The Fall (29 page)

“It’s the only way. If you push this, Dean, we are over,” I warned.

“What the hell do you mean?”

“I told you. It’s simple. You missed a lot of years.”

“Fine, you aren’t the girl I left. I’ll take my chances. Dallas, how could you have not told me you were pregnant?” his voice cracked. “Or that you lost—”

“That’s right,” I snapped. “
I
lost. You didn’t know any fucking differently.”

His eyes widened at my vicious snap.

“If I had known—”

“You’d what?” I walked toward him, catching him off guard. “You would have come back to me then? Say the words. Tell me a baby would have changed your mind so I can hate you more than I do!”

“Hate me...Dallas, I didn’t know.”

“Tell me, Dean, when would have been a good time to tell you? You just stopped calling. I found out a week after you decided I wasn’t important to you anymore. Two weeks after that, it was too late.”

“In New York, you never said a word.”

“Why would I? You were done. Would that have been a better time?” I took another step toward him, all my anger and hurt coming back in waves.

Dean’s eyes watered as he studied me.

“I would have never seen you again after Christmas break. If I hadn’t flown to New York, it would have been over the night you boarded that plane and left me here. When you left Texas, you were done with me. Everything you promised me was a lie.” I took another step forward, glaring at him. “Everything Cammie said
is
the truth and it was
so
much worse than what you could imagine, Dean. You wouldn’t even have recognized me if you would have come back. So I guess it was for the best. Don’t worry. I never blamed you for the baby.”

His face crumbled as he palmed his forehead, his tears falling rapidly.

“Save it. It turns out that water can’t wash away everything, Dean.”

“Dallas,” he croaked, his voice bleeding as I walked out the door. “I came back for you.”

The whirring sound was the hardest for me to deal with, always letting me know they were coming. I braced myself for their arrival, but it was always the threat of them that hurt the most. I couldn’t help but to ask for quick mercy. I was so tired, so weak. For the first time in this dream, I wanted them to catch up with me. The golden sky was mocking me. I felt anything but warmth as I stared at the sun surrounded by tornadoes. I clutched my chest, willing myself to be brave as I started to walk toward them. It was time…

POUND...POUND...POUND!

I shot out of bed, my chest heaving, and looked at my clock. 9:00 P.M.

I was covered in sweat, but was already stumbling toward the door. The pounding began again as I fumbled between sleep and reality, still reeling from my dream. I opened my door only to close it when I saw Dean’s angry face.

“If you wanted to avoid me, you should have gone somewhere else,” he snapped, catching the door and pushing it open, forcing his way past me.

“Sorry, my mistake. I didn’t realize it was no longer safe to go home,” I snapped back, the sarcasm dripping off of every word. I raced to the kitchen, my throat dry and my head pounding. I downed a bottle of water as he glared at me from the other side of my bar. I gave him a weary look as I took a bottle of Patron out and poured two shots, setting one in front of him while downing my own. The burn was welcome as I prayed for a quick buzz. The dream had left me raw and emotional, and I wanted nothing more than to feel numb again.

Dean capped the Patron. I shrugged and grabbed his shot, downing it.

“I want answers,” he said, moving the bottle out of my reach.

“You haven’t asked any questions.” I grabbed a paper towel and dampened it, wiping off my face.

Dean’s face softened as he took in my appearance. I had to look like hell. I was shaking from the nightmare and covered in sweat.

“Another dream?”

“Yeah, look, I need a shower. I have work tomorrow. Can we do this later?”

“No,” he said adamantly.

I glared at him and took in his disheveled appearance and burst out laughing. His clothes were mismatched and his hair was tucked under a ball cap.

“Well, there’s a first. Mr. Perfect looks like a bum. Tell me, Dean, is this the first time you have ever left your house without your argyle socks?”

His eyes lit fire as he took a step toward me. “I’m fucking warning you now, Dallas, stop.”

“Or what, you’ll go find my iron?” I knew I was being impossible. I was good at it. Jokes were how I had dealt with everything that hurt too much or terrified me.

He quickly grabbed the tequila bottle, apparently changing his mind about it. He took two shots from the glasses I set out before his eyes found mine, holding me where I stood.

“We were doing so
good
.” I laughed with no humor. He slammed his glass on the counter, making me jump.

“Cut the shit. Tell me why you didn’t say anything.” I had hoped to resume our relationship without dredging up the most painful part of my life, but I knew now that hope was ridiculous. The memory of those days of devastation after losing our baby were the most solid foundation of the wall I held up against Dean. Some part of me, though it was irrational, had always blamed him.

“I didn’t know for the first two months. I’ve skipped periods once or twice a year since I started. It was perfectly normal. Then I started getting sick, but I was already sick most of the time. I was upset, a lot. I missed you. The whole fucking campus was a graveyard filled with memories of the two of us. Did you think it would be easy for me?
You
had all new surroundings. I had to resume life without you there. Everywhere I looked I saw the two of us. It was just like high school all over again, except this time it wasn’t just a crush.”

“We spoke almost every day,” he reminded me, his hands flat on the counter.

“I know. I hid it well,” I said, looking down at the floor.

“Look at me,” he snapped and I obliged. “Why did you hide it?”

