“The truth about what?” I ask. It’s obvious I’m stalling. What do I do? How does he know?
His laughter makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “Wrong answer.”
“I don’t understand. Where is this coming from? You can’t just barge in here and lock us in an empty room, Enzo. We’re going to get in trouble.”
“Right,” he sneers, pacing in front of me and blocking the door. “Because that’s all you care about, isn’t it? Doing the right thing. Being a good girl. Obeying the rules.”
“If obeying the rules means security not throwing us off campus and telling me to never come back, then yes, I would like to obey them.”
“I guess none of that mattered the night you sneaked into that warehouse, did it?”
“I already told you why I did that. Why are you throwing that in my face now?”
He comes to a stop before lunging at me. “What are you hiding from me?” he bellows. His voice echoes in the large room, and I recoil from it, both hoping somebody hears and wants to help and dreading the idea. This will get so much worse if anybody else becomes involved.
“Okay, okay,” I whisper as I back away, lowering my backpack to the floor and holding up my hands. “This doesn’t have to be a big thing. We’re in public.”
“Fuck the public!” He bends down, picks up my backpack, and hurls it across the room. I jump when it hits the wall; glad my phone is in my pocket. He would have crushed it otherwise. “Do you think I give a fuck what anybody else thinks? I don’t have to. I’m not some pathetic nobody. I am Enzo De Luca, and I want the truth from my wife. For once. Just tell me the fucking truth!” He takes the random textbook lying on the table at the front of the room and throws it up into the seats, where the bang it makes reminds me of a gunshot.
He’s not going to stop. I know that much. It’s useless to stall. “You want the truth?”
His breath comes in big, heaving gasps. “What the fuck have I just said? Yes.”
He never did say what he was talking about, this big truth he requires, but he doesn’t have to. I know exactly what this is all about, and I’m too tired and too scared to keep pretending.
So I take a deep breath and brace myself. “I guess you already know, don’t you? I’m pregnant. I thought you would be happy about it.”
“Happy? Happy?” he screams, spittle flying from his mouth, his face deep red. “Happy about what? Happy to find out you lied to me again?”
“Lied to you? When did I lie?”
“You hid this from me, which is the same as lying.”
“But it’s not. I was waiting for the right time to tell you.”
“The right time? Exactly when the fuck would that be?”
“For one thing, it’s only been a couple of days since I took the test.”
“You should have told me immediately.”
I knew I was taking a risk by keeping this to myself. Somehow, though, it never occurred to me that he’d reach this level of insanity once he got the news.
I should apologize and try to explain myself. So why do I fold my arms instead? Why do I glare back at him? “Right. I forgot you own every part of me. I don’t even get to decide how to tell you we’re going to have a baby. Because you’re like my boss. I was supposed to walk straight up to you and hand you the test and hope I get a bonus this year or something, right? Job well done, pat on the top of my head?”
His lip curls in disgust, like the situation is very different from what I described. “Don’t do that. Don’t make this about you.”
“Right. Because everything is about you!” Now I’m the one threatening to make a big scene. Maybe it’s the fact that we are in public, technically. I’m not as afraid. And he knows I’m carrying his child now, so he’s less likely to hurt me over this. Thinking about that lights a fire in me. “You wouldn’t want to maybe think I needed a day or two to process this for myself.”
He points at my stomach. “That is my child you’re carrying. Mine.”
“And mine.”
“That is not the agreement we made.”
“Of course. Our agreement.” It’s my turn to let out an unhinged laugh. “Maybe you need to get a few things straight. One, I have no control over whether this baby is a boy or a girl, so if it is a girl, I still owe you a son. But this child would still exist—and it would still be yours, whether you wanted to acknowledge it or not. Maybe you’d better wrap your head around that before the kid is born. Second, you are not the one carrying the child. I am. And I wanted a couple of days for it to just be me knowing about it, like a special little secret. I have nothing of my own anymore. Couldn’t I have this for just a couple of days?”
Silence falls between us for a few seconds, and I know I said too much, but it had to be said. He needed to hear it. Was it the complete truth? No, but it was a start.