Away From You (Back To You Book 2) (20 page)

I frowned.
“Huh. My bad.”

“Yeah, no
shit. So now that we have that settled, are you going to go talk to her now or
are you going to ignore her calls if she tries to tell you she’s pregnant?”

Realizing
that I’d just been sitting there holding energy drinks with the fridge open, I
snapped out of it and began putting them on the shelves again. “I’m obviously
going to talk to her. I need to find out if she’s actually pregnant. Hey,
here’s a thought! Maybe she was just buying one for Ellie!”

I turned
around to see his reaction, and it was worth it. He almost fell out of his
chair again, and I could’ve sworn that I heard his heart stop beating.

“Oh, you’re
just fucking with me now. Very nice.” He grabbed his tool belt from the desk
next to him. “Okay, I’m gonna go get to work before Sergeant Hills comes in
here and sees you putting those cans away without being told to.”

I couldn’t
win.

*

The rest of
the day went by in a blur. I knew that Spencer was right. I’d definitely jumped
to conclusions about Olivia being pregnant. But really, what was I supposed to
think? I knew the most mature thing would’ve been to walk up to her and ask her
about it, but that wasn’t the frame of mind I had been in at the time.
Thankfully, I felt a lot more in control of myself now.

When I got
to Olivia’s parents’ house, I was relieved to find her car in the driveway. I
only hesitated briefly before taking the porch steps two at ta time and ringing
the bell. She answered the door a few seconds later and balked when she saw me
standing there. She had changed out of the tight jeans that I had seen her in
earlier and into pajama pants, as I knew was her custom as soon as she got
home. She called them her ‘comfy clothes,’ and rarely wore anything around the
house that she would actually wear in public.

“Hey,” I
said, realizing that I’d just been standing there assessing her wardrobe.

“Hi.”

“Can I come
in?” I asked, peeking around her to see if her parents were around. I had no
idea how warm of a reception they would give me after everything.

“My parents
aren’t here,” she said, guessing what I was thinking.

“Oh.”

“You can
come in.” She opened the door wider and stepped aside, giving me room to pass.

She seemed
like she was happy to see me, but she didn’t want to appear too excited about
it. It was kind of funny how well I knew her. I walked into the living room and
stood by the couch, waiting for her to join me. She closed and locked the door
out of habit, then turned to face me. She didn’t look entirely eager to join me
in the living room.

“Can we
talk?” I held my hand out, gesturing to the couch.

Something
like anger flashed in her eyes. “I’ve been trying to talk to you, but you keep
ignoring my calls.”

I gulped.
Had she been calling me to tell me she’s pregnant? Maybe she was only buying a
pregnancy test at the commissary today to confirm her pregnancy, not to find
out in the first place. Maybe she’d thrown the other ones away and she was
buying another one in order to show me the little plus sign in the window, or
two pink lines, or whatever it was that showed up when you’re pregnant. I took
a deep breath. I needed to just come right now and ask her.

“Liv, is
there something you want to tell me?”

“Yes, Matt.
There are a lot of things I want to tell you.”

I sat down
with a thud. “Okay, I’m ready.”

She cocked
her head to the side and came towards me, resting her hand on the back of the
couch opposite mine. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”
I asked.

“Like you’re
waiting to get punched.”

I looked
sideways at her. “Are you pregnant?”

There was a
pause. “Am I
pregnant
?”

“Yeah, Liv,
are you pregnant? You need to tell me.” I got up and stood in front of her,
taking her hands roughly in mine.

Slowly, she
shook her head. I couldn’t tell if it was shaking her head like she was
answering ‘no,’ to my question, or if she was shaking it out of disbelief or
something. “Use your words!”

“No, Matt,
I’m not pregnant.”

A weight
lifted off of my shoulders and I collapsed back onto the couch. “Thank God.”

“Thank God?”
She barely choked out the words and her eyes welled up with tears.

“I just
meant that with everything going on right now, it just isn’t the time. I can’t
get back together with you just because you’re having my baby. It needs to
happen because I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you, not
just because you’re pregnant. You’d wonder for the rest of our lives if I only
got back with you because of the baby.”

She stared
at me, not speaking.

“Wouldn’t
you?”

She nodded.

“Okay, well
that’s all I meant. I just had to clear that up.”

Olivia shook
her head and seemed to finally find her voice. “Matt, why did you think I was
pregnant?”

“I saw you
today, at the commissary, looking at the tests.”

“Ah, I see.
Couldn’t you have just come over to me and asked if I was buying one?”

I shrugged.
“I was in a hurry.”

“Right.” She
sat down on the couch she was standing next to, and leaned forward on her
elbows. “Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“When you
said all that stuff about getting back together with me, can you just elaborate
a bit? I’ve been trying to talk to you ever since that night, and I get
nothing. Now you’re here talking about reasons why we can or can’t get back
together, and I’d really like to know where you’re at.”

I knew that
no matter what I found out about her being pregnant, I would definitely have to
have this conversation with her. The only problem was that I was so distracted
with the idea of a baby that I hadn’t given much thought to what I would say.
The main point was that we absolutely, positively, needed to be apart right
now. The only problem was telling her that in a way that would do the least amount
of damage. Hell,
who
was I kidding? Getting wasted and
telling her I wanted a divorce was probably the most hurtful thing I’d ever
done to her. Whatever I said now would pale in comparison.

“Liv, just
the thought of you being pregnant was enough to show me that I have a lot of
work to do on myself. I didn’t want to admit it before, but I see it now. I see
that there is something wrong with me, and I need to go actually try to get
help.”

“They say
that’s the first step.”

