The Sound of the Crack-Up
The kitchen was still. The breakfast Nick had brought back sat cold and forgotten on the counter, the steam long gone from the coffee. The back door was shut and locked, the deadbolt a heavy, silver reassurance against the world outside.
I was sitting on the floor. I couldn't stay on the couch; I needed something solid beneath me. Nick was right there, his back against the lower cabinets, his long legs stretched out across the linoleum, bracketing me in.
I started to shake. It wasn't the violent, teeth-chattering chill of the hospital. It was something else. A bubble of pressure in my chest that finally, jaggedly, burst.
I laughed.
It was a sharp, ugly sound that echoed off the yellow-painted walls. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, my shoulders shaking.
"Aubrey?" Nick's voice was low, laced with a new kind of worry. He reached out, his hand hovering near my knee.
"A year, Nick," I choked out, the laughter turning into a wet, hiccupping sob. "A whole year. I was picking out silk hydrangeas and wondering if the champagne toast should be dry or sweet, and she was... she was losing his baby. In my apartment. Probably in my bathroom."
The image hit me—Chloe, grieving a child that was the physical evidence of her betrayal, while I brought her tea and told her how lucky I was to have a friend like her. The irony was so thick it was suffocating.
"I'm so stupid," I gasped, the laughter and tears fighting for space in my throat.
"I'm the punchline of the century. How did I not see it?
She was always there. She always had an excuse.
She'd be 'tired' or 'sick,' and I'd just rub her back and tell her to rest. I literally comforted the woman who was mourning a baby she had with my fiancé. "
"You aren't stupid, Aubrey," Nick said, his voice like iron. He moved, sliding off the cabinet to sit directly in front of me, forcing me to drop my hands. "You were decent. There's a hell of a difference."
"No, I was a doormat," I sobbed, the laughter finally dying into a raw, hollow ache.
"I was the perfect little city bride, keeping my head down, making sure everyone else was happy.
I didn't see the pregnancy. I didn't see the glances.
I didn't even see the man I was living with for who he actually was. "
I looked up at him, my vision blurred. "She lost a baby, Nick. A life. And all I can think about is how much I hate her for it. Does that make me a monster? That I don't feel sorry for her? That I just feel... mocked?"
Nick didn't hesitate. He reached out, his large hands framing my face, his thumbs wiping away the hot, salt-stinging tears.
"It makes you human," he rasped. "She used a tragedy to stay close to the man she stole. She used her grief as a weapon to keep you in the dark. You don't owe her a single tear, Aubrey. Not one."
I leaned my forehead against his, my breath coming in short, jagged bursts.
The weight of the secret pregnancy was the final piece of the puzzle.
It explained Chloe's obsession. It explained Brandon's erratic guilt.
They weren't just having an affair; they were building a graveyard in the middle of our life together.
"He wants this baby because he lost that one," I whispered into the space between us. "It's not about love. It's about a second chance at a do-over. He wants to replace what they lost with what we have."
Nick's grip on my face tightened, his gray eyes darkening with a fierce, protective fire. "He isn't replacing anything. This baby isn't a trophy or a consolation prize. This is a person. And they belong here, with us, where the truth actually lives."
I let out a long, shuddering breath, the hysterics finally fading into a deep, bone-weary exhaustion. I reached down, my hand finding the hem of Nick's shirt, clinging to him like he was the only thing keeping me from floating away into the dark.
"I'm sorry," I murmured. "I'm a mess. I'm laughing one second and screaming the next."
"You can be whatever you need to be," Nick said, his voice softening as he pulled me into his lap, tucking my head under his chin.
He rocked me slowly, right there on the kitchen floor, the morning sun finally starting to crawl across the tiles.
"Laugh, cry, burn the house down if it makes you feel better.
I'm not going anywhere. I've seen the worst they have to throw at you, Aubrey. And I'm still standing right here."
I closed my eyes, listening to the steady, rhythmic thrum of his heart. It was a simple sound. Honest. It didn't have layers of lies or hidden grief.
The news about Chloe's miscarriage should have broken the last of me. It should have made me feel small. But as Nick held me, his hands steady and his presence a physical shield, I realized the "stupid" girl was dead. She had died on the kitchen floor the moment Chloe shoved her.
The woman who was left was tired. She was grieving a friendship she never really had. But she wasn't alone.
"Nick?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"Don't let me go back. Even if I get scared. Even if the lawyers start calling. Don't let me go back to that world."
He pulled back just enough to look me in the eye, his expression a vow etched in stone. "Aubrey, I'd pull the mountains down on top of us before I let you go back to that. You're home. And home is where we stay."
I nodded, the last of the tremors leaving my body. The city was a graveyard of secrets, but Willow Creek was where the heart stayed. We had a long way to go until twenty weeks—a long way to go until the courthouse—but for the first time, the silence in the house didn't feel like a threat.
It felt like peace.