Page 33 of Angel
Tears spill over, hot, and furious.
“You get to walk away from this,” I continue. “You get to say it doesn’t define us. But it defines me. My body. My worth. Every room I walk into where there’s a kid and someone asks when we’re next.”
“That’s not fair,” he says quietly.
“I’m not asking for fair!” I scream. “I’m asking you not to minimize the one thing I can’t stop wanting.”
He opens his mouth and closes it again. And that hurts worse than anything he could’ve said. Silence means he doesn’t knowhow to fix it. And I don’t want him to fix it. I want him to understand it.
I lock myself in the bathroom again and sink to the floor, back against the tub, phone clutched in my hand. The app is open. Charts glowing. Numbers staring back at me like proof and punishment all at once.
I scroll through my history. All the dips, spikes, and months that ended the same way. I take another test even though it’s too early and I know better. Even though I promised myself I wouldn’t.
I stare at the stick like it might change its mind if I look hard enough. Negative. Of course it is. I let out a broken laugh, verging on almost hysterical. Then press my forehead to my knees.
Having kids isn’t everything. Maybe not to him. But right now? It’s the only thing standing between me and the version of myself I don’t recognize anymore. The woman who let it go stops trying and has to figure out who she is without this dream. I don’t know who that is. And that terrifies me more than another negative test ever could.
I don’t hear Angel knocking on the bathroom door or him saying my name. I just sit there, shaking, realizing the scariest truth of all: healing didn’t erase the wound. It just taught me how easy it is to reopen.
When I finally unlock the door, the house is quiet. Angel’s in the living room. Sitting on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees with his hands clasped tight. He looks up when I step out; his eyes are red.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says quietly.
“I know.”
But knowing doesn’t undo it or erase the way it sliced through something already fragile. He stands slowly, like he’s approaching something that might shatter.
“I’m scared too,” he says. “Of this eatin’ you alive again.”
“It already has,” I whisper.
He flinches. “I don’t want to lose you to it.”
“You won’t,” I say automatically.
But the truth is, I don’t know. I can feel the old obsession breathing under my skin. I don’t know which one I’m stronger against anymore.
Chapter Twelve
Angel
The second the words leave my mouth, I know. You don’t need a mirror for that kind of truth. You feel it in your gut, sharp and sickening, like you just drove your bike straight into a wall you didn’t see coming. Having kids isn’t everything, but I didn’t mean it like that. Didn’t mean any of it like that. But intent don’t mean shit once the damage is done.
Stevie’s face goes still.Not angry. Not loud. Just… empty.And that’s worse than if she’d screamed at me or thrown something or told me to get the hell out. Because I know that look. That’s the look of someone pulling the pieces of themselves back in so no one else can touch them.
“Stevie,” I say, softer now, slower, like I can rewind time if I just choose my tone right. “That’s not what I meant.”
She looks at me like I just spoke a different language.
“But it’s what you said.”
Fuck.
“I was tryin’ to say…” I stop and drag a hand down my face. Start again. “I was tryin’ to say that you are everything. That us…”
“You don’t get to backtrack now,” she cuts in, voice shaking but controlled. Too controlled. “You said it because you believe it.”
“That’s not true.”
