Page 79 of Imperfect Match (Imperfect Match 1)
I take a good look at her seeing how much stress is in her eyes. She’s trying to fight it, but I know her too well. Then, after another heartbeat, a tear falls. Before I can take a step, she rushes towards me, wrapping her arms around my neck, and I hold her tight. The sound of Willow crying is like a knife to my soul. Knowing that I’m the one causing her tears makes it even worse.
“Don’t cry. I can’t handle it when you cry.”
“I know. It’s just that I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
She cries harder. “I know how you feel and I’m trying to understand better because …” She pulls back and I rub my thumb against her cheeks, wiping the tears that have fallen.
“Because?”
“Because I want us. I want it all, Reid. I want you and I want us and I want for it to be us.”
I feel like she’s talking in circles. “You want for what to be us?”
Willow takes a step back, she releases a deep sigh and then her eyes fill with resolution. “I’ve been in here for hours, cooking and flipping through this book of guys trying to find a father for this baby I’m going to have, and you know what I realized?”
I want to fucking throw something through the wall when I imagine her looking for a man who is able to give her what she wants because I won’t.
“Don’t say it,” I command. “I don’t want to know about some asshole donor who doesn’t deserve to know you, let alone get you pregnant.”
But Willow doesn’t obey commands. “That’s just it. I realized I don’t want some donor’s baby. I want yours. I want you, and I want a baby that has your blue eyes. I want to look at his or her little face and see resemblances to your nose, your mouth, your dark hair.”
I shake my head because this is absolutely not going to fucking happen. “Stop, Wills.”
“I want to hold a child that is equally you and me. I want to have this life with you because I’m so deeply in love with you.”
Jesus Christ. She can’t be serious. She only wants this because she doesn’t know what the hell lives inside of me. The man I’m destined to be. Why would she allow that around her child?
“Willow, this can’t even be an option. I can’t possibly have a kid with you. I won’t do that. I will never be a father.”
“Why? Why won’t you do this with me? I love you and you love me, Reid. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Of course it doesn’t. She grew up in the perfect home. She had two amazing parents who loved her and Aspen. They gave them things, not just mater
ial things, but love and support. In my home, we were only given what would further my parents’ twisted game of manipulation. I saw how two people who loved each other became the worst versions of themselves and destroyed two kids in the process.
“If you grew up in my house, you’d understand. I won’t be the father of your kid. I won’t be the father of anyone’s kid. I told you this. I told you how I felt about marriage and having a family.”
She bites her bottom lip and fights back the welling moisture in her eyes. “I think I knew that would be the answer, but God, I hoped …”
“Hoped what?”
“That this wouldn’t be how it ends. I wished it so hard because I’m not ready to lose you.”
I start to pace, pushing my hand through my hair. “Lose me? Why does this have to be the end? Jesus, Willow. You can wait. You can put this off, right? There’s no need to do this right away.”
She shakes her head with her lips parted. “Wait for what, Reid? You’re not willing to even think about it. It’s just no. So what am I waiting for?”
“Time! Just time together.”
“I don’t want to wait. I thought that maybe you’d see that this is the way we can stay together. Otherwise I have to give up the one thing I really want. I would have to find some way to accept that all I’ll ever be is this.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means, I’ll be good enough, but never enough. I’ll always be fighting this distorted version of you, the one who thinks he’s just like his father. Which I would do, I would fight every day for the rest of my life if I thought I could make you see how wrong you are. You won’t let me, though.”
“Because you only know the man I allow you to see. If I married you, Wills, I would ruin you. I would become him, because that’s who I am underneath what I let show.”
