“Ryan,” she corrected him again.
“By that time, I … um … we—well, we found out she was pregnant.”
He was looking anywhere but at her face.
“Pregnant,” she echoed. The shards of ice in her stomach splintered apart.
“Whatever doubts I was having, I have to do right by her. I grew up in a broken home, and I won’t do that to my kid. But it’s more than that,” he said, and she saw the light bloom in his eyes.
“You’re excited to be a dad,” she whispered, and her breath was so cold it came out in a fog.
“Terrified, actually, but yeah, excited too.” And he sounded guilty for feeling it. “I built part of my life with this woman, Sade. And I don’t want to abandon her.”
“I understand,” she said, and she did, even though it made her stomach turn until she felt sick. Jake, at Bethany’s side, welcoming new life into the world. He was too noble to ever walk away.
“I should have told you sooner. But I was trying to forget. And being with you again, being near you, it made me realize what I’ll never have. Sleepy mornings shuffling around in the kitchen. Summer barbecues and touching my feet to yours in bed at night just to feel you near me. The right to worry about you. You. And I wanted to live in that a little longer before Bethany got here. Can you blame me?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “I hate you.” The way she said it sounded like anything but. “You being here—it screws everything up. I can’t breathe when you’re near. You’re exactly the same. You string me along, make me love you.”
“I can’t make you do anything, Sade. Trust me, I’ve learned that by now. You and me, we’re like fire and gasoline. I wish I could take it all back—trust me, I do.” He ran a hand distractedly through his hair. “Just tell me what you want from me. You never want to hear from me again? Okay. You want me not to move here? Done. I won’t buy the damn house.”
They were both silent.
“Do you love her?” she asked quietly. She didn’t want to know the answer. But she needed to know. Not that it would change anything.
He was silent for a moment. Hesitating. “I think I could learn to love her.”
And her heart hurt for him, just a little.
“Why not just stay in the city?” she demanded.
He sat back down, grabbing his now warm beer and staring hard at the label.
“I was working at a station in the city. We deal with—or dealt with—a lot of drug calls. People overdosing, beat up from some fight or other. Our paramedics try to patch them up, or we take them to the hospital. What I didn’t know was that there was a turf war going on between two gangs.” He took a deep breath. Leaned back in his chair. Took a long drink. “Kids were involved. Kids, Sadie. Strung out on drugs or peddling coke or weed or meth. One night we got a call and it was—well, his name was Adam. His mother had called because he’d overdosed on cocaine. He was ten.”
A noise rose involuntarily from the back of Sadie’s throat. Her hand came over her mouth.
“This boy, I don’t know, I felt drawn to him. I went back to their house on my days off and would help his mom. I got her sixteen-year-old son, Alex, a job, trying to keep him out of the gang, out of trouble. They started going to church with me. But when Mary’s husband got out of jail and found out, he beat her. I thought I was doing something good. I thought I was helping them,” he said, clearing his throat and staring at the deck floor, setting his empty bottle on the table between them.
“What happened next?” Sadie asked in a soft whisper. She wanted to reach out and put a hand on his arm, hold his hand, anything to reassure him. But she knew Jake. He needed to finish his story first, or he might not get all the way through it.
“When I showed up at their house, her husband, Tony, told me if I came back, he’d kill Mary and then me. To be honest, not a lot scares me. But Tony, I believed every word he said, and it scared the shit out of me. So, I stayed away. I went to see Alex at his job, but he’d quit. His father had forced him into the gang. I thought I would get over it, you know? But I kind of spiraled.
“Anyway, we got a call one night. There’d been gunshots in one of the worst parts of the city. When we got there”—he paused and cleared his throat again—“it was Alex. He was bleeding out on the street. Before he died, he asked me to get his mom out.” Jake spoke quickly, as though expelling the memory might somehow absolve him of it.
“From that second I vowed I would do whatever it took. I couldn’t fix it all, but I could do that. So, I bought an old car, and when I knew Tony would be gone, I gave her the keys and a few thousand bucks cash to get her and Adam as far away as possible.”
“Did they?” Sadie asked with a quick intake of breath.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I hope so. I think so. It was a rough area. There were drugs and violence and prostitution, and then the people who were just stuck there among it all because they didn’t have an opportunity to get out. There were good people there, you know? Some of the house fires turned out to be drug dens or meth labs. A lot of the calls were incredibly depressing. Every time we went out, I was looking over my shoulder, waiting for Tony, wondering if he knew I’d helped his wife escape.
“And bringing a kid into that? My kid? I would never let them be collateral. I knew I had to leave the city, and being with Bethany is the only way I’ll be able to be in the baby’s life. She’s—I think if I broke it off with her, she’d move back to the city in a heartbeat, and I’m terrified she’d try to cut me out.”
“You think she’d deprive her child of knowing their father?” She didn’t know why she was asking. It was too late for that.
“Bethany—she’s great. But when she loves someone, it’s like they’re not allowed to love anyone else. And if I hurt her like that … I can’t risk it. So, I cashed in on my sick time, and here I am. I couldn’t handle being in that city anymore. I couldn’t take the stress, the heartbreak, the paranoia of always looking out for Tony or someone from his gang.”
He looked at her. “When Bethany asked me if there was a place I could go where I felt safe … I didn’t think of Poppy Meadows. I thought of you. You’d always been my safe place. The person I could tell anything to, go through anything with. Once I started thinking about you, I couldn’t stop. I figured we could start over, be friends at least. That I’d be happy if I could just be near you. But I knew the moment I saw you again that it would never be enough. I know that’s not fair to you. And I’m sorry, Sadie. I’m sorry I’m so screwed up.”
They were words she’d been longing to hear. The words her heart had been yearning to hear for a decade. He’d given her the vulnerability she’d been longing for. Forged a new bond between them. And it was all pointless.
She wondered if he loved her. But did it matter? When Jake decided on something, there was no one and nothing that could change his mind.
“I have to go,” she told him. She needed out. Away from him.
“Sadie,” he said, and his voice was broken. But when she walked away, he didn’t stop her.
On the short drive home, the steering wheel was colder than a glacier. She thought she’d be crying, but the tears seemed to have frozen inside her. Her shoulders were tense, hunched, from her trying to hold herself together.