ARIA
The ride home from the hospital is quiet and not the comfortable kind of quiet either. Penn holds my hand the whole way, but there’s something different about him now. I don’t ask him what’s wrong because I think I already know.
He’s going to tell me.
The thought makes my stomach twist even though I’ve known the truth for a week. Reading it on paper was one thing, but hearing it from Penn is going to be something else entirely.
When we get home, he parks in the driveway but doesn’t move right away. His hand tightens around mine.
“Come inside with me,” he says.
I give him a small smile. “I live here, Penn.”
His eyes come to mine, and the pain there wipes the smile from my face.
“I know,” he says softly. “I just mean… come sit with me.”
My heart starts beating harder.
“Okay.”
We go inside, and I set my purse on the entry table. Penn locks the door behind us, then turns toward the living room. “Can we sit?”
I nod, but my stomach does a flip-flop. I kept telling myself he needed to tell me, but now I’m not sure I’m ready.
I walk into the living room and sit on the edge of the couch. My hands twist together in my lap, and I force myself to stop. I don’t want to look nervous and make this harder for him.
But I know once he says it, everything is going to change.
Penn doesn’t sit. He stands in front of me, then starts pacing.
I watch him take three steps one way, then turn and take three steps back.
“Penn.”
He stops, but he doesn’t look at me. “I need to tell you something.”
“I know.”
His eyes flick to mine.
I swallow. “I mean, I figured.”
He drags a hand over his jaw. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to say it.”
“Then come sit beside me and say it.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know if I can sit.”
“You can.” I hold my hand out to him. “If you have something to tell me, I want you next to me when you say it. Not pacing like you’re about to deliver bad news to a patient.”
His forehead creases, but he walks toward me. When he takes my hand, his fingers are cold. He sits beside me, close enough that our knees touch, but he keeps his eyes on our joined hands.
For a second, neither of us says anything, then he takes a breath. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you about this, but when I was younger, I had an accident.”
I squeeze his hand. “What kind of accident?”
He looks toward the fireplace instead of at me. “I was sixteen. Playing baseball with my brothers and some friends. It was stupid. Just a normal game. Nothing serious.”
His thumb moves over my hand, but I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it.
“I got hit with a ball,” he says.
I wait.
He swallows hard. “No one thought much of it at the time. I mean, it hurt like hell, but I was sixteen. I was embarrassed more than anything. I didn’t want everyone making a big deal out of it.”
My chest aches. I already know where this is going, but hearing him say it makes it worse.
“Penn,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “I didn’t know that it would alter my whole future.”
His voice gets rough, and I tighten my hold on his hand.
“It wasn’t until a year and a half ago that I found out.” He finally looks at me, and the look on his face steals the breath from my lungs. “The accident likely caused damage. Enough that…”
He stops talking and shakes his head.
I just hold his hand and wait for him to trust me.
His jaw tightens. “Enough that I’m infertile.”
The word hangs between us.
I had read it. I had stared at it on those papers until all the words blurred, but it’s different to hear him actually say it. There’s shame in his face, and I know what he’s thinking. He thinks this makes him less of a man and worthless in my eyes.
I blink hard but keep my voice steady. “Okay.”
He stares at me, and I see the surprise move across his face. “Okay?” he asks.
I nod slowly. “Okay.”
His brows pull together. “Aria—”
I shrug. “What?”
“You’re not…” He stops and looks away, like he doesn’t know what word he’s looking for. “You’re not reacting.”
“I am reacting.”
“No, you’re not.” His voice sharpens, but I can hear the fear underneath it. “You’re sitting there like I just told you we’re out of coffee.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I’m trying not to make this harder for you.”
His face crumples for half a second before he gets it under control. “Harder for me?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Aria, this isn’t about me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” My voice breaks a little. “You’re the one who got those results and carried this alone. You’re the one who decided you were broken before you ever gave me the chance to tell you that you weren’t.”
He goes still.
I press my lips together because I’m getting ahead of myself, and I know he isn’t done.
He looks down at our hands again. “I know how much you want a baby.”
Tears sting my eyes.
His voice is thick and rough. “I know you want to be pregnant. I know you want all of it. And I want it too. I want it so damn much.”
I nod, holding his hand tighter. “I know.”
He looks at me like that hurts.
“I do,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “There are options. If you want to be pregnant, we can find a donor. We can look into IVF. We can talk to specialists. If that’s not what you want, we can adopt. We can foster. We can do anything you want.”
