My Almost Ex (The Greene Family #2) - Piper Rayne Page 0,78
kids. Well, I might be able to, but not without fertility treatments. I also found out right before I left you, I just didn’t remember.”
“What? Are you sure?” He searches my face, and I see the pain I expected in his hazel eyes.
I nod. “I’m sure.”
“We should go for a second opinion.”
I look him straight in the eye. “The doctor today was my second opinion. She looked at the same results Dr. Ramirez did. That’s why I left you, Adam. Because I couldn’t bear your children. I understand if you want to leave me now. I can’t give you what you want.”
He’s silent, brooding, as his gaze digs into mine. “Do you want to leave me?”
“I want you to have the life you’ve always wanted. The one you deserve.”
“You’re what I want, Luce. You. That’s all.”
I sigh and bury my head in a pillow. I really want to scream in it, but I hold back. “I know you want a big family. You’ve always made that known.”
“You said fertility treatments are an option. There might be a chance.”
“Do you know how much it costs? And the chances are so slim. It tears happy couples apart. I saw it with my parents. Even after they had Zane, they never got back to who they were as a couple, the love they had for one another. I could never go through that with you.”
He slides out of the bed. “What are you saying?” The edge in his voice scares me.
“I don’t want to do fertility treatments, but I also don’t want you to wake up one day and resent me. First I took away your opportunity to play football, then your drawing—”
“Jesus, we’re back to that!” he yells. “I told you I’m happy where I am.”
I roll over on the other side of the bed, standing. “I still took it away from you.”
He clenches his jaw and looks away. “When are you ever going to understand? I only want you.” His shoulders fall and he shakes his head. “I only want you.”
“You say that now, but you’ll feel differently watching Brody and all your nieces and nephews grow up.” All of a sudden, all those emotions I must’ve felt last year rush up inside me. I understand her, the old Lucy. I understand how she could’ve left him. “It’s better to have you hate me now than to resent me in ten years.” God, those words sound so familiar.
“What? You said we’d fight this time. You said you were in this. But only until it got tough, huh?” His face grows red.
“I’ve seen it, Adam. It’s not pretty, okay? Couples going through infertility with such a low chance of success. You think the odds are great until they’re stacked against you. How many years would we do it, put in money we can’t afford, to try, and then say we’re done, never having gotten what we wanted out of it. I guarantee by that time, our relationship will be damaged beyond repair. And adoption? Another long, hard road.”
“Then we fight. We fight to keep us alive.” His screams echo off the walls.
Tears burst out of me. “How do you know our love is strong enough to endure all this?”
“Because it is.” His voice lowers and he rounds the bed. “Because my life without you wasn’t a life. And now that I have you back, I’m not going to lose you.”
“No, you’re going to lose the life you dreamed of,” I say.
“I have you. And if we really want kids, we’ll figure out a way to make it happen. I have no doubt we’ll get through this. Somehow. Someway. We might have a few scrapes and bruises, but you’ll always have my arms to run to. You said this is a partnership, so I’ll keep you up when you’re down and vice versa, but running isn’t an option.”
“I’m not going to run. I told you, didn’t I?”
He puts his arms around me. “You sounded like you were about to run.”
“It’s tempting. I feel like such a failure. I’m the one who ran out on you, the one who has amnesia, and now the one who can’t give you a child.” I cry into his chest, the despair making me exhausted. “I can’t help but fear one day you’ll think you’d have had an easier life with someone else.”
He runs his hand down my hair and holds me. I sob, unable to stop all the emotions from everything over the last three months escaping.