Rogue Beast (The Rourkes #12) - Kylie Gilmore Page 0,78
it all away.
I lost him.
Oh God. Why did I say those hurtful things? I should’ve kept my cool. But I couldn’t. Even now, my emotions are overwhelming me, making me feel sick and shaky.
I slap a hand over my mouth and run to the bathroom to puke up my guts. God, on top of everything else—my job ending, my relationship crumbling, and I’m still sick? I’m falling apart physically and emotionally, and I don’t have the strength to deal with it all. I’m so damn tired. I clean up and stumble to my bed, flopping down on it.
What is wrong with me? I’ve always been sensitive, my emotions close to the surface, but I’ve never felt so out of control. I don’t even truly believe he used me. Not anymore. I lashed out with all those old fears when I should’ve pulled him in close. That’s all I wanted was for him to stay close. To put us first the way I was trying to do.
I curl up on my side and let the tears fall. The best part of my life just walked out the door, and I have no idea how to get him back.
20
Harper
It’s Thanksgiving Day, and I’m back in Summerdale at my grandmother’s house. I tried to get in touch with Garrett, but he won’t take my calls or respond to my texts. He’s ghosting me or maybe he’s just caught up in his exciting new work, but he’s going to have to deal with me when he gets home for Christmas because—
I’m pregnant.
I found out two weeks ago. I finally went to the doctor because I just didn’t seem to be getting better, and that’s when I got the big news. In hindsight, the symptoms were all there, but I was fooled by the fact that I’d taken an early pregnancy test that came out negative. I’d noticed I was three days late and still hadn’t bounced back from the stomach virus. With the negative results, I’d figured my cycle was just off from being sick.
Turns out things did get screwed up from my stomach virus. I missed a day of taking the pill when I first got sick, and the next night I took it and then threw it up a few minutes later when Garrett threw up. So two nights without the pill gave my body a brief window of opportunity for conception. I was so caught up in a roller coaster of emotions with the show ending and then Garrett ending us, plus hormones, that, well, it wasn’t easy to think clearly for a while there.
Now I am. I’m keeping this baby, already very much in love with the life stirring inside me. I’m twenty-eight with the means to care for a child. I’ll do everything I can for Garrett to be part of the baby’s life, even if he doesn’t want to be part of mine. I plan to tell him in person when he returns.
I still haven’t told anyone. My secret joy is mixed with shame and fear. I was an accidental pregnancy. I swore I would never do that to my child. My grandmother never bothered to disguise her disappointment in my mother. How can I tell her I’ve done the same thing? She’ll judge me, maybe even tell me never to come back the way she told my mother.
I’ll be a disappointment to my grandmother all over again. The only mother I’ve ever known.
I blink back tears as I baste the small Cornish hen in the oven. Grandmom is too practical to waste a big turkey on the two of us. I break off part of a roll and chew. Bland food is my friend now, keeping the nausea at bay. I glance over to where she’s sitting at the small Formica-topped kitchen table, peeling potatoes.
“How’s your Gary?” she asks. “Thought he might come with you today.”
I turn, my jaw tight. “It’s Garrett.”
She nods. “That was a reference to Gary Cooper.”
“He’s in LA filming a movie.”
She peels more furiously. “I see.”
I join her at the table. “He broke up with me. I wasn’t too happy with him leaving me for better things, and I said some things I regret. Now he won’t talk to me.”
“Have I taught you nothing?”
“I know. Life’s unfair.”
She gives me a sideways look. “If you regret what you said, you should go to him and say so. Chin up. Use that strength I drilled into you.”