He opens the garage door and my panic only increases.
“Where’s my car?”
He smiles sheepishly and bites his lip. “I traded it.”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right, Xander? This is a joke. I’m being Punk’d. I have to be.” I look around for the cameras.
“We needed a family car,” he mumbles.
“Yeah, I get that, but you should’ve talked to me about it before going out and buying a … What is that, a seventy-thousand dollar car?” I clutch my chest. “Oh, my God!” I scream, staring at him horrified. “Where’s your motorcycle?”
He looks away and won’t meet my eyes.
“Where’s. Your. Motorcycle.”
He twists in his seat to face me. “I went to take it out today, and I got to thinking, I’m going to be a dad, which means I need to be responsible. So I sold it too.”
I scream. Like an inhuman, blood-curdling scream.
I glare at him, warning him with my eyes that I’m this close to reaching over and strangling him. “I love the motorcycle and now it’s gone? I can handle my car, but not that. And you know what, you said nothing would change when I got pregnant, and now everything’s changing.” I shout the last part at him at my wits end.
Normally, I agree that I’m being dramatic, but this is one instance where I think I’m being perfectly reasonable. He should’ve talked to me before he did this.
I begin to cry, unable to help myself.
I rub my chest where it feels tight.
“I think I’m having a heart attack,” I mumble.
“Thea, you’re not having a heart attack.”
“I’m having some kind of attack!” I yell, unbuckling my seatbelt. I desperately need out of the truck.
I tumble outside and sit down on the middle of the driveway.
I hear Xander’s door open and close, then he walks across to me.
He squats down, draping his arms over his knees.
“Thea, this isn’t the end of the world. It’s
a car, and the motorcycle isn’t as important as being safe.”
I wipe at my tears. “This just sucks. I don’t want everything to be different.”
“Maybe you should stop thinking about it being different and think of it instead as the new normal.”
I sniffle. “I’ll try—but next time, don’t by a fucking car and not tell me.” I hold out my hands for him to help me up and he smirks, opening his mouth. “And do not tell me to put a quarter in the Swear Jar. I might stab you if you do.”
He laughs. “All right, deal.”
He helps me up and leads me over to the car. It’s nice, I won’t lie, I mean it’s a freaking Range Rover, but I just keep seeing dollar signs.
He opens the door and motions for me to sit in the driver’s seat.
“Look how much room is in the back. There’s plenty of space for a car seat, and there’s even a DVD player, granted she won’t need that for a while but I thought it was a good thing to have,” he rambles.
I shake my head, looking in the back, imagining a car seat and screaming kid there.