“You’re telling me you were pregnant for nine fucking months and never made a single phone call?”

Steve’s voice was low, rough around the edges, but the restrained fury in it burned hotter than if he had shouted. His jaw was clenched so tightly it looked like it might snap, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the table. And yet, he never once took his eyes off the baby in the car seat before him—the tiny, oblivious bundle wrapped in soft blankets, sucking on a pacifier as if the weight of the moment wasn’t enough to shatter the world around them.

You swallowed hard, crossing your arms over your chest in a flimsy attempt at self-defense. Of course you didn’t call. What would you have even said?

The relationship had ended in disaster—no, worse than that. It had gone up in flames, leaving you running for your life, barely making it out unscathed. By the time you even realized you were pregnant, you were already back upstate, piecing yourself together from the wreckage of your past. And calling Steve? Admitting to him that you were carrying his child? That would have required something you didn’t have back then—courage.

Or maybe it wasn’t courage you lacked. Maybe it was selfishness. Maybe it was pride.

Maybe it was both.

But you were here now. That had to count for something. Right?