66. Eli
Eli
There is still a wall. I can feel it. Even after everything that happened at Christmastime and me telling Kendra that we didn’t need to have children of our own, the relief she felt in that conversation . . . I can still feel a distance between us.
Maybe she doesn’t believe that I am all in? That I can really commit to a relationship because I have never had one in the past? Is this where my fuckboy lifestyle comes back around and bites me in the ass again?
I need to do something big like the guys at the station suggested, a grand gesture to prove to her that I am committed to her, but I just haven’t decided on what to do yet.
A text pings as I slowly creep out of Wren’s room, praying she won’t wake up after I carefully placed her in her crib and tiptoed out of there like a ninja.
Fuck. I freeze and listen at the door, squeezing my phone tightly, hoping it won’t go off again, like that will stop the sound. Mentally I kick myself for not putting it on silent.
I check the baby monitor and Wren is fast asleep.
She already rolled over to her favorite sleeping position—snuggled in a ball, tiny butt up in the air.
She is so little and sweet, it makes me want to go back in and scoop her up, let her nap on me while we rock .
. . but I also need to get laundry started and a workout done while she sleeps.
I hurry to my bedroom to change and make use of my limited time.
In the kitchen I remember the text and finally check my phone.
Kendra: Hey
Eli: Hi, sweetheart How’s work going?
Kendra: It’s fine. Just two more clients for the day.
Eli: That’s good. I miss you.
Eli: What do you want to do for dinner later?
Kendra: Actually, do you think it would be okay if Lainey and Rem watched Wren so we can talk?
Dread makes my stomach drop and I feel nauseous. Why does this feel so ominous? Why does this feel like a conversation that is the beginning of the end?
I won’t let that happen.
Eli: Is everything okay?
Kendra: I need to tell you something, and I would like to have some time alone to do it.
Kendra: If that’s okay?
Eli: Anything you need, sweetheart.
Kendra: Thanks. I already talked to Lainey. She said she and Rem could be there around 5.
Eli: Okay, I will order us something from Gino’s and pick it up. We can eat and talk at your place.
Kendra: Sure
I look at the clock—it’s only eleven. This is going to be the longest day of waiting for whatever gauntlet I feel is coming. I grab my jump rope and go outside to try and sweat out my nerves.
At five thirty I walk into Kendra’s kitchen with our dinner and zero appetite.
I’m so worried about whatever she has to tell me that I have been a fucking mess all day.
I assume she is going to break up with me or tell me she is dying.
Either thing I wouldn’t be able to handle well, obviously.
I need her yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever—and it’s time I fucking told her that.
But seeing her sad eyes when she greets me stops me in my tracks.
I kiss her softly and say, “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“Come sit down.” Kendra guides me over to her favorite worn, eat-in breakfast table and I sink down next to her, food forgotten on the counter.
“I have been worried all day, please talk to me, sweetheart.” I take her hand and stroke my thumb back and forth across her knuckles.
“There is, is something that I need to tell you. Something that I need you to know. I wanted to say it before, so many times, but it’s not easy to do.
It’s awful and would ruin any other moment.
Like our first date? Or Christmas? I couldn’t tell you then.
Or just blurt it out on a random day? It’s too hard.
” She covers her face and starts to cry.
“Are you dying,” I choke out so she doesn’t have to be the one to say it.
“What?” She jerks up, looking at me, shocked. “No!”
“Thank fuck.” I pull her onto my lap and kiss her, roaming my hands over her body, needing to feel as much of her as I can.
Kendra pulls back and scrambles off my lap like I burned her.
“That’s not helping.” She runs her hands through her hair, tugging on it in distress. I’ve never seen her like this before. Whatever she has been harboring is tearing her up.
“You can talk to me, tell me anything. Kendra, look at me,” I demand, and her pacing stops, but her breathing increases.
“Please don’t hate me,” she whimpers.
“Never,” I vow.
Nodding, Kendra says, “After our summer . . . the reason I got tested for the breast cancer genes, finally, was that I was worried. I had some swelling and tenderness in my breast, so I went to my ob-gyn for my regular appointment, which was right around that time anyway, and asked to do the tests.”
I swallow hard, leaning forward on my elbows, listening to her closely, not rushing her.
“She made me take a pregnancy test as well as the blood testing for all the cancer workups I did. My doctor told me it was routine since I had been sexually active.” Kendra clears her throat and looks at me with tears welling in her eyes.
“Kendra,” I whisper.
