“Fair enough.”
“Everyone leaves, Iskander. What made you special is that from the beginning you warned me, and I appreciate you for it. If I’m pregnant, I think it’ll be best if you leave the child alone. I don’t want them to suffer any kind of rejection.”
When I look at her, I see them. All the pieces of myself that I’ve given her. The fear of losing who I was kept me away from her, and now when I see how much of me she owns, I know I can never let her go.
“It was never infatuation, lust, or the off-the-charts chemistry. I always needed you beside me because I fell madly in love with you from the beginning. I just couldn’t recognize it.” I shrug, lifting my palms as if saying,I-fucked-up-there-isn’t-much-I-can-do. “I might be able to live my life without you. I just don’t want to do it.”
“Try,” she suggests.
“No, and I plan on making you fall in love with me, even if it takes me a thousand years to make it happen.”
“Please don’t do that,” she whispers, making her way to the house.
“Why not?” I dare to ask just before she closes the glass door.
She turns around,looks at me and then at the stars. “It doesn’t matter. I’m heading to bed, have a good night.”
“Wait, where am I supposed to sleep?”
Siobhan doesn’t respond. I have no intention of letting her go, but how can I continue with my quest when she asked me not to do it?
ChapterThirty-One
Siobhan
“How canyour period be late for seventeen days and suddenly just come back?” I snap my fingers as if I had just performed a magic trick.
There’s no trick, more like a bad performance where my body made me believe in something magical. A miracle. Then, suddenly it all just disappeared in mid-air. It was as if it never existed.
My imagination and my mind played an old trick that left me a little shattered. And I don’t know how to handle it. The loss of what never existed is worse than anything I ever imagined. It’d be ridiculous to mourn, and what am I supposed to do now?
Nathalie’s eyes open wide before saying, “So, you want to know why your period was late seventeen days?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?” I don’t even know what I’ve been doing or saying since this morning when I got the unpleasant visit from my bloody friend. I gave Anya formula instead of coffee, and Rumi’s sippy cup had coffee in it.
Thankfully, Iskander fixed everything and even prepared pancakes for us. I hate to admit that having him around has been a lifesaver.
Nathalie smiles in that way only she can as if saying,God-why-does-everyone-in-this-town-believe-I’m-on-call-twenty-four-seven?
“It’s just a question. You don’t have to answer.”
“I just think it’s funny how you worded it,” she replies.
“It’s been a long week.”
“Well, there are a few possibilities. Stress, thyroid problems, PCOS…” She presses her lips together. “How heavy was your bleeding?”
“I refuse to discuss those details.”
Her eyebrow quirks. “I thought you wanted to know.” She sighs. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. I just—”
“Need a logical explanation so you can move on and don’t have to deal with the emotional piece behind it?” She takes my hands and presses them tenderly. “It’s okay to grieve the loss of what you thought was going to be an extraordinary gift. A little miracle.”
I scoff. “How do you do that”—I wave a hand in exasperation because I hate that she knows more than I want to share—“Knowing what to say or how your patients feel?”
“Dad would say it’s a gift.”