From the Heart (A Valentine's Day Anthology) (19 page)

“You think I do? Dec, I haven’t been able to think straight all evening, and I knew I wouldn’t until I told you. I didn’t want to start making any decisions in my head because these decisions aren’t just mine.”

He shook his head. “That’s bullshit, Eden. If I don’t want this baby and you do… that’s not me having a choice. I can tell you how I feel, but the decision can only ever be yours.”

I took a few deep breaths, weighing up his words. I suppose that was the truth of it. If my heart screamed at me to keep my baby, no matter what Dec thought, that’s what I’d do.

My baby. That moment was the first time I’d actually thought those words. Mine. Not just
a baby
or
the baby
. My baby. But he or she wasn’t
only
mine. His opinion mattered too, even if I didn’t like it.

“Is that how you feel?” I asked. “That you would prefer to make this go away?”

He shook his head, still not looking at me. “I don’t know. I can’t make that decision in a split second.”

Funny. Because the second the slightest thought about not  - at the very least - going through with the pregnancy crossed my mind, I knew. That wasn’t an option. Not for me.

“I need to think,” he said. “Can you just give me some time to think?”

I nodded. “Of course. But, Dec?” Declan finally raised his head to look at me. “Please don’t shut me out. You’re not the only one with decisions to make here.”

I understood better than anyone his need to internalize things; I’d been stung by him blocking out my existence over and over and this was the biggest thing that had ever happened to either of us. The pain of him bouncing back and forth in and out of my life had been agonizing before we finally got together. To have him shut down over something that would affect the rest of our lives? I wasn’t sure there was a way to recover from that.

“I’ll try,” he said. “I’ll try.”

We sat awkwardly, still holding hands but I felt disconnected somehow, in spite of what he’d just said. I let go of his hand, and in silence, I peeled off my dress and threw on the oversized t-shirt I slept in. Dec hadn’t moved.

“Are you coming to bed?” I asked softly.

Dec shook his head. “Not yet. I’m going to go downstairs and get a drink. I’ll be back in a bit.”

I nodded then climbed into bed, somehow knowing he wouldn’t be back.

Chapter 3

When I woke up alone the next morning, in spite of the warmth pouring through my window, I shivered. It was early, just after seven, but I knew Kara and Lucas would be up, packing up their last few things before their parents came over to collect them and take them home. I knew I had to do the same, not that there was much left now. Just the few boxes on the bedroom floor and one suitcase full of clothes. My room was as empty as I felt inside. Of course I couldn’t absolutely predict that Dec was done with me, but his past form suggested there was a good chance our relationship was over. I also knew, if that was his decision, it wouldn’t be because of me. This was him and that stupid insecurity crap he carried around with him. No matter what he did he never felt good enough. Knowing that didn’t help me though. I’d still be a single mother, or I’d be the mother who put her child up for adoption because she couldn’t face being a single mother.

When tears prickled my eyes again, I dragged myself out of bed and forced all of that aside again, just as I’d tried to do the night before. I had final packing and then a long car journey with Declan and my mum to get through. I really didn’t need her finding out before we were safely at home and Declan had left. She’d throttle him. She’d throttle both of us.

I pulled my bathrobe on and slowly made my way down the stairs to the kitchen. I only heard two voices; Kara and Lucas’. They were both sitting at the breakfast table eating cereal, and the welcome scent of coffee hit my nostrils but I couldn’t help but notice the sombre atmosphere.
Last day blues.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat at the table with my friends

“Morning,” Kara said, a slight hint of sadness in her eyes.

“Morning.” I glanced at her bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, debating whether or not I could face food. Maybe later. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Just… it’s going to be so weird knowing that we have to start looking for work in the real world soon. No more lectures. No more essays. Fewer nights out.”

“To be fair,” Lucas said, “nights out have been dwindling for a while.”

Dwindling? Aside from the post-exams blowout we’d had, our social lives had died a dramatic death in the run up to our finals. For me, nights on the town were going to be dead for a hell of a lot longer.

“We should do something when we get home,” Kara said. “Maybe next weekend. We’ll go see a band or we’ll go to a club. Let’s just let our hair down and get drunk.”

Her eyes lit up as she looked at me, and usually I’d have been lighting up with her, but… there was way too much on my mind. I just nodded. “Maybe.”

“Do you think we should have invited Meg and Olly to join us last night?”

