Our Fault (Culpable Book 3)

The next two days were strange. Nicholas was burning the candle at both ends at the office, and when he returned in the wee hours of the morning, I was already sleeping deeply. I’d open my eyes and see the sheets on his side of the bed looking immaculate, with a note telling me to have a good day and not to do anything that could be bad for me or the baby.

The night before I was going to leave my prison for the hospital, I forced myself to stay awake on the sofa. I was irritable; I was stir-crazy. Everything still felt unresolved, and my anxiety and the fact that I hadn’t had a normal conversation with anyone in almost forty-eight hours were getting to me. I was edgy, cranky, scared that things might turn out wrong, scared of what they might say to me at the doctor’s, and that made the days, hours, and minutes pass in slow motion.

It was around two when the door to our room opened almost silently. From the sofa to the left, I had a perfect view of anyone entering. Nick stopped, surprised to find me there, and when I saw his face, I had the feeling of a person diving from the top of a roller coaster.

“What are you doing awake?” he said, trying to control himself, taking off his leather jacket and laying it on the sideboard. He was dressed nicely but informally, with no tie and certainly no suit, even though he’d had several sent over from his apartment. He definitely wasn’t coming from work.

“Waiting for you,” I said. He walked over, bent down to pick me up, and carried me to bed. I held on to his neck, surprised to be touched by him again after two days of virtually no contact.

My body quivered like never before, and I wanted to share that intimacy we always knew when we were together. Did he regret it? Did he hate me again, the same as he had before, and was he hiding it because of the baby?

He wouldn’t even look me in the eye. He hadn’t since I’d promised to stay away from Michael. I was scared that seeing him had awakened all those buried memories, reopened those wounds that now would never heal. I was scared that Nick still thought the best thing was for us to be apart and that nothing, not even his own child, could change his mind.

He tried to set me down, but I didn’t let go of his neck. I pulled him in for a kiss. He paused just over my lips, so still that my heart almost stopped, and I saw all my fears were justified.

“I can’t, Noah,” he confessed in a whisper, pulling my arms open and standing. He didn’t look at me again as he walked into the bathroom. I stayed in bed trying to absorb his rejection.

My heart felt like it was bleeding. So this meant we were back to where we’d started. I curled up in the sheets and tried not to notice the tears rolling down my cheeks. When he opened the bathroom door, I pretended to be asleep. I realized then that Nick hadn’t been sleeping with me and then smoothing down the sheets. He’d been sleeping on the sofa, as far from me as possible.

The appointment with the doctor was at noon. Nick, to my surprise, was working in the hotel room. I got in the shower, ignoring him. In the mirror, I saw my eyes were red and swollen. I didn’t want him to see how affected I’d been by his rejection of me the night before, so I spent a long time covering up the signs of it until I looked halfway presentable. It’s amazing what good makeup can do.

What really set me off was when I went to pick an outfit and realized nothing fit me anymore. That was different for me: I’d never had problems with my weight; I’d never had to lie down on the bed and wriggle into my jeans. My baby bump was hardly visible, but I still felt like a whale. My bad mood was evident when I slammed the door on the way out of the bathroom. Nick looked up from his computer and looked at me with curiosity.

“I need the keys to your car,” I said, salty and ready to escape that room ASAP.

“May I ask why?”

I looked at him incredulously. Had he seriously forgotten? “To go to the doctor who is looking after the health of your child.”

He tried to conceal the beginnings of a smile and got up, closing his laptop and grabbing his keys, which he spun several times around his fingers.

“I’m well aware you have to go to the gynecologist. What I don’t understand is why in the hell you’d think you were going to drive there.”

I clenched my jaw. “I’m perfectly capable of driving. Actually, I’m better at it than you.”

He wasn’t bothering to hide his smile anymore or the interest in his eyes as they roved my body. I wished I could put on a parka. At that moment, I couldn’t have felt less attractive, and him being so hot only made the whole thing that much worse.

“You can show me your driving talents another time, Freckles, but for now, the last thing I want to see is you behind a wheel,” he said, grabbing his coat and opening the door. “Come on. I’m ready to meet my kid.”

I stood still for a moment, then forced my legs to move. We took the elevator straight down to the parking deck, skipping the lobby. Once we got on the road, I felt I should tell him something, even if I wasn’t in the mood.

