Page 104 of This Beautiful Lie
“You’re okay,” I whispered to Blair. “We’re here now. You’re not alone.” The same words I’d craved to hear when I was in a hospital alone with my son.
Tears spilled hot down her cheeks, and she turned into my chest, clutching my shoulders until I wrapped my arms around her.
“I thought I lost the baby,” she sobbed. “I was so scared. I thought?—”
“Shhhh…” I held her as tight as I could, wishing I could pull the pain and worry out of her and carry it myself. Her sobs shook through me, each one slicing deeper than the last, and I tightened my arms around her, tucking her against my chest. “It’s okay,” I whispered into her hair. “You’re not alone. Not anymore.”
Dean didn’t speak. Not at first.
He stood a few feet away, jaw tight, hands buried in his pockets like he didn’t know what to do with himself. The silence stretched, heavy and aching, before he finally stepped forward. He dragged a chair to the side of her bed and lowered himself into it—slow, controlled, like he was bracing for something that might knock the wind out of him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked softly.
The gentleness in his voice was almost my undoing. It was stripped bare, raw around the edges, as if he were barely holding himself together.
I stepped back, wanting to give them space, my heart tightening when Blair lifted her gaze to his.
She shook her head, swallowing hard, her cheeks blotched red from crying. “Because we hadn’t talked for so long,” she whispered, the words cracking open in her throat. “And I didn’t want you to see how big of a fuck-up I’ve become.”
The confession spilled out like it had been lodged behind her ribs for weeks, pressing and pressing until there was nowhereleft to hold it. The moment it was free, she crumpled under its weight.
Dean’s face broke—as if her words had landed directly in his heart. He leaned forward and took both of her hands in his. “Damn it, Blair,” he said softly. “You’re not a fuck-up.”
“I didn’t want to disappoint you,” she sobbed.
His throat worked. He shook his head, slow and certain. “The only part of this that disappoints me is the fact that you felt you couldn’t come to me with it.”
Fresh tears sprang to her eyes, and she buried her face in her hands.
“I know I haven’t always gone easy on you,” he admitted, “I know that at times I’ve tried to parent you instead of being your brother. But that doesn’t change the fact that I would do anything in my power to support you.”
Blair’s gaze flicked up, as though his words had given her strength. “I didn’t even know if I wanted the baby until today,” Blair whispered, “but being around family all week, and then when I thought I’d lost it…” Her voice broke. “Isn’t that funny? How it takes almost losing something to realize how much it means to you?”
Dean leaned forward, “I do.”
“I don’t want to give it up, Dean.”
His thumb smoothed over her knuckles, “Okay.”
“Do you think that’s stupid of me?” Blair whispered, her voice so small it made my chest tighten.
Dean didn’t hesitate—not even long enough to breathe.
“No. I don’t.”
And that was the moment something insidemetwisted.
Sharp. Familiar. Unavoidable.
It hit like a bruise under my skin.
Because I knew what it felt like to doubt yourself so deeply it could hollow you out inside.
I stepped back quietly, easing toward the door—not because I felt out of place, but because something sacred was unfolding between them. Something unbreakable forming right there in the quiet.
It was beautiful and devastating all at once.
Because while Blair was discovering her desire to become a mother…
