6. Trent
Trent
My heart was beating so hard in my chest I could hear it ringing in my ears over the sound of my mom’s New Year's Eve playlist.
I’d been living in a pressure cooker with the lid duct-taped shut. Thirty days since I’d slid that diamond onto Kat’s finger. Thirty days of watching her wear my ring, sleeping beside her, and waiting, begging in silence, for her to just hand me the burden she was carrying alone.
It was driving me insane.
Every single day I looked for signs. I looked for the bump that wasn't showing and listened for morning sickness that never came.
I practically held my breath every time she went to the bathroom, expecting her to come out, sit me down, and finally tell me we were going to be parents.
But she didn't. Kat kept going to spin classes, kept eating her strict athlete's diet, went to work, took care of her players, and acted like we were just a regular newly engaged couple.
Why hasn't she taken me to a doctor appointment? Why haven't I seen an ultrasound? Is she hiding it? Is she ashamed?
The questions had been clawing at the inside of my skull until I felt like a rope pulled so tight it was about to snap.
By the time Kat and I had walked into my parents' house, I was already at my breaking point.
When I saw her slip on that fitted dress, I panicked.
When I saw her reaching for charcuterie, my brain screamed that half of it wasn't safe for her.
And when my cousin handed her champagne...
the world went red in a way I had never experienced before.
I didn't mean to shatter the whiskey glass. I didn't mean to yell at her in front of my family.
"What about the baby?"
The moment the words tore out of my throat, it was like a dam bursting. All the frustration, the fear, the months of feeling kept in the dark came rushing out in a toxic wave. I accused her of being reckless. I accused her of ignoring our child.
And then she looked me dead in the eyes, her voice completely steady, and said the four words that shattered our entire existence into dust: "I am not pregnant."
My mind scrambled, trying to find traction. "I saw the fucking test in your bathroom garbage, Kat! Don’t play stupid!"
"I’m not playing anything! I’m not pregnant!"
Panic, sharp and blinding, clawed up my throat. Not pregnant? How could she not be pregnant? The horrific, ugly thoughts hit me before I could stop them. Was it someone else's? Did she get rid of it? Did she destroy our future without telling me?
I snapped. I grabbed her wrist; the crazed words spewed out of my mouth before my brain could catch up to my heart. "Is it not mine? Did you cheat on me? Were you going to pass off someone else’s kid as mine? Or did you get rid of it so I wouldn't find out?"
"Fuck you, Trent!"
Her voice sliced through me. "I am not pregnant, I have never been pregnant, and fuck you for even suggesting I cheated on you!"
"I saw the test!" I roared, my hands shaking so violently I had to clench them into fists. "That's the whole reason I asked you to marry me!"
The deafening silence that followed was worse than any scream.
The air vanished from the room. Kat froze, her beautiful eyes, which were more green than hazel tonight, widened, and then I saw the moment the light went out.
My words hit her like a physical thing, and then she built her wall up right in front of me.
"What did you just say?" she whispered.
My mouth went dry. My dad called my name, but I couldn't look at him. I couldn't look away from Kat. I tried to fix it, tried to pull back on the reins as my brain frantically tried to reorganize reality.
We aren’t having a baby?
"I thought I was doing the right thing. Stepping up. I proposed because you were carrying my child."
Kat stood there, a solitary tear spilling over her lashes, looking at me with a devastation so profound it nauseated me.
"I thought you proposed because you loved me," she whispered.
The red haze in my vision cleared instantly, replaced by a suffocating dread. The truth hit me like a freight train.
Oh God. What did I just say? What did I do? How did this happen?
"That’s it, isn’t it?" Kat said, her voice dropping into a flat, deadly calm that terrified me far more than her anger. "You never fell in love with me. You were attentive because you thought I was carrying a baby... You proposed out of obligation. Not because you loved me."
I felt like everything was slipping away from me, Kat, our little family… our daughter that looked just like her.
"I saw the test, Katerina," I pleaded, my voice cracking, all the aggression draining out of me, leaving only pure, desperate panic. "Just confess."
My mind understood what she was saying, but it was as if my heart was desperately trying to hold on to the future I had been picturing for three months.
"I don’t know how a test ended up in my bathroom, but it wasn’t mine," she said, looking right into the hollow center of my soul. "If I were pregnant, I would have told you. I never cheated. And when I eventually have a family with the right man, I know I'll be a wonderful mother."
I flinched, my mouth opening, but no sound came out. No… no… I… why did that sound like it wouldn’t be me? I am the right man…
She turned her back on me, and it felt like she took my heart with her.
"Kat, wait… no, no, no, KAT!" I yelled, taking a step after her, but Gideon’s arms wrapped tightly around my chest, holding me back.
"Let go of me, Gid! Kat!" I strained against my twin, watching in horror as she calmly grabbed her things. My mom was crying behind me, covering her face, but that was the least of my worries. I could only look at Kat.
She looked at my family, giving them a polite, gut-wrenching goodbye, and then her eyes landed on me one last time.
"Goodbye, Trent."
The door clicked shut behind her.
"Kat!" I screamed, surging forward with enough force to throw Gideon off me, he scrambled on the floor after me grabbing at my ankles, slowing me down until I lunged out of his hold and slammed against the front door, throwing it open into the freezing night, but her car engine was already roaring to life.
Her taillights sliced through the dark, turning down the street and disappearing into the cold.
I stood on the porch in my t-shirt, the sub-zero air burning my lungs, staring at the empty driveway. I had too much to drink, so I couldn’t go after her. Feeling absolutely helpless, I kept staring at the dark road, waiting for her to turn around. But she was gone.
I stumbled back inside, the front door slamming shut behind me.
The house was quiet, except for my mom's sniffling in the corner.
Gideon was leaning against the wall, staring at the floor, and my dad was looking at me with an expression of profound disappointment that made my stomach turn.
I sank down onto the bottom step of the staircase, burying my face in my hands.
My mind was a chaotic wreck. The sound of her words, I am not pregnant, echoed in my head. But it wasn't just the relationship I had just blown to pieces with my own arrogant, stupid assumptions.
For three months, I had been a father in my mind.
I had built an entire world around that tiny, fragile life.
I had spent late nights staring at the ceiling, imagining holding a dark-haired little girl in my arms. I’d pictured her taking her first steps in the living room of a home we would build together, holding my finger with her tiny hand, having Kat’s bright, curious eyes.
I had fallen in love with a child that didn't exist.
I pulled my hands down from my face, staring blindly at the hardwood floor, my breathing coming in ragged, shallow gasps as the truth finally settled in my bones.
I hadn't just lost Kat tonight. The little girl, the family, the future I’d held in my heart for ninety days, it had all evaporated into thin air, leaving behind a black hole in my chest.