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I don’t know how to respond. I feel like I’ve done so much lying and keeping things to myself over the past few days, but again, I can’t share anything more until Nick knows.
“I’m going to be done answering questions, but please, please, please, don’t talk about this with anyone outside of this room.”
All I can do is beg and hope that they respect what I’m asking of them. I really only need it to stay between us until I get off work. The good news is, Nick has PT and that’s all he has planned today. I need him to stay inside and away from Badger Creek.
The day passes quicklyand the amount of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I’ve consumed feels like some sort of record. Might be contacting Guinness to see who holds the record, and if there isn’t one, I’m putting my name in for the running.
As I pull into the driveway of Nick’s parents’ house, I feel my heart begin to race. I’ve never been scared to tell Nick anything. Even when we broke up, I wasn’t scared or nervous, just knowing that as much as I didn’t want it to happen, it needed to.
But today, I’m fucking terrified.
I have no idea how he’s going to react, and I worry about his future. I don’t ever want to be the reason he ends up stuck in this sleepy little ski town, a place he longed to leave.
I take in a hard breath, preparing myself for what I know is going to be the hardest conversation I’ve ever had, but also hoping something positive comes out of this.
When I walk in, he’s sitting at the kitchen table almost like he’s been waiting for me to get home. Turning to look at me, there’s an anger I can feel the second he lays eyes on me, and I know instantly that he knows.
“Were you ever going to tell me you’re pregnant?” Nick spits out, the hurt and anger in his words filling the room.
“Nick, it’s not like that,” I start, but he stands up, his face red, his hands clenched into fists at his side.
“When did you take this test?” He holds up the test I stashed in my suitcase, forgetting that I had buried it in my dirty clothes. He must have unpacked our things when we got home. “Does my mom know? My sister? Did you keep this from me to hurt me?”
With each question he asks, I can hear the tone in his voice change, growing louder every time he speaks. I get that he’s mad, but he hasn’t even let me talk. This is how we are though, arguing without letting the other person’s words sink in.
“No one knows, Nick. Fuck, can you let me explain?” I shake my head, realizing I’ve told him no one knows, but that isn’t true. “Sorry, that’s a lie, no one in your family knows.”
“Oh, that makes me feel so much better,” he hisses, sarcasm dripping from his words. He throws his hands up, tossing the pregnancy test onto the table, where it bounces around before skittering to a stop.
“Listen, you didn’t tell me about the meeting with your coach and I didn’t hold that against you. Can you settle down for just a fucking second.”
“You are not going to throw this back on me, Elissa. You’re fucking pregnant. This affects both of us and you didn’t tell me,” Nick says, and I feel the tears well up in my eyes.
As much as I wanted this to be something happy, I knew deep down it wasn’t going to be. He deserves to be hurt and angry. I did keep it from him, but not because I was trying to hurt him. I never want to hurt him again. We’ve been there and I still regret the things I said to him back then.
“Nick, please.”
The tears fall down my cheeks, the desperation in my voice echoes in the stillness of the room.
All I want is for him to take me in his arms and tell me everything will be okay, but I have no idea if we’ll ever get there.
5
NICK
Istop and take a deep breath.
This is not how I saw any of this playing out, not at all. But the longer I sat here staring at the pregnancy test and waiting for Elissa to come home, the more my brain was churning through all the stuff that happened today. The things my coach said and what that might mean, finding the test in Elissa’s bag, and then realizing she’d kept this from me.
But now, standing here with Lis crying in front of me, all I want to do is pull her into my arms and tell her it’s going to be okay.
I have no idea if it is, have no idea what any of this means, but I know I don’t want to fight with her. And I definitely don’t want this to turn into that day in the lodge four years ago when we both lost our temper and said things we didn’t mean; things I still regret to this day. We are so far from who we were back then. Fuck, I really thought we were in a good place, better than ever, even with the uncertainty of my future hanging over us.
Lis lets out a tiny sob, swiping angrily at the tears that are still streaming down her cheeks and it fucking breaks my heart that this is where we are right now. That she’s hurting this badly.
“Lis,” I moan, stepping forward and pulling her into my arms. “Babe, come here.”
She buries her face against my chest as her arms wrap around my waist, her sobs only getting louder. Dropping my face to her neck, I hold her close, one hand rubbing her back as she cries into my sweater. The two of us standing in the middle of the kitchen together.
