Page 67 of Fighting Fate

“Okay,” she repeats quietly, standing.

Her nose is twitching and her lips quivering, even though they’re tightly pressed together. But the worst of it all is the tears that never fall. I keep wishing and hoping they do so that I can wipe them away and fix at least one thing, but they’re stubborn. Just like her.

“Willow…” I take a step toward her, only for her to take a step back. “We need to figure this out.”

“You didn’t even want to look at me a minute ago.” A dry laugh escapes her as she turns to look out of the window. “Is it me? Is that what’s so nightmarish about it?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? No, it’s not you!” The statement comes out aggressively loud, sounding nothing like I intended it to.

“Then what? Why is this your worst nightmare?” she yells back at me, all her anger and frustration and sadness explode with rivulets of tears.

“I don’t want a kid!” Our voices are getting louder, and it’s getting out of control. She’s being defensive, and I’m…I’m confused and terrified because any other time…any other fucking time. Just… “Not right now.” I blow out a breath.

“Well then,” Willow sighs, heading back to the coffee table and picking up the tests. “There’s nothing to figure out, is there?”

The air is heavy, unlike ever before. It’s not hot or cold. Thick or thin. It’s so damn heavy with sadness and regret and everything in between. All the promises I ever made to her are fucking destroyed, and there is no going back as I follow Willow to the kitchen and watch her put the pregnancy tests in the trash.

There is a moment of pause where she watches the lid of the trash can close. I’m not sure what it means for us or how we’re meant to move on from this. If we can…?

But in true Willow fashion, she glances up at me, a forced smile pursing her lips as she washes her hands in the sink.

“That’s settled.” She shrugs, acting nonchalant when her tear-filled eyes and stuttering breaths say otherwise. “I’ll take care of it.”

I nod because it’s the only thing I can do right now. There is absolutely nothing else I can say or do to fix any of this.

Fuck.

It feels like I’m making the biggest mistake of my life. But it is the right thing. I’ve made so many exceptions to the rules I’ve lived by for years. All for her. This is different, though. This rule—this one rule—is unbreakable.

The knot in my gut is getting tighter by the second as I let the full scale of Willow’s devastation sink in while she glances back at the trash. It’s crushing me from the inside out. Knowing that I’m hurting her but not being able to stop is destroying me. And in all of it, I can’t bring myself to touch her because I’m hanging by a thread.

“You said you don’t want it either.”

Willow nods as she tells me, “And I said I didn’t want this. Me…you…I didn’t want it.”

“That’s a lie.”

“This is the lie,” she scoffs in response.

So calm and low that it hits like a sledgehammer to my heart. I’m left winded and incapable of saying anything at all. Breathing is an impossible task as I watch her swipe her hands over her cheeks, drying her silent tears.

The power of silence is inescapable as it shatters everything we have. All that we’ve shared. Shards of who we are rain around us. Fragile, broken, unfixable. I knew this day would come. I just didn’t think it would be like this.

I never imagined it would feel like this. And I never fathomed that it would be with someone like her. But now it’s here, and it’s costing me everything I never dared dream of. Because people like me, they don’t end up with people like her. We can’t have it all.

“You should go,” Willow mutters.

“Willow—”

“Leave, Rory. It’s what I want.” Skirting past me, she walks to the door with purpose, steeling her spine while she holds the door open for me to leave. “I want you to go. Now.”

I barely steal one last glance at her before the door closes in my face with a muted thud. All I’m left with in the hallway is the sound of her hiccuped cries. A sound that haunts me with every step I take down the stairs.

As I reach the last step, Beth stands to look at me. Her face morphs into a glare when I pause in front of her.

“Oh shit,” she groans. “After all the bollocks with the condom, I really thought you were different, you know?”

There’s nothing I can reply to that. Not without being an asshole to her too. Instead, I keep walking to the door, only stopping to ask, “Can you make sure she’s okay?”