Page 86 of Afterglow

I swipe away the last of the tears on my cheeks, figuring Becca will only needle me for them if she sees, then pull Delia under my arm as we walk to the front door.

But it’s not Becca coming back. It’s Leanne leaving.

My brows draw down and I rip the front door open as mud flies from underneath her tires.

She doesn’t look back as she drives away. Leaving me behind.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Leanne

Icrank the heat higher as I drive away from the house, leaving its bright welcoming facade in the rearview mirror. I only wish I could leave what I heard there too.

I take the left fork in the gravel drive and watch Bryce’s cabin come into view on the other side of the barn. As I pull up out front, the first tear slips free, the numb shock melting away only to be replaced with a crushing hurt.

I stumble up the front steps, the snowfall and tears blurring my vision. Without even taking off my boots, I head for the bedroom, where I know my purse is sitting on the chair in the corner. I didn’t think I’d need it since Bryce was driving us up the hill. I regret that decision now, as I could be five minutes down the road already.

I stop short of the bedroom, pulled as if by an invisible magnet.

The lights are still on in the nursery and walking past it makes my chest ache. He did all of this, all of it… but this wasn’t his first time—or was it? I can’t think straight as I walk into the room, picking my way through the haphazardly stacked boxes and gifts and piles of clothes to run my fingers over the padded arm of the glider.

I feel like I’m still stuck in the hallway outside Alex and Delia’s kitchen, looking at the pictures of a family I thought I might one day belong to, and overhearing a conversation that wasn’t meant for me.

The first thing Sarah said after she told me she was pregnant with Sam was how she couldn’t wait to see you holding him.

After losing Sam, I never thought I’d get to be a dad…

Having lost everything once… I can’t go through it again.

I have no idea how to process this information, how to understand why he didn’t tell me… or what exactly it is he didn’t tell me. Sarah was pregnant when she died? What happened? How did he lose them both? And why did he keep it from me?

I rub my hand over my stomach and the tumble of a tiny body shifts beneath my palm. She’s there, she’s okay. But I am not. I lean against the wall and slide down, pulling my knees in as close as I can and wrapping my arms around them. Then I break.

Are we just a replacement for him? A second chance at something he lost?

I thought we were partners. I thought we were friends.

I thought we were more…

I squeeze my eyes shut tight against the barrage of tears.

I don’t know what I thought. That he loved me. Wanted me. Wanted us. That we could be a real family… But maybe this was all just playing house for him. Slotting us into a space that was left empty when Sarah died. Is that why he never said anything, he didn’t want me to know that’s all we are to him?

My stomach tightens with each sob and the physical pain of my heart breaking overwhelms my senses. If he loved me, he would have been honest with me. If he loved me, he never would have let me believe this was his first baby. If he loved me…

But he hasn’t said that he does, has he? He hasn’t said he loves me. And maybe that’s the truth right there. The ugly truth I don’t want to face. Maybe he doesn’t love me like I’ve realized I love him. He loves this baby, sure. This room is proof of that. But me?

A door slams and my head snaps up.

Shit shit shit.

I swipe at the tears but don’t have the energy or the dexterity to get up off the floor. Bryce’s footsteps are hurried, and within seconds he’s filling the doorway. His cheeks are red and there’s snow in his hair and on his shoulders, but it’s his eyes—wild with fear—that are the hardest to look at.

“Leanne.” His breathing is labored. He must’ve run here from the other house. “What happened?”

He strides toward me and I hold out a hand to stop him. “Don’t.” If he touches me, I’ll lose it.

He stops dead, confusion marring his brow. “I don’t understand.”