Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 42745 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42745 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)
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.”