Meg and Olly were mutual friends of ours; the closest friends we’d made in York. Well… kind of. Meg and I used to be closer, but for whatever reason, she’d never quite gotten over the fact that Dec – who she’d made a play for – had rejected her. I had never understood why it pissed her off so much. She’d only known him for one evening before deciding she wanted him. Actually, that was several hours longer than it usually took her to decide who she wanted, but she never wanted him for anything serious. Like every other guy she met, she wanted a one-time thing with him, but when he’d said no and started dating me, she acted like I’d made some kind of personal attack on her. At that point, I knew she wasn’t much of a friend, but Olly and I had remained close, and of all the other people I’d met there, he was the person I’d miss the most, and the person I knew I would see again.

Lucas shook his head. “They were doing things with their own families. But at least we got to see them yesterday.”

While Kara and Lucas made small talk, I stood up and popped a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster then leaned against the kitchen counter while I waited. It
was
odd to think that the kitchen table we’d eaten at for the last two years, and the few leftover appliances, would soon be used by a new set of students. Regardless of how things had ended, I’d been happy in that house, and moving back to my mum’s and losing my independence would be strange.

That was if she didn’t kick me out on my arse when she found out I was pregnant.

My attention came back to my surroundings when I heard Lucas say, “If Dec doesn’t get his arse out of bed soon he’s gonna be out of luck with the coffee. We’ll have to pack away the coffee machine soon and he’ll be stuck with the leftover instant crap.”

“He’s not in bed,” I said quietly. “I assumed you’d have seen him asleep on the sofa.”

Kara and Lucas exchanged a puzzled glance.

“He’s not in the living room,” Kara said. “There’s no sign that he slept downstairs. Why would you think that? Did you two have an argument?”

You could say that.

I shook my head and turned to the toaster which had just spat out my toast. I had to eat it dry since we only had the very basics, and the basics didn’t stretch as far as butter.

“Eden?”

I sighed as I grabbed a plate from the side and put my breakfast on it. “I don’t really want to talk about it just yet. But yeah, we had a disagreement.”

“If he left, it’s more than a disagreement,” Lucas said, stirring some sugar into his coffee without taking his eyes off me. “What happened?”

What the hell was I supposed to say?
‘Well, I told him I was pregnant, he blamed me and then walked out?’
Actually, there was pretty much no other way to explain it. That was the basic gist.

“Please,” I said. “Now is not the time.”

“Well… will he be back to take you home?” Kara asked. “Because if not, we’ll have to…”

“I don’t know, Kara. I don’t know anything. If he’s not back here by nine, I guess I’ll have to figure something else out.”

Since Dec had driven my mum up to York for my graduation, we were reliant on him to take us home too, but if he’d really gone, we had problems. We couldn’t take the train back with my boxes, and I wasn’t sure Kara or Lucas’ parents would have room with all their stuff loaded into their cars.

Suddenly losing my appetite after having taken only two bites of toast, I put the plate back down on the sofa and took my coffee up to my room. I hadn’t meant to be so snappy with Kara but I truly wasn’t ready to talk about things yet. It didn’t feel right to do that until Declan and I had worked a few things out. He was entitled to freak out, of course, but I wished he’d done it differently. I wished he hadn’t wandered off because that was more of a worry to me than if he’d just slept downstairs. He’d physically removed himself from the situation and that made me nervous.

In my room, I placed my cup on the bedside table then went to my wardrobe to take out the last few items of clothing that remained. I threw a pair of jeans and a vest top onto the bed for me to wear, and the rest I folded and started putting into my suitcase.

An hour and a half later, after I’d showered, dressed, and finished packing, Declan still wasn’t back. Kara and Lucas were being picked up by their parents at nine thirty, and Dec and I were supposed to collect my mum from her hotel at ten. Kara, Lucas and I stood in our hallway, surrounded by the last of our belongings, all of us staring from the door to the boxes to each other in a constant loop.

“Has he called you?” Lucas asked. “Or have you tried calling him?”

Crap!
I’d left my phone in my bag in the living room when we’d got home the night before and I hadn’t checked it yet. Somehow, I highly doubted he’d called though. Declan never called when he was trying to figure something out.

“I was too busy getting my stuff together,” I said. “I’ll check.”

Surprise, surprise. When I pulled my phone from my bag – no missed called and no texts.

“Call him,” Kara said.

“What’s the point?” I asked, turning to her. “You know as well as I do how this is going to go.”

She gave a small, sympathetic smile that made my insides hurt. In spite of her lack of knowledge of the situation, I knew she hurt for me, and it triggered my own pain to trickle back in.

“You want me to try?” Lucas offered.

