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“You love him.”
“I love him. I’m sorry. You would make a wonderful boyfriend.”
“Just not for you. I understand.”
He stood up, and I was afraid I was losing another friend.
“Don’t go. I don’t want to lose your friendship.”
“I’m not going. I’m getting you some tissues.”
I looked at him puzzled. “Why tissues? I’m not crying.”
“Because I want you to tell me everything about this stupid bastard and why you two aren’t together.”
“Austin’s not stupid.”
“He has to be to not be with you.”
I told Marc everything, and the tissues were much needed as I cried at parts of my story. When I was finished, he held me in his arms.
“What the hell is wrong with men?” he said.
I blew my nose. “I’ve been asking myself that for a long time.”
Chapter 18
Austin came back to New York a week later to help Roman clean out Edith’s apartment. It was just before Christmas and two weeks before his wedding. I dreaded the date, just one day before to the year we would’ve been married. I still couldn’t believe he would allow Jessie to choose that day. He sent me a short email to let me know he would be in the city. I didn’t reply. After how things ended the week before, I thought it better to have little contact.
That Saturday evening, I was sitting in my living room taking a break from some work I took home with me when I heard knocking on my door, well pounding really. I opened it to find a red-faced Austin waving a white envelope in my face. He stalked into my foyer and ripped the letter from its confines and shoved it into my hand.
“Fucking read it and explain yourself to me.”
With shaky hands, I unfolded the letter and read it to myself. Edith had revealed to Austin that I was pregnant with his baby and miscarried. She couldn’t in good conscience not tell him even though I’d asked her not to reveal it to him. I looked up at him.
“It’s true. I was pregnant.”
Austin clenched his jaw. “And you fucking hid it from me?”
“I didn’t hide it from you. I wanted to tell you; then I had the miscarriage. It didn’t matter after that.”
He glared at me. “It did matter. I wanted to know. You were pregnant when you came to my house that night, weren’t you? The night I offered you wine, but you declined. The night you ran to the bathroom and threw up. You had every opportunity to tell me then, but you didn’t. Why?”
I looked at the floor. “I had every intention of telling you, but then I saw Jessie, and I knew it was the wrong time. You seemed happy, and I didn’t want to cause problems.”
“Suppose you didn’t miscarry? Would you have told me or disappeared from my life?”
“I would’ve told you. I wanted you to know.”
“How the fuck did you get pregnant anyway? You told me you were on birth control.”
“I forgot to refill my prescription. I didn’t deceive you, I just forgot.”
Austin ran his hands through his hair and stalked to the refrigerator, yanking it open then slamming it shut.
“Why the fuck don’t you have anything but wine in this place. Is it too much to ask to have some beer or whiskey?”
I kept my voice low. “I have whiskey in the cabinet next to the refrigerator, top shelf.”