“They might let us know the baby’s sex today,” I said, pretending it was no big deal, even if I was dying to know whether what I had inside me was a Mini-Noah or a Mini-Nick.

“Today?” he asked, looking over with surprise before focusing again on the road. The car swayed slightly from side to side as his hands slipped nervously on the wheel.

“I could have found out a few weeks ago, but…I decided to wait.” I looked out the window.

I didn’t want to admit that the idea of finding out without him had been unbearable to me. I didn’t want him to know how much I needed him in those moments. More than ever, if I were being honest.

Nick took my hand and kissed it softly. I was surprised that the wall he’d seemed to be building up between us had crumbled so quickly. “Thanks for waiting for me,” he said. I hadn’t even needed to tell him my reasons. He knew me almost better than I did.

After a more or less tranquil moment of silence, the urge to know what he was thinking forced me to open my mouth again, despite my reservations. “What do you want it to be?”

Nick smiled. “What about you?”

“I asked first.”

He chuckled. “I think I could handle a girl,” he said after a few seconds’ deliberation.

“You’ve got enough experience,” I couldn’t help answering.

He knew what I was getting at, but he decided against arguing. “I seem to remember once or twice you called the baby Mini-Me. Unless I misheard?”

I blushed. Okay, yes, that was the name I used in my mind, but that didn’t mean I assumed it would be a girl.

“I don’t know if I could deal with a teeny-tiny Nicholas,” I replied defensively. And yet warmth radiated through my body as I imagined a baby Nick in my arms.

“Freckles, are you implying that a little Noah would be any easier? I feel for your poor mother sometimes. God knows what she’s had to put up with…”

I knew he was joking, but I still glared at him. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of our little girl if she’s as unbearable as I am…or as uptight as your dad.”

By now, Nick was grinning from ear to ear. “Noah, if we have a daughter, she’ll be the most loved little girl in the world. You can be certain no father will care for his daughter the way I will.”

That remark put an end to any more sarcasm on my part, and I tried to turn away to conceal how much his words moved me.

I had never known what it meant to have a father who loved me above all else—that was something I’d never even been able to imagine, and the thought of Nick with our son or daughter made me realize I could be certain that, regardless of what happened between us, our baby would grow up surrounded by love.

We reached the hospital a few minutes later, and the fact that we were about to walk in there and see our baby on the ultrasound became suddenly so very real. Many women and their partners were sitting in the waiting room. Nick and I were the youngest ones. It was weird to find ourselves in that situation. When they called my name, I couldn’t help grabbing Nick’s hand before we went inside.

I was scared again. I had no idea what they were going to tell us, and today especially, it really struck me that there was no turning back. All I wanted was to bring a happy, healthy baby into the world, and the idea that my own body could prevent that dream from coming true made me hate myself.

Doctor Hubber greeted me affectionately as we walked into his office. He looked at Nick with curiosity, and Nick at him with feigned politeness, as they shook hands. I knew Nick was already trying to find things wrong with him.

“Doctor, this is Nicholas Leister, my…um, the father,” I said, blushing and feeling like an idiot.

Nicholas said nothing. I’d have liked to see him mark his territory the way he usually did when we were together, but my thoughts were more with Mini-Me and my hope that everything would turn out all right.

Doctor Hubber told me to lie back on the exam table while he asked a few routine questions.

Nicholas concentrated on my responses, and I noticed the furrow between his eyes getting deeper and deeper. When the doctor asked me to lift my shirt so he could press the ultrasound probe into my belly, Nick stepped forward and closely observed each of the doctor’s movements. The handpiece glided over my skin, still cold from the gel. A few seconds later, Mini-Me appeared on the screen. The baby was bigger than before and looked less like a tadpole; the arms and legs were thicker, stronger.

Seeing it had been amazing the first time, but now it was much more special. I looked at Nick’s expression, which showed pure astonishment. I got it—it was one thing to hear about your baby; it was another to see it right in front of you.

The gynecologist kept moving the device around and making calculations and measurements.

“I’ve got good news,” he said, looking at both of us. “The hematoma is basically gone. There’s a little shadow there, but I feel confident in saying it’ll be gone in no time.”

