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He runs his fingers through his hair before he suddenly turns around and slams his fist into the nearby tree.
“Miguel!” I run to him, wrapping my arms around his middle and pulling him back to me before he can do it once again and hurt himself. “Stop it. You’re going to injure yourself.”
“I don’t fucking care!” He turns to me, his eyes blazing with anger, but deep down, I can see something else. Something I’ve become very acquainted with in the last few years. Pain. “What the hell, Rebecca? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I stagger back, his accusation like a slap to my face. “What?”
“Why didn’t you tell me anything? Did you plan to keep the baby a secret even if you had it?”
He didnot just go there.
“I came to tell you!” I jab my finger into his chest, pain shooting through my arm. “When I found out, I was alone and scared. We were miles apart. The whole situation was tense as it was. I had just found out there was a reason my mom had been acting weird the past couple of years, and the woman I knew, the woman I needed, was gone and would never be the same. And then I got a positive pregnancy test and got scared shitless of what it would all mean. I wasn’t ready for a baby, and you weren’t here, and still…Still, I flew all the way to Michigan to tell you, and what did I find? Some girl standing in your doorway, dressed in your fucking shirt.”
Miguel grits his teeth. “You know what happened. I explained it to you…”
“Now,” I interject. “You explained it to me now. Three years ago, you let me walk away.”
“Because you didn’t want to listen! I tried talking to you. I asked you to stay so I could explain. I tried calling and texting you, but you blocked me. You, who promised always to take my side and be there for me, turned your back and thought the worst of me!”
“And I’m not denying that!” I lift my hand to poke him once again, but he grabs my wrist to stop me from doing it. “I never denied that. I was a stupid kid who had too much on my plate. A kid who was physically and emotionally exhausted trying to keep everything I loved from drowning. My family, us, everything was falling apart, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I needed you, Miguel. I needed you to help me deal with all of it. I needed you to tell me things would be alright, but instead, I found you with another woman.”
“Would you have kept it from me?” Miguel asks again, enunciating every word.
I let out a shaky breath, feeling all the fightleave my body.
“I don’t know what I would have done,” I admit softly. “I never got a chance to think about it.”
“Rebecca…”
I shake my head. “I lost the baby on my way home from Michigan State. I didn’t even notice I was bleeding until Mrs. Santiago pointed it out. I thought I was cramping because of all the stress. It was just another blow in a row, but this one felt fatal.”
“Mrs. Santiago? What does she have to do with any of it?”
I lift my shoulders in a shrug. “She was the only person who knew. Everything. She knew about Mom. She knew about the stuff with Matthew. She was the one who got me the plane ticket and offered to look over my family while I went to see you. She knew about the baby. She was the one who took me to the hospital and held my hand through it all. I’ll never be able to repay that woman for all she did for me these last few years.”
Mrs. Santiago was my surrogate mother in all the ways that counted. She stepped in when I needed her the most and didn’t accept no for an answer, no matter how much I insisted I was fine. That woman was an angel, and I knew I wouldn’t have been able to survive the last few years without her help and support.
“Rebecca, I…”
I shake my head, the regret for all that was lost slamming into me. All the things that could have been, should have been ours, but we never got to experience them.
Miguel runs his hands over his face, messing his hair as he looks around us. I should have never said anything. Should have never admitted what had happened. There was no point to it. It only brought him pain, and I didn’t want that for him. There was nothing that he could have done to change what had happened. Nothing that would have changed the outcome. It took me a while to accept it, but now I knew better.
“I have to go.”
My heart squeezes at his words. Go? He wants to go? Now?
“You’re leaving?”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows audibly, his gaze darting away from me as he repeats, “I have to go.”
With that, he turns around and runs toward the party.
This time, he’s the one walking away, and I let him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MIGUEL
