Don't Need You - Lilian Monroe Page 0,80

this pain inside me for so long, and I need to tell Kit. He needs to know what he’s getting into with me, and he needs to understand that even if I do want to have kids with him—which I do, eventually—it might not happen. I’m not sure if my body works properly. I don’t know if I can give him the family he wants. Even if I can, it’ll be hard for me to get past my own fears.

Even though I’m here, I still need time. I’m not ready to take things too far, too quick. I need him to understand that I’m still healing, and I don’t know what kind of snags will happen along the way.

But as I meet Kit’s eye, seeing nothing but softness and love, my courage is bolstered. “I had a miscarriage six years ago,” I start.

“Six years?” Kit frowns. “The way Angelo said it, it sounded like it just happened. I thought…”

I shake my head. “We were young. I was really happy about it, but scared, obviously. Angelo was partying a lot. When I told him I was pregnant, he got angry.”

Kit gulps, his jaw twitching. His eyes, so soft a moment ago, grow hard.

I close my eyes. “He started drinking a lot more, doing drugs when he was out partying. It was like a switch flipped. Our relationship…I don’t know what happened. He’d come home angry. He—” My breath trembles, and I close my eyes, remembering the nights he’d crawl on top of me, stinking of alcohol. “It was tough. Our relationship disintegrated, but I was too afraid to leave while I had the baby. Word got out—I told my mom, and she must have told the whole neighborhood—and Angelo started acting like he was happy about the pregnancy.”

I open my eyes again as Kit slides a hand over my thigh. There’s nothing but openness in his face. I take a deep breath. “I lost the baby, then. I don’t know why. Maybe stress, or fear, or…I don’t know. It happened, and it crushed me.” Guilt washes over me as I remember that time in my life. It was so long ago yet it has always felt fresh. I suspect it always will. “A part of me thought things between me and Angelo would get better. Like now that there was no baby, we could go back to the way things were.”

“But they didn’t,” Kit says softly.

I shake my head. “They only got worse. And I didn’t know how to deal with the guilt and the embarrassment and the pity from everyone around. And Angelo started putting on this act, like he was so loving in public and the martyr boyfriend who had wanted to be a dad. It…it fucked me up. I didn’t know what was real or not. My head was a mess. I didn’t trust myself, or my instincts, or my feelings.”

Kit’s hand tightens on my thigh, but he doesn’t say anything. He just listens—and for that, my love for him grows.

Gulping, I lift my eyes to meet Kit’s. “I don’t know if I can have kids, Kit. I don’t know if it’s in the cards for me. The doctor said miscarriages are common, especially so early in the pregnancy, but I don’t know. I felt like a failure, and it never happened again.” I put my hand over his, steeling myself to say the thing that has tortured me ever since I met Kit. “I don’t want to be the reason you can’t have kids of your own, Kit.”

Tears flow down my cheeks as Kit’s eyes widen.

I gulp. “I don’t know if it’ll ever happen to me, and I know we have these feelings, but I don’t know if I can ever give you what you want. Not only that, but I don’t know if I can handle going through that again. Sometimes, I think I’m better off not having kids at all. The loss is too painful. It’s been six years, and it still makes me cry.”

There’s a moment of silence between us, as my words settle over Kit. I watch him grapple with my revelations, emotions closely guarded behind his face. Then, in an instant, the facade breaks.

“Serena,” he says, exhaling a whoosh of air. His arms circle around me, pulling me onto his lap. His hands run over my back, my shoulders, up my neck to cup my face. I’m crying now. I can’t stop it. He kisses my tears, whispering my name over and