His grip on my hand tightens.
“Anything,” he says again. “I’ll do anything. I just don’t want to lose you.”
I turn toward him more fully. “Penn, we’ll get through this.”
He looks stunned. It’s like he expected me to fall apart, and I’m not. I mean, yeah, I’m sad about the whole thing, but it’s not the end of the world.
“We will get through this, Penn,” I tell him. “I don’t know what it looks like yet. I don’t know what I want to do or how I feel about all the options, but we’ll figure it out together.”
His eyes move over my face. “Together?”
“Yes.”
He lets out a breath, but it sounds broken. “You’re handling this too well.”
I look down.
He puts a finger to my chin and lifts, searching my face. “Aria?”
I pull my hand from his, not because I don’t want him touching me, but because I need to think. I wipe my cheeks and stand, taking a few steps away from the couch.
He watches me closely. “What is it?”
I turn back to him. “I already knew.”
The silence after those words is awful. Penn doesn’t move. Heck, he doesn’t even blink.
He shakes his head, confused. “What?”
I fold my arms across my stomach. “Last week, when I came home, I knocked over your briefcase. The latch came open, and papers went everywhere. I was trying to put everything back where it belonged.”
His face goes pale.
“I saw your name. Fertility evaluation. Azoospermia. Low likelihood of natural conception.” My voice shakes on the last part. “I read enough to know.”
He stands slowly. “You knew?”
I nod.
“All this time?”
“It’s been a few days.”
His hand goes to the back of his neck, and he turns away from me. “Jesus.”
I take a step toward him and lift my hand to put on his shoulder but stop before I do. “I didn’t mean to read it.”
His head is bent, but he nods. “I know.”
I still feel bad. “I wasn’t snooping.”
He nods again. “I know, Aria.”
He sounds wrecked, and part of me wants to go to him, but another part of me is still so hurt.
He turns back around. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I point at him. “Because I wanted you to tell me.”
I take a step toward him until we’re toe to toe. “I wanted you to trust me enough to say it. I wanted you to stop deciding what I could handle and what I couldn’t.”
He flinches.
I throw a hand up in the air. “I have been begging you to let me in for months,” I say. “You let me think you didn’t want me, that you didn’t want a family with me. Heck, I even thought there was someone else.”
His eyes close. “I’m sorry.”
I nod. “I know you are. The one thing I’ve learned through all this is that you will do anything, and I mean anything, to protect me.”
He reaches for me but then drops his hand. “I never wanted you to think I didn’t want you or that I didn’t want a family with you.”
I nod. “But I did.”
He opens his eyes, and they’re full of pain.
“That’s what hurt me,” I tell him. “Not this.” I gesture between us. “It wasn’t the diagnosis or that we may need help having a family or even the fact that our family may be different than I imagined.”
My voice breaks, and I press a hand to my chest. “What hurt me is that you made this decision for both of us. You decided I would be better off without you and that my dream of having a baby mattered more than my love for you.”
His face twists. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Tears roll down my cheeks. “I know.”
He takes a step toward me, then stops.
“I am mad at you,” I say. “I need you to know that.”
He nods slowly. “You should be.”
“But I love you.”
His breath catches.
“I love you, Penn. I love you more than some idea of a perfect family. I want a family, and I’m not going to lie and say I don’t. But whatever our family looks like, I want it with you.”
He looks like I just broke him.
He reaches for me then and pulls me toward him. He wraps his arms around me and buries his face into my neck. “I don’t know how to fix what I did,” he says.
My throat tightens. “You start by not hiding from me anymore.”
He nods. “I can do that.” He pulls back to look at me. “Are you sure about this, Aria? I don’t want you to resent me one day.”
I search his face. “I could never resent you. Plus, you need to know that you’re my family. You are. The rest of it will happen the way it’s meant to. And we don’t have to decide everything tonight. Donor, IVF, adoption, all of it. We don’t have to know right now.”
He nods. “Okay.”
I add. “But we decide together.”
His voice is rough when he says, “Together.”
I lean forward and press my face against him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers into my hair. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know.”
“I should have told you.”
“Yes,” I say because I’m not going to make it easier than it is. “You should have.”
His arms tighten around me, and I hold on to him too.
For a long time, we just stand here in the living room, holding each other with the truth finally between us.
It doesn’t fix everything, but it’s the first honest thing we’ve had in a long time, and maybe that’s where we start.