“Well, let’s see, you had just started medical school.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“You say that now, Dean,
now
, and after the fact, but that was your dream. I didn’t want to take it away from you. And telling you I was pregnant would have done that. I was mortified. I didn’t want to be the one to take it away.”

“I would’ve been here,” he insisted. I watched him go through the emotions and shook my head.

“You have no idea what your true reaction would have been. You can’t look at me today and say you wouldn’t have resented me then, or the baby.”

“Baby…” he trailed off, absently rubbing his finger up and down the shot glass. “Were you going to keep it?”

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation. “I was happy about it. I just wasn’t sure you would be.” I braved a look at him and saw unshed tears in his eyes.

“Four months?” His question was a whisper.

“Almost,” I answered. “When I lost it, I just flipped. I couldn’t get in touch with you. You refused to answer my calls, so I went to see you in New York. I was going to tell you, but when you told me we were over, I decided not to.”

He looked at me as if I’d slapped him. “If I would have known...Damn you, Dallas, I can’t fucking believe this!”

“I told you! I told you in New York! I told you I was losing my mind and that I couldn’t handle being apart. I needed you! Why wasn’t I enough?”

“You were,” he said quickly.

“Bullshit, that’s not what you just said. The baby would have brought you home, not your love for me. I can’t live with that! I can’t! I hate you for saying it, feeling it, thinking it. Because I loved you so much, Dean. I lived for you. I breathed you. I couldn’t stop. When I lost the baby and then you, I couldn’t hang on! I didn’t. I fucked up, really bad and often.” I took an angry step forward and leaned over the counter. “Why wasn’t I enough? You fell in love with some woman, and I was here drowning, mourning the loss of our baby, thinking of nothing but you and you didn’t fucking care! You were gone and I did what I always do. I began a pattern after you left me a second time. I fucked up.” I poured two more shots of tequila and threw them back then poured out the contents of the bottle. I didn’t want the temptation or the horrible hangover, and I was already comfortably numb.

He took a step toward me.

“No, no!” I held my hand up stopping him and threw the bottle in the sink. “The thing is, and it might have taken me a long time to admit it, you
didn’t
do anything wrong. You went to college, Dean, and you broke up with the girlfriend holding you down back home. I predicted it, remember? I told you not to make promises you know we couldn’t keep. You didn’t do anything wrong. Our relationship clearly just meant more to me.” I laughed again dryly. “
A lot
more.”

I looked him right in the eye and told him what I had been holding inside for seven years.

“I believed you would come for me, even after New York. I believed you would keep your promise and you never came. Instead, you got engaged to someone else while I waited in vain.”

“I didn’t meet her until the end of the year,” he offered weakly.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It all matters!” he spit out. “You think you are the only one who suffered? I might not have been here but you weren’t
there
either. You didn’t see the hell I went through to try and forget you. You think I just started fucking around and forgot all about the woman I’d been in love with for years, and just moved on?
You
weren’t the only one in love.
You
weren’t the only one ripped apart. And our relationship meant
everything
to me. I proposed to you! I wanted to be your husband, and you never really took me seriously! You always held my past against me and never really gave me a fucking chance to be sincere, to prove my love when I left. You were too busy dismissing me because I slept with a few women while we weren’t together.”

“A few,” I scoffed.

“Yes, Dallas, I was never the playboy I was made out to be. I had my share and so did every other fucking teenage guy on the planet. You know goddamn well I was faithful to you. I loved you so much I was willing to give up Columbia, but goddamnit, you pushed me away. If I would have known my baby was inside you, I would have—” He glared at me before he began to visibly shake. “That was my baby! Mine! I deserved to know. I deserved to know!” He slammed his fist on the counter as his tears fell one by one. He did nothing to hide them. “That baby was a part of you
and
me. So yes, Dallas, I would have come running.” He scrubbed his face as his shoulders slumped forward.

“I never got over us, Dallas. I may have been silent, just as silent as you have been but I never got over that day in New York. I didn’t want you to give up your dreams for me any more than you allowed me to stop chasing mine, but this ...” On his face, all I saw was pure devastation. “You had no right to keep any of it from me,” he bit out bitterly. “I watch couples go through hell to have a child every day. I see their pain when they lose the battle. You went through that alone...” He shook his head, as if he was still having a hard time believing the truth.

“I got depressed. It was severe. I got lost...and then I got over it. I moved on, Dean. I became a doctor and now that’s all I want to do. This thing between us almost cost me my career.”

“And what about us now?”

Wiping my matching tears off my face, I straightened my shoulders. “We tried.”

“No. Fuck no, Dallas,” he protested as he came toward me.

“I can’t be with you, not if you look at me like that. It was different when you didn’t know about...what happened.”

“And you think that our relationship would have worked with you keeping this from me?” he asked, incredulous.

“I don’t want guilt or pity. I don’t
want
to know how sorry you are. And I want you to stop fighting a lost cause.” The hole in my chest expanded and I squared my shoulders, ready to finally face what I’d done. “I’m sorry I made it so hard on you when you came back. I’m sorry I was so awful to you and hard to get along with. You thought what we had was beautiful. I did, too, except while you were gone, I made it ugly.” My voice cracked as I bit back the rest of my emotion. “You need to go, Dean. You need to stop fighting for what we had and realize the way you left it isn’t the way it remained. I’m not the woman you left.”