I squeezed
my eyes shut. “Yeah, well, I know I hurt you last week and I’m sorry. But I
still think that I need to do this on my own.”

She started
to reach for me but thought better of it before I even had time to react. I
wasn’t sure if I would’ve moved out of the way or not, but I was glad to not
have to make that choice. We sat there in silence for a minute. I desperately
wanted to know what she was thinking.

“I don’t
know what to say, Matt. I’m not going to beg you to be with me. If you don’t
want to, you don’t want to.”

I hung my
head. “It’s not that. It’s just, I can’t keep hurting you or snapping at you.
The problem is with me, and I know that.”

“But I can
help! I can be there for you and…”

“I know you
can, babe. But I can’t control it when it happens, and then all I do is feel
angry with myself or even with you for some reason. It’s a cycle and it feels
like shit and I just can’t risk blowing up at you every time you walk into a
room. It puts me on edge, worrying about that. Which only makes it worse. Do
you see where I’m coming from?”

Olivia
nodded, not looking at me. “So what am I supposed to do? Do I just stay here
with my mom indefinitely and you’ll just let me know when you’re ready to be a
couple again? This feels wrong.”

“Liv, I’m
gonna get help, okay? Can we just take this a step at a time?”

“It’s like
you’re shutting me out.”

I stood.
“It’s for your own good, okay? You need to focus on school. You need to either
have a husband who has his shit together, or not have one at all.”

“You do
realize that what you’re doing right now is exactly what you told Spencer not
to do to Ellie last year, right? Making decisions for me doesn’t help anyone. I
should be able to choose if you’re good enough for me, not the other way
around.”

I sighed and
headed for the door. “I’m not deciding whether or not I’m good enough for you.
I’m telling you that I have nothing to give you until I fix myself. If you
don’t want to wait for me to work on myself then that’s your choice. But I
can’t be with you right now.”

I left
without waiting for her reply. The entire way back to base, I wondered what she
would’ve said if I’d stayed, but at the same time didn’t need to know. I was
doing the right thing for us in the long run. She’d see that eventually. The
line to get on base was long, so I selected Spencer’s name from my favorites
list in my phone and called him.

“What’s up,
big poppa?” he answered.

“Not me,
pal.”

“Oh, so you
did
jump to conclusions?” He chortled.

“Yes.”

“Well,” he
started, “I already knew that.”

I scowled.
“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Ellie told
me about an hour ago that Liv just had a pregnancy scare or whatever but she
was at the commissary to buy tampons.”

“And you
didn’t feel the need to tell me this, why?”

I could
almost hear him nonchalantly shrugging. “I figured you and Liv needed to talk
anyway.”

“Right.
Thanks for that.”

“Anytime. So
when is she moving back in?”

I pulled
into my driveway and turned off the ignition. “It’s not that simple. I told her
that thinking she was pregnant was a wake up call and I need help.”

“That’s
good, man.” He finally sounded like he was taking me seriously. “Those sessions
you go to might actually start helping if you let them.”

“Yeah, I
know.”

*

The next
day, I walked into the mental health clinic on base just like I had several
times before. This time was different, though, because I was doing it with an
open mind. The term PTSD had been thrown around quite a bit both in and out of
my sessions here, and I started to accept that there might be some truth to
that diagnosis. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, there was something wrong
with me, and it all started after a traumatic event. What else could it be?

“Name?” The
middle-aged woman at the front desk didn’t look up from her ancient PC as I
approached. Part of me wanted to take her coldness as a bad omen, but I settled
myself again.

“Matthew
Mills. I’m here for my eleven o’clock appointment with Dr. Brann.”

The woman
pecked the dirty keys with her way-too-long red nails and glanced up at me over
her black-rimmed glasses. “Have a seat. I’ll call you when he’s ready.”

Olivia

As impossible as it may seem, I was
eventually able to respect Matt’s decision. He needed help, and he needed to do
it alone. For the first month, I wallowed. I binge-watched Gilmore Girls like
nobody’s business, following their instructions for the proper way to wallow to
a tee. Thankfully, TV addiction aside, I still had my sense of responsibility
through all of the self-pity. My schoolwork continued to kick my ass in the way
only nursing school could, but I kicked its ass a bit, too.

The second
month was a little better. I’d finally had enough Netflix to last me a
lifetime, and the new tightness of my scrubs had me willing to wallow at the
gym rather than the couch. I worked out every day after school and even on the
weekends. I found myself wishing that I’d done that for the whole first month,
too, but you live and learn. The girls were very supportive of my new passion
for fitness, as Ellie’s wedding grew ever closer and the phrase “sweating for
the wedding” became her new motto. Where Ellie joined me at the gym almost
every day, Catherine was much less consistent. She took
a
yoga
or spin class with us once in a while, but usually had something
she’d rather be doing than working out.

Today was
one of the days when Catherine graced us with her presence. It was exactly one
month until Ellie’s wedding and closing on three months since the destruction
of my marriage. I hadn’t seen Matt at all since that day when he showed up at
my house. I’d gotten off social media and avoided going to base as much as
possible. Ellie never stopped reminding me that this was a good thing, since my
new toned physique deserved to be revealed somewhere other than the commissary.

I couldn’t
disagree with that statement. If Matt and I really were destined for a romantic
reconnection like Ellie and Catherine kept telling me, it would be nice to wow
him with my new bod. Not that I’d been bad to look at before, but I hadn’t ever
cared this much about fitness so I was out of shape. If you had asked me a
month ago, I had no idea that there was such a thing as being “skinny fat”
until I earned some muscles and definition. I felt… healthy.