felt like cutting off a limb.
“She looks good,” I said when I could finally speak. “You’ve been taking care of her.”
“Every day. I hired someone to ride her so she wouldn’t get restless, but I brushed her myself. Talked to her sometimes.” He looked embarrassed. “She’s a good listener.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I missed you. That I was going to get you back.” A pause. “And that I was an idiot who deserved to lose you but wasn’t ready to accept it.”
“She probably agreed with that last part.”
“She definitely agreed. Gave me a very judgmental look, too.”
I laughed, and then I was crying again, and the hormones were making everything too big and too much and I couldn’t get a handle on any of it.
The heat hit next. The stable was warm, the morning sun already baking through the wooden walls, and suddenly the smell of hay that had comforted me a moment ago was overwhelming. My stomach lurched. The world tilted sideways.
“Freya?”
Rex’s voice sounded far away. I reached for Penny’s stall door to steady myself, but my hand found only air. The ground rushed up to meet me.
I never hit it.
Strong arms caught me, lowered me gently onto something soft. A hay bale, I realized dimly. Rex’s hands were on my face, my neck, checking my pulse. His voice was sharp with panic.
“Freya. Freya, look at me. Can you hear me?”
I forced my eyes open. His face swam into focus, pale and terrified.
“I’m okay,” I managed. “I’m fine. I just got dizzy.”
“You almost fainted. That’s not fine.” His hands were shaking where they cupped my cheeks. “What’s going on? Are you sick? Was it the fish last night? Do you have food poisoning? I’m calling an ambulance.”
“Rex. Stop.” I grabbed his wrist before he could reach for his phone. “I don’t have food poisoning.”
“Then what is it?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Rex went completely still, his whole body frozen like someone had hit pause on a video.
“What?”
“I’m pregnant. Almost four months.” I swallowed hard. “That’s why I fainted. That’s why I couldn’t stand the fish. And that’s why I haven’t been drinking wine.”
He stared at me. I watched his face cycle through emotions, shock and confusion and disbelief. And then something darker crept in.
Anger.
“Three months.” His voice was low. “You’ve known since the day you left and you didn’t tell me?”
“I wasn’t sure at first, and by the time I was…”
“By the time you were what? You decided I didn’t deserve to know?” He stood up abruptly, pacing away from me. “You were going to keep my child from me? Is that what’s happening here?”
“Rex.”
“All those dates. All those conversations. You sat across from me at diners and let me pour my heart out, and the whole time you were hiding this?” He spun back to face me, and I’d never seen him look so furious. “I have a right to know about my own child, Freya!”
“You want to talk about rights?” I struggled to my feet, swaying only slightly. “You want to talk about what you deserve to know? Where was that energy when your mother tried to pay me off? When your whole family treated me like dirt?”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s exactly the same thing.” I stepped toward him, matching his anger with my own.
“You want to know why I didn’t tell you?
Because you didn’t make me feel safe enough to tell you.
For a whole year, you made me feel like I was alone in that marriage.
Like I couldn’t trust you with the hard stuff because you’d just dismiss it or tell me I was being silly. ”
He flinched.
“You want to be angry? Fine. Be angry. But don’t you dare act like I owed you this information when I spent twelve months watching you choose everyone else over me.
” My voice cracked. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know if you’d even want this baby.
I didn’t know if you’d see it as another business transaction or actually give a damn. ”
Rex looked like I’d punched him in the gut.
“You thought I wouldn’t want our child?”
“I didn’t know what you wanted.” I was crying again, damn these hormones. “You never told me anything that mattered. But you showed me in a thousand little ways that you cared, but you never said the words. And you never fought for me when it counted. How was I supposed to trust you with this?”
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was raw.
“You’re right.”
“What?”
“You’re right. I didn’t make you feel safe.” He sank onto the hay bale I’d just vacated, his head dropping into his hands. “I spent a year expecting you to read my mind, to understand how I felt without me ever having to say it out loud. And when you needed me to stand up, I stayed silent.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d expected more yelling, more accusations, more of the defensive posturing I’d grown used to during our marriage.
I hadn’t expected surrender.
“I’m angry,” he said quietly. “Angry that I missed all of this. That I wasn’t there when you found out, when you needed support, when you were going through it alone.
” He looked up at me, and his eyes were wet.
“But I know that’s my fault. I know you didn’t trust me because I gave you no reason to. ”
“Rex…”
Pain lanced through my abdomen.
I gasped, doubling over, my hand flying to my stomach. It was sharp and sudden, like someone had reached inside me and squeezed.
“What? What’s wrong?” Rex was on his feet instantly, his hands steadying me.
“I don’t know. Something…” Another cramp, worse than the first. “Something’s wrong. Rex, something’s wrong.”
The fear on his face mirrored my own. Without a word, he scooped me up in his arms like I weighed nothing.
“Hospital,” he said. “Now.”