“I was pregnant, Eli. With our baby.” She pulls out a strip of black-and-white ultrasound images from her back pocket. They flutter as they unravel to reveal the pictures of a tiny speck of life.
Another baby that I didn’t know existed.
Oh. My. God.
“You didn’t tell me?” I ask, pain lancing me to my core. I take the pictures and run my fingers over them as delicately as I can, like they are going to shatter if I don’t take my time and handle them with care.
She shakes her head.
“What happened? Why?”
You told her you didn’t fucking want her, that’s why, you asshole.
“At the appointment I found out I was eight weeks . . . I got pregnant on the beach, that last time.” Kendra swipes at her cheeks.
That last time. That night we were together for the last time before I broke both of our hearts for so many years—making her hate me, making me hate myself even more than I already did.
“The doctor told me that the baby was the size of, the size of a jelly bean,” she whispers and sinks to her knees on the kitchen floor, her sobs ruining me.
A jelly bean. Fuck. I look at the images and see the small shape of our baby.
My mind flashes back to me calling Wren that and Kendra running from my house, leaving her coffee cold on the counter and me totally confused.
It is all painfully becoming clear now. Leaving the ultrasound pictures on the table, I drop to my knees and crawl the short distance to her, pulling Kendra to my chest and ask something I don’t want to: “You decided not to keep it? Because of me?”
Pushing at me, Kendra looks at me and says with a pain that is visceral, “I wanted our baby with every fiber of my being, but the very day I found out about it I also lost it. Started bleeding that night and had to take myself to the ER where they told me I was having a miscarriage.”
“Jesus, sweetheart. I am so fucking sorry. Who knew? Who knows? Who was there for you?”
“Nobody was with me. Nobody here knew until I told Lainey and Sutton a few weeks ago.” She bites her lip. “I shared with my nana about everything, about our summer, the baby. But she died, and we never spoke about you after the one time I told her. I think she understood that it was too much.”
“You have been alone in this—held this pain, this loss, as a secret all this time?”
Kendra just nods her head.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I search her face, seeing years of anguish written there.
“I was going to when I found out about the baby. Planned on raising them on my own, but knew you at least needed to know you had a child in the world. But after . . . What was the point? You made it clear that night at the beach the feelings I had for you weren’t mutual.
I wasn’t going to burden you with something I knew you never wanted in the first place. ”
Kendra’s cold analysis of the situation makes me feel angry, but not at her. I fucked up so badly back then she could not even come to me when she was in pain and mourning our child. Still, after all this time, she was afraid to tell me.
Burying my face in her neck I cry—for her, myself, our baby, and all the years lost between us. I feel her soft hands glide through my hair, and she holds me close. Our pain and longing for what could have been binding us together.
“I’m so sorry,” Kendra says.
Taking her face in my hands I say fiercely, “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. I am the one that is sorry. Sorry that I made you think I didn’t care, that you couldn’t come to me, or that I wouldn’t want to know—before or after.
I hate that I wasn’t there for you. I hate that you were alone and have been alone in this for so long.
God, how can you ever forgive me?” I ask.
“I found the drawing,” she whispers.
“What?”
“My butterfly. I saw it when I packed a hospital bag for you. You really kept it all this time?”
“Of course I did, I told you I would treasure it forever. It was true. And after—it was the only thing I had left of you to hold on to. That and the beach. Our memories. I tried to forget you, go back to life before you. I have never been the same since that summer. I loved you then and was so fucking scared. I didn’t want to hurt you and ended up doing exactly that anyhow. ” I kiss her tear-streaked cheeks.
“You loved me?” Kendra gasps.
“Loved you then and never stopped, sweetheart. You consume me. You are like the sunsets we watched together that dip into the depths of the ocean. The darkness of my soul illuminates with your touch. The shadows that I once thought I could never escape—my past, the darkness, the demons of my father—are driven away because of your light, your understanding, your love. I love you so damn much.”
“I love you too,” Kendra says, and the words are barely past her lips before I am yanking her up off the floor into a fireman’s carry.
“HULK!” she yells. “What are you doing?”
“I need a damn bed, not the kitchen floor the first time I make love to you again. I’ll fuck you there later, though. And on every other surface of this house. Is that alright with you?” I smack her ass as I take the stairs to her room two at a time, her glowing laughter making my heart happy.
“Yes, Daddy,” she replies with so much sass I slap her ass again, and she moans, grinding down on my shoulder. Not helpful.
Tossing her on the bed I say, “Tell me to stop and we stop.”
“No, don’t stop,” she says, unbuttoning her jeans and starting to wiggle out of them.
Thank fuck.