Swap Out (29 page)

I grab a bottle off the shelf and start walking down the aisle towards the exit, muttering loud enough that I know she’ll hear me, “Just stop, Zoe.”

She must have run after me though, because suddenly she’s in front of me, walking backwards until I give up and pause.

“Please, Luca,” she says, a jar of peanut butter in her hands. “Just come home and talk to me.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “We don’t live together. That is not my home.”

“Just tell me what I did,” she says, eyes sparkling with tears. “One minute you were fine, and the next it’s like you’ve never hated me more. I just don’t understand what changed.”

“Why would you?” I sneer, then lean closer. “You’d have to love me first.”

I stride past her, ignoring her hiss of my name as I drop the bottle of Pepto-Bismol on a random shelf. And all the way out to my car I’m cursing myself. For walking away, for leaving her with no explanation as to why last night I was laying with her in bed, both of us smiling and laughing about something I can’t even remember because I was too caught up in kissing her and how she looks when naked and bathed in the moonlight coming in through her window. And now I can’t even stand to be near her, to smell the lotion that usually soothes me and now just infuriates me.

I get in my car and drive back to my apartment, shutting my door behind me and heading to my room. But when I see my bed I turn back around and slink into my living room. God, everything is just…it sucks. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere I’m free from the hell I’m living in.

Exhausted, I collapse onto my couch, but even that hurts in a way. Because my mind instantly flashes to another fight, me being blitzed drunk and yelling at her before we ended up laying down, her heartbeat thundering through my ears as she talked to me. And it only gets worse when I remember the next time we were here, Zoe snuggled up after dinner while her feet were stretched across my lap, giggling as I told her I wanted a bird. It feels like forever since we went from a first date to where we are now, but it’s only been six weeks. Six long, life changing weeks.

I shift and something crinkles, and my brow furrows before I remember and take the sonogram out of my back pocket. I open the folded strip of paper, the corner of my mouth turning up at the five pictures. Profile from each side and one of the back, tiny little fingers and toes. My eyes sting and a drop of water falls on the paper, and I sweep it away as I blink to clear my eyes. Blowing out a breath, I toss the sonogram down on the coffee table and sit back, scrubbing a hand over my face. I need to do something, get up and move and try to push past this. I’ve always known how this would end, and Zoe was right. I need to come to terms with it. I just don’t know how.

With renewed determination I get up and grab the sonogram, then walk into my bathroom and put it in my now empty bathroom drawer. I strip down and grab my spare set of swim trunks from where they’re still hanging on the shower curtain rail from weeks ago, then tug them on. I have to undo the knot in the drawstring and retie it a little tighter, but I ignore the reason why and grab a towel, heading outside.

I never realized that during indoc, most of my time would be spent in an Olympic-sized pool. They tell you the best way to prepare yourself for the training is to get comfortable in the water, and it’s not a joke. You spend hours, every day, in a black Speedo and swimming, swimming, and swimming some more. Laps, Buddy Breathing, gear retrieval and basically anything and everything they can think of. Sometimes, it feels like water is home more than anything else.

The apartment complex’s community pool is thankfully deserted when I go out there, and I toss down my towel on a chair and dive right in. It’s cold and not as deep or long as I wish it was, but as soon as the water rushes over my skin, I feel better. The gentle support from it carrying my weight, slipping over my body and through my hair like a caress from the mother I never knew and never really wanted to. But I can’t deny it would have been nice to have someone, sometimes. Just a single person who would always be there, never making pro and con lists over whether they should keep me around. Then sending me back once the latter outweighed the first.

My legs kick long, powerful strokes as they propel me to the other end, and I open my eyes to let the chlorine sting away the tear I let slip out in my living room. I come up and take a breath, then dive back under and turn, my feet pushing off the wall just how I was trained to do.

With a rhythm I don’t even have to think about, I begin a sidestroke that stretches me out, making me feel lean and strong as my hands cut water and push me forward. My shoulder aches but after another three full laps from one side to the other, it becomes the dull acceptance that means in another two turns, it won’t hurt anymore.

In the water, I’m healed. The ripples hiding my scars and the cool therapeutic force making it all like it never even happened. Like I’m twenty-two and ripped, fearless and cocky with a long list of lives saved and none yet lost. I swim harder, pushing off the wall after the turn with everything I have, but suddenly, I don’t feel better. Because at twenty-two I didn’t have Zoe.

I didn’t have the comfort of a woman who knows what I’m thinking when I wake up in the morning, who forgives me for being reckless and restless and more than a little hot tempered. A woman who wants me to be happy, and tries her best to see that I am, even when it’s hard for her. Even if that means encouraging me to be dangerous and putting up with Scott and trying to track down a long lost foster mom.

God, what am I doing? She’s probably at home, crying, and I’m here, swimming.

I turn in the middle of my lap and head towards the side wall, hooking my elbows over the ledge and letting them support my weight as I drop my forehead to my crossed arms. I should have talked to her. Should have said something. Instead I just ignored her for hours, and then I left.

But I have no idea how I’m going to explain this to her. How I’ll ever tell the woman I love that she’s doing everything she promised she would, everything she was afraid of happening and I swore I could withstand. She’s slowly killing me, and I know she doesn’t want to, but it’s not stopping it from coming true. And what absolutely terrifies me is that I love her enough to let her do it. Which is so wrong.

It’s all so wrong.

“Finally taking a breather?” Zoe says quietly, and my shoulders hunch forward. “Thought you were going to go another fifty laps until you just collapsed from pure exhaustion.”

“Stamina isn’t what it used to be,” I mumble, and I hear the scrape of a chair on concrete sliding closer.

