Page 90 of Never Forever
To my horror, my absolute horror, my voice cracked and I felt the tears well up in my eyes.
“Carrie,” he said, and walked over to me, pulling me into his arms. I kept mine folded against my chest, but I let him rub my back until the tears subsided. “What are the chances? Really? That you’re pregnant?”
“I guess as good as they can be.”
He grunted.Fuck.
The tears burned hotter behind my eyes. How had one of the happiest things in my life – my plan to have a baby – turned into the worst?
“That was on the wall in your trailer,” he said, pointing at my vision board. “Babies and superheroes? The next project is a superhero movie?”
I nodded against his chest.
“So what were you going to do for a father? Like, ask a friend?”
“No,” I said as if he was dense, and pulled myself out of his arms. “I had a sperm donor all picked out. A tennis player with good swimmers.”
“Oh. An athlete then,” he said, and I had no idea if he was being serious or sarcastic.
He sat down on the couch, his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his head with this hands. He looked like a man being tortured. A man in a situation he’d never asked for.
Devilish John Krasinski popped back up on my shoulder and I slid onto the couch next to him.
“No one has to know,” I said, carefully. “If I am pregnant. I mean no one has to know it’s yours.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked, turning to face me. I was too close, I could see the gold flecks in his eyes. I went to stand up but he grabbed my hand. “What are you saying?” he asked.
“It’s not like I need any financial support. I’ll have a nanny for help and the baby will grow up with every advantage. And you…well…you can just…pretend this never happened.”
The look he gave me…
It was shocking. Even with all the shots we’d fired at each other over the last months, I realized nothing had hurt him as much as what I’d just said. His hand squeezed mine until it hurt and then he dropped it like he realized what he was doing.
“Pretend it never happened. Walk away. Like my mom? Like your dad? You honestly think I could do that?”
No, of course he couldn’t do that. He was the steadiest, most dependable person I knew. And I’d just cut him to the bone.
“Matt,” I said, trying to get him to see reason. “We can’t have a baby together!”
“Well, you’re not havingmybaby withoutme.”
“But you hate me!” I reminded him.
“I don’t hate you, Carrie,” he said tightly. “I let you hate me. It’s different.”
I shook my head. “I don’t even know what that means!”
We sat there in silence, and I would have given a million dollars to know what he was thinking. Truthfully, I would have given a million dollars to know what I was thinking. I just kept ping ponging betweenoh shitandyay! Maybe I’m pregnant.
I reached for an escape. Something that might not make this so real. “We could be getting ahead of ourselves. I mean, I might not be pregnant.”
“How soon can you find out?” he asked.
“I don’t know, like two weeks? But we can’t say anything. To anyone. Mom and Gran are going on their cruise and Annie’s in the middle of this whole thing with Levi and I…I…”
Again, my voice cracked. Like suddenly it was all too much.
“Hey,” Matt said, in his calm cool voice, his arm around my shoulder. I hated how much steadier I felt when he did that. “You’re right. We don’t need to borrow trouble until we know for sure.”