Her tear-streaked face and red cheeks are one thing, but the lost look on her face smacks at how fucked up this situation is. What’s happening here? “Why can’t you understand how scary this is for me?” She slams the door, the sound of the bolt deadening everything else into silence.
Shell shocked, I wander to the window and stare across the orange-lit skyline.
What the hell? This isn’t how I imagined the moment would be for us.
SKY
I didn’t meanto tell Dylan tonight, not until I wrapped my head round the situation and could talk about this without the panic seeping in.
I couldn’t blurt the news on the plane or before tonight’s function. We needed a chance to be alone and talk things through.
I handled the situation terribly, and Dylan’s reaction shocked me. Does he genuinely believe I don’t want his baby?
I splash water on my face, the drops cooling my skin, then push my hair away with damp hands. I’m exhausted. You don’t have to look at me too hard to see, and now I have an extra explanation why. On top of the sickness of the last few days, the stress of returning to England, then attending here, is one big bite by reality I wasn’t expecting.
Pregnant.
Dylan wants children. We both do. We’ve discussed it as an abstract future. The look on Dylan’s face and his badly disguised upset hasn’t helped. He’s right. We should do all this together, taking the step to parenthood from the first blue lines onwards. I should’ve waited to do this with him, but I was terrified by his possible reaction.
How can I explain my doubts to Dylan without him thinking I’m rejecting him—that I don’t want his baby? This is a huge shock. Idowant Dylan’s baby, our baby, but I wanted some control over when.
But Dylan also needs to hear whatever confusion exists in my mind; at the very cornerstone of the situation, I love him and want this part of us.
Aware Dylan will be outside the bathroom, waiting and confused, I slowly open the door. He sits on the sofa rubbing his palms together and stands the moment I appear.
“Sorry,” we both say in unison.
I wrap my arms around my body. “Sorry this isn’t how you wanted.”
“Or how you wanted,” he replies, cautiously.
I can’t do this. I refuse to end the evening in confusion and hurt. I approach slide my hands along Dylan’s chest to unbutton his black cotton shirt. Dylan looks down at me as I push the material apart, desperate to touch him. He smells of Dylan, my man from the sea, and I bury my face into his taut chest.
Dylan closes his hand over the back of my head, and for a moment I’m terrified he’ll reject me. When his strong arms encompass me, holding us in our place again, I relax against him, hugging him tightly.
“I love you. I do want this. I’m just scared,” I say, not looking at him. “Please understand me, and why I reacted like I did.”
“Of course, but understand why I’m damned excited, Sky. Us. A baby. The perfect piece of our life clicking into place.”
I look up at him. “I’m tired. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”
“You’ll share everything from now on? No worrying about what I’ll think?”
The tears well in my eyes again and I close them, in case Dylan thinks this is more doubt. “Were you worried I wouldn’t want this?”
“No. Of course not.”
He seizes me in a breath-snatching hug and buries his face in my hair again. “I love you so fucking much.”
I poke him in the side. “Fucking much?” I ask, face smothered.
“A shitload,” he says and laughs softly, breath tickling my hair.
I pull away and fight back a smile. “For someone who can be poetic, you use a lot of bad words to describe love.”
He holds my face in both hands. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I feel like crap. Today has been long. We can talk tomorrow when I’m feeling more human,” I suggest.