“Does that mean the baby’s out of danger?” I asked, excited and relieved, as though the weight I’d been bearing all those weeks without realizing it had finally been lifted.

“We’ll keep checking every month, but yes, for now, everything is as it should be.” He smiled. “You’ve done well, Noah.”

I let my head fall back and sighed. “So that means I can live a normal life now, Doctor?”

Before he could respond, Nick interrupted him, an expression of distrust on his face. “You said the hematoma is basically gone. That means not entirely. Wouldn’t it be better for her to keep resting for a few more weeks?”

What?! No!

I glowered at him, but he completely ignored me.

“She can do the usual things she does in her everyday life, Mr. Leister. But no stress, and no strenuous physical activity. As I told her the first time she was here, her medical history and subsequent factors make this pregnancy more risky than usual. That doesn’t mean she should panic, but she should take it easy. She’s well into the second trimester. Things will start moving a lot faster. The baby’s grown a good deal since last time but a little less than I’d expected, and that tells me you’re probably in for a spurt in the upcoming weeks.”

“If you don’t mind, I want to get a second opinion on all this,” Nick said, still not accepting the doctor’s words.

But the doctor didn’t seem offended in the least. “I would be more than happy to recommend one of my colleagues to you, Mr. Leister.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

There was a slight air of antagonism in the way they looked at each other. Damn you, Nicholas. I wasn’t about to go to another doctor. This was typical Nick, always thinking he was smarter, always trying to get in the middle of things.

“Do you want to know the baby’s sex?” the doctor asked. That was enough to clear the tension.

Nicholas smiled at me as if to say, Relax, and that only excited me more.

“We’d love to, Doctor,” he said, gripping my hand.

The doctor slid the ultrasound device across my belly, and after what seemed like far too much time, he grinned and said, “It’s a boy.”

The world stopped. My heart, too.

A boy… My eyes filled with tears. Nicholas and I smiled at each other, remembering the conversation in the car. Nick’s reaction is one of the memories I still treasure most. He gawked at the screen, motionless, for several seconds. Then he caught me by surprise, leaning over me and depositing a kiss on my lips, a kiss I received with pleasure and embarrassment because Doctor Hubber was just a foot and a half away. When Nick pulled away, he stared into my eyes, and I melted completely inside.

“Looks like Mini-You is now a Mini-Me,” he remarked.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” I warned him.

Knowing now that the baby was fine and I could get up and move about, I started making plans in my head as we drove back to the hotel. Finally, I could grab the reins of my life. I needed to feel useful again. A person like me, accustomed to always being out and about, could think of no worse nightmare than spending almost a whole month in bed.

“I need to stretch my legs. Jesus. I want to go running. I want to go back to class, get a job…” I said, already dreaming of a busy future as I looked out the window.

“Did you not hear the doctor?” Nicholas complained. “The hematoma isn’t gone; you can’t just go back to doing whatever.”

I turned. “Did you not hear the doctor? He said I can live a normal life. It’s easy for you to tell me what to do—you haven’t spent a month in bed.”

Nicholas blew out a breath and gripped the wheel tight.

“We need to talk about my apartment… I know you don’t want to go there, and I respect that, but we need to put things in order, somehow. The hotel’s fine for now, but people know I’m there, and I can’t be drawing attention right now.”

What did that have to do with me?

“I’ve got my apartment, I paid the deposit, I’m ready to get settled in, Nick.” I was actually excited to be there and relax while I prepared for what was to come. “You can go back to yours.”

“Is that what you want? For us to live apart?” There was pain in his voice, pain and anger at being rejected.

“We can’t live together if we aren’t together.” I hated to admit it, but that was a fact.

“Jesus, Noah, things have changed, don’t you get that?”

I shook my head. He had said the very thing I didn’t want to hear. “Yeah, things have changed. I’m going to have a baby. But that doesn’t mean you and I have to get back together. I’ve accepted where we are, and—”

“And what?” he asked, cutting the wheel hard to the right and entering the hotel lot. “I fucked up. Now I need to take care of the two of you.”

“You’re going to take care of us?” I shouted, indignant. “I’m not your responsibility, and I refuse to be with a person who made it very evident to me that he was not going to love me again and that he certainly wouldn’t trust me again, so let’s start over. You can take care of the kid with me, but that’s it: I won’t live with you, I won’t follow your orders, and I’m not going to change doctors. Until I give birth, all decisions are mine. When the baby’s born, we’ll figure out how to raise him together. But we’ll each stay in our own home.”