“I beg to differ.”

I shake my head. “I’m not going to be able to handle it, Zoe.”

“Handle what?”

“The abortion. I’ll never come to terms with it.”

She blows out a breath, then her nails comb through the back of my wet hair. And it feels so good, that small and silent promise that she sees me, hears me. The first time she did it, the morning after our swindled date and before she left my apartment, it felt like she was assuring me that she would come back. It feels like that now, except it’s different, and I need that promise. I need it so much.

“You were wrong earlier,” she whispers. “I do love you.”

I lift my head at the words she’s never said but I’ve known for a while, and hearing her say it only makes me feel worse. At the store, not even an hour ago, I spat a lie in her face that I knew to be false. And I knew it was cruel to say that to her because it’s almost impossible for her to admit how she feels about me, but I was too angry to care. And now she said it, not because she wanted to, but because I questioned her.

I need to apologize for so many things, but mostly for taking what she wasn’t ready to give. Except as my eyes search hers, I end up pleading with everything I have inside of me when I muster out, “Then consider adoption, Zoe. Please.”

“Luca…”

“I know it’s hard. I do. And it’s not what I want but for all the options, it’s the only one I can even begin to make peace with if you won’t do this with me. I need you in my life, Zoe, and I don’t see that happening if you abort the pregnancy. Especially not after today.”

She takes a deep breath, apology written in her eyes and I already know what she’s going to say. But she tells me anyway.

“I know to you adoption seems like the best route,” she starts, controlled, “but it’s not something I’m comfortable with.”

“Why?”

“Because of what happened to you,” she says, then looks down at her hands in her lap. “I can’t put that on a child.”

“Zoe,” I say seriously, “it is not the same. I’m talking about going to an agency, finding people we like, and then that’s it. It’s not a trial period where they return him to a group home if they change their mind. It’s permanent. And these people, they will want this, more than anything. They will love him and take care of him, and he will have a family that is thankful every single day for having him.”

She sniffles and wipes at her eyes. “And we’re supposed to…what? Just give him away and hope for the best? You’ll never be able to live with that either, knowing he’s out there and wondering if he’s okay, if he’s happy or scared or alone. If he feels betrayed because we…” She takes a breath, then whispers, “You’ll try to find him. You know you will.”

“I’m not saying this would be easy, Zoe, that I’d never wonder or worry. I’m saying that I’d rather know he’s alive and have something to wonder about, than not.”

Her mouth twists and she leans forward, covering her eyes with her hand. “I’ll never be able to give him up, Luca.”

I push out of the water and hit my knees in front of her, pulling her hand away and holding it securely between my own. “Then don’t give him up. Do this with me.”

Her eyes close and I flatten her hand against my chest, over my heart.

“I love you,” I say strongly, and tears slip down her cheeks. “And I’m not just saying this because I’m begging you right now, but because I love you. Even when you make me so mad I can’t think straight. Even when you hide my razors and insist on watching
Dances With Wolves
for the thousandth time. I will never leave, and I will do everything in my power to give you what you want, but—”

“No,” she says, and my stomach sinks. “I will ruin your life, drag you through hell. You even said it, Luca. ‘God help the man that loves me.’ And you were right.”

“Drag me through hell! I don’t care, I’ll even get the damn rope!”

She looks down at me with a sad smile. “This needs to be goodbye.”

“What?”

“You aren’t happy. You hardly sleep, half your shorts don’t even fit you anymore because you’re losing weight—”

“That’s because I stopped drinking beer and eating bacon,” I counter, even though I have to admit, she’s right. I’m down ten pounds in the last two weeks and I can’t really figure it out.

More tears slip down her cheeks. “I love you, I do,” she says, and I swallow. “And there is no one else on this earth I would ever consider having a family with, being with. I’d be so lucky to have you,” she says, then her gaze drops down to the one hand still left on her lap, pressed between her knees. “But the thing is, Luca, if I can do this to you, make you this miserable, you who never cries and isn’t afraid of anything, what in hell would I do to a baby?”

“That’s insane,” I tell her. “You will be an amazing mom, and we both know it. And yes, you’ll probably be a little over protective and strict, a tyrant when it comes to homework and chores, but I also know you will love and spoil that kid to the point that they will never know what it feels like to not be smothered in hugs and kisses and bedtime stories and everything they could ever want. You will teach him to be strong and independent, how to navigate life and be successful and every other thing that I know nothing about and you do because you did it.” I hook a finger under her chin and make her meet my eyes. “There is no one else I would trust to fill that role for my children. I want it to be
you
.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her bottom lip trembling, “but I can’t do this, Luca. I can’t do any of this. And that’s why,” she says, then takes a shaky breath, “I’m breaking up with you.”

My eyes narrow. It never ends with her. And the thing is, I should have expected this sooner.

I
know
with absolute certainty that her trying to end our relationship has nothing to do with her not wanting to be with me. It’s not about trying to retain control or even because she doesn’t want our baby. It’s about trust. And for the first time, it’s not whether she trusts
me
, but if she trusts herself to do the right thing: whether that’s to raise him in a healthy, loving environment, or to be able to give him up for adoption if she thinks she can’t do the first. So it’s right back to her instincts to punish herself for what she feels she can’t do and doesn’t deserve, and that’s all the abortion is. A way to keep herself secluded and to cut me out of her heart, because in reality, it’s the last thing she wants to do.

I stand and pull her up with me, her eyes wide since this was obviously not the reaction she was expecting to her break-up declaration.

“Good luck with getting rid of me that easily,” I tell her, and before she can stop me I scoop up her legs, then toss her into the pool; Zoe shrieking until it gets drowned out in an ungraceful splash.