“You’re out of my will.”

“Totally okay with that.”

“You’ll cease to exist to me.”

“That’s how I want it.”

He mashed his lips together. I could see him grinding his teeth, but he had nothing else to say. He turned and left, and I reached for the bed. My knees were giving out. I caught myself and had to throw myself half on the bed. One leg got in, and then I was okay.

I wasn’t falling anymore.

“You don’t think I love you?”

I looked up, freezing once again.

Nate stood there, a stricken look tightening his face.

I couldn’t answer. I could say it freely to Duke, but to say it to Nate? Say it to the one who did have the power to shatter me with mere words?

I was back to trembling, but it was my whole body this time. I had nothing more in me to pull myself together. The dance armor was gone. I’d used up all my strength.

“Answer me.” His jaw clenched. “You don’t think I love you?”

“You told me you didn’t.”

His eyes were blazing, but I couldn’t name the emotion.

I didn’t think I dared. I didn’t think my heart could take it.

“That was early on. Did you ever think that I could’ve fallen in love with you since then?”

The question didn’t make sense to me.

Maybe a normal person, yes, but… I shook my head. “People don’t love me, not unless they have to.”

“Are you kidding me?” he hissed out. His nostrils flared.

“My family doesn’t have a choice, but anyone else… they have a choice. Why would you choose me?”

He growled, showing me his teeth, and I jerked back.

“You’re fucking beautiful. You’re an amazing mother to Nova. Why the hell don’t you see what I see? From where I’m standing, the question is why wouldn’t I?”

But he swept out after that, and I was left…

Confused. I didn’t know what that meant because it couldn’t mean what…

No. It couldn’t.

“…They don’t love you.”

I was just left, feeling suddenly empty, like I lost something I didn’t know I had.

55

Quincey

Nate was withdrawn to me for a few days.

His friends were kind, but they felt the distance, and one by one, they began leaving. I knew they didn’t leave because of it. If anything, I think they stayed longer because of that. They weren’t the sort of friends who shied away from real situations, real feelings.

They were the kind that when the tough got going, they just got tighter.

They doted on Nova, but she was taken the most by Taylor and Mason. If either of them were in the room, Nova ran to their side. Taylor would crawl on the floor with her, tickling her. Mason would pick her up and pretend to fly her around the house. The giggles were nonstop. As for my own friends, Matthew and Ricci visited.

Ricci was over every day. She either brought coffee in the morning before work, or she stopped by after work with coffee. Always coffee. Matthew was over a couple of times, commiserating with me because he didn’t like my stand-in or the new lead. She was good, though, and I knew he was only saying that to make me feel better.

And about that, I was okay with not being the lead. That not only surprised me, but it shocked me. If you’re a dancer, you’re a dancer. You were born to do that, and that was how it was, but I was starting to wonder if I had evolved somehow? I was a mother now, but what did that look like for the future? Especially if Nate decided to ask me to move out one day, and I had to be realistic because that was a possibility.

I didn’t want it to be. Just thinking about it, and I was close to tears. It felt like I was taking a lit hot stick and poking myself with it, permanently burning me, but I couldn’t stop. I had to be prepared for it to come. More than that. I just had to expect it because it would happen eventually.

Probably sooner since we weren’t sleeping together anymore.

On the first night, he never came to bed. I went to mine, not sure how to proceed, but his friends were there. He stayed up with a few of them.

The second night, it was the same thing.

The third night.

It’d been like that ever since my hospital visit.

No kisses. No touches. Just coldness.

I overcompensated with Nova. I cuddled and loved on her so much, but she was getting more independent. She no longer wanted us to hold her hand when she ran and walked. We could play with her, but she had to bring us the toys she wanted us to play with. She was becoming a bossy little girl.

That only made her even cuter.

I was sitting in the playroom with Nova, and Nate walked in. He paused when he saw us. He softened, as he always did when he saw Nova, but then he looked at me, and the same distant look came over him. I looked down, all of my insides being twisted up and knotted.