I got out and slammed the door. This was exactly what I’d been afraid of: Nicholas saw my pregnancy as a twisted way for me to get him to come back to me. But that wasn’t how I did things. I didn’t want Nicholas’s sympathy, and I didn’t want to be a burden for him… For God’s sake! His rejection may have hurt me, but I would never try to manipulate him, I would never force him to do anything.

Nicholas waited until we had reached the room to resume his line of questioning.

“So your plan is for us to just go on with our lives, and then…what? We’ll split custody? Is that what you want?” He sat on the edge of the bed and observed me as I took my clothing down from the hangers and folded it sloppily on a nearby table. I looked up at him for an instant. He appeared at ease, but I knew what those eyes were hiding. He didn’t like what I’d said in the car at all, and hearing him repeat it back to me, I realized I didn’t either. He continued: “Deciding on which days we get to keep him, which weekends, which holidays… Is that what you want? For our child to grow up with parents who live apart?”

My eyes grew damp at that horrible possibility. I knew what it meant to grow up that way. It was horrible. For half my life, I hadn’t had a father; for the other half, I’d run scared from him, always thinking he’d hurt me. Nick had been through something similar: he’d seen his parents separate, his mother abandon him.

I imagined my sweet little baby, his big blue eyes, his blond hair, going through the same things Nick and I had been through, and my heart shrank in a way it hadn’t before then. I bit my lip, trying to control the trembling, and Nicholas got up and came over to me.

“Let me take care of you,” he asked, stroking my face and looking into the depths of my eyes with steely determination. “I know what I said, I know I said I’d never be able to forgive you, but ever since I left, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head: your reaction, your sorrow…they’ve pursued me, Noah. But things have changed, the whole way I see everything is different; it’s like I’m seeing things in color again after a long period of gray. When I saw our son on that screen, Noah… Fuck, I was the happiest guy in the world. Not just because I’m going to have a beautiful baby, but because I’m going to have him with the woman who makes my whole world better.”

I closed my eyes and felt a tear escape. Nick leaned his forehead against mine, and his hot breath enveloped me.

“We hurt each other a lot, Freckles. Don’t think I’m not aware of every hurtful word that’s come out of my mouth. I wanted to see you suffer after I suffered because of the thing with Michael. But never, Noah, not even once, did I doubt that you were the one for me.”

I opened my eyes.

“I left Sophia, Noah.”

My heart sped up at the thought of them together, the nights I’d spent crying in bed because I’d seen them in a magazine or on TV. What Nick had said about her, that she was the right woman for him, smarter, more mature, more everything… I still remembered all that, and it stuck in my heart like a knife.

“You shouldn’t have.” I tried to look away from him, but he wouldn’t let me. He didn’t understand what I was saying, but I kept stumbling through my declaration. “Nicholas, you won’t be able to forget that I cheated on you with another guy, and I won’t be able to bear losing you again… I’m scared, I’m so scared, and I just can’t put myself out there to see if what we have will or won’t work this time.”

“Let me show you that everything I’m saying is true, Noah.”

I shook my head. He grabbed my face and kissed me the way I wished he would ever since we’d split up. His lips lighted on mine once, twice, then settled, forcing a sigh from me. His tongue pushed into my mouth, and I melted. He lifted me. My thighs wrapped around his. He bit my lip, sucked, kissed me, waiting for a response. He didn’t have to wait long. His words had paralyzed me. For a moment, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, small but bright. But to get there, I’d have to dodge all types of obstacles, obstacles I wasn’t sure I could get past.

Nicholas let me down.

“You haven’t even touched me for days. I thought…”

“I didn’t touch you because I knew if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop…” he said, trying to justify himself. “I wanted to give you space. I didn’t want to push you if you weren’t ready.”

I was speechless.

“I’m going to have a kid with you, Noah. With you. Maybe it’ll take you time to believe it, but I’m not going anywhere.”

Was he serious? Could his words really be true? I loved him with all my soul, and the one thing I wanted was for him to love me again the way I loved him.

“Let’s take it slow, Nick,” I said.

“Better: let’s start from zero,” he said.