I nodded. “Please.”

As he passed, he gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze and I went back into the hallway and sank down on the stairs. Deep down, I knew he wouldn’t have gone back to Southampton without me and my mum; he was a commitment-phobe, not an asshole. What hurt me was knowing beyond all doubt that in spite of my plea, he would shut me out. Not just take a break to think, but shut me right out, as if he was the only one having to figure things out.

I put my head in my hands and let out a long, frustrated growl, and I heard Kara’s footsteps walking towards me. She sat beside me on the stairs and wrapped her arm around my shoulders.

“What’s happened, Eden?”

Before I could answer, my phone beeped to tell me I had a new text message. My heart began to race at the thought it might be Dec, and I lifted my head to check. What I saw on the screen only made my heart beat faster, but it was accompanied by an intense twist in my gut.

The photo message showed Dec lying down, asleep, with a blanket partially covering him, his left shoulder and part of his chest exposed. The text beneath read: I have something of yours.

The message was from Meg.

I fought the tears in my eyes as I tried to come up with a rational reason why he could have been at her place. She only lived a few streets over from us, but… why would he have gone there? He couldn’t possibly have been that messed up to have purposely sought her out, because that would have, in fact, made him a complete asshole. But he
was
with her, and he
did
have his shirt off.

Without a word, I handed my phone to Kara, and just as she gasped at the message, the front door opened and Declan walked in. He looked awful, like he’d had no sleep. His hair was messed up, and the clean, crisp shirt he’d worn the night before was creased. When his eyes found mine, the tears began to fall because his expression was blank. Like he didn’t know me. Like we hadn’t shared the most amazing seven months together. He looked at me the way he always looked at me when he was pretending I meant nothing to him.

Except, maybe he isn’t pretending this time. Perhaps your little revelation has cut off his emotions. Enough for him to have spent the night with Meg.

I wanted to say something, anything, but my mouth had gone so dry, I couldn’t get anything out. Didn’t even know what I wanted to say. It was like my own emotions had disappeared with Dec’s, leaving us both vacant shells. No. If I was a vacant shell, I wouldn’t be able to feel that sickness in my stomach, the thumping in my head, or hear the voices in my mind telling me I was stupid for even trying to have a relationship with someone who was so out of touch with anything that slightly resembled genuine feelings. He loved me… he
had
loved me, but that wasn’t a lifetime commitment. A baby? That’s a lifetime commitment, and one he hadn’t prepared for. Neither had I, but I didn’t run away from it, as much as I wanted to.

“What the fuck, Declan?” Kara thrust my phone towards him and his eyes widened on the screen.

He shook his head and looked up at me. “Don’t freak out over this, Eden.”

The sickness inside me began to crawl up my throat, almost ejecting at his words.

“Don’t. Freak. Out?” I stood up, trying to keep control of myself when all I wanted to do was knee him in the nuts. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Again, he shook his head and handed my phone back to Kara. “Which of these boxes are yours? I’ll start loading them in the car.”

My eyes flicked towards Kara as hers flicked to me, utter disbelief on her face, and Lucas rejoined us in the hallway. The silence was deafening, the atmosphere cold, almost dangerous.

“That’s what you want to talk about right now?” I asked, keeping my voice steady. “Boxes.”

He refused to look at me when he nodded. “That’s the only thing I want to talk about right now.”

“You don’t want to explain why you had your shirt off at Meg’s? Why you even left last night? And why you stayed with her instead of coming back?”

“I did come back. I’m here, aren’t I?”

My feet carried me quickly down the stairs and I stopped directly in front of him. I put my hands on his shoulders and shook them, just hard enough to force his head from the floor. “Don’t do this, Declan. I asked you last night not to do this, but here we are.”

A flicker of the real Declan, my Declan, flashed in his eyes as he looked at me. For a moment, I saw all the love I’d seen there before I told him I was pregnant, and all the confusion he felt since he found out. But it vanished in seconds and he shrugged me off. “You said you’d give me time to think.”

“And you had to do that half naked at Meg’s?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, you’re gonna!” Kara said, and the fact that she’d waded in told me exactly how angry she was on my behalf.

Kara and Lucas never got involved with my relationship with Dec; it wasn’t worth ruining our long friendships over. But she knew something was seriously wrong, and the photo from Meg had flicked her bitch switch.

“Great.” Dec gave a sarcastic laugh. “I leave for five minutes and now everyone’s against me? What did you do? Tell them what a dick I am for not jumping for joy about being a dad?”