to go from here. Breaths shallow, I break our eye contact and look down at my lap, fiddling with the threads of my torn jeans. I could tell him a thousand lies, and it wouldn’t be right. Or I could tell him the truth and surrender to all our wrongs. “You don’t understand, Leo. It got worse. After Papa died, my disease… the bulimia, it took hold of me, and I couldn’t…” I wipe at my tears, refusing to look at him. The knot in my chest makes it hard to speak, but I find my strength in the heart of a little boy we created and push on. “I was so consumed with grief and anger and pain and I… I was already four months along by the time I found out I was pregnant. I can’t even think about the damage I’d done to my own body in four months, and somehow, he was still there, and he was still fighting and I…”
“Mia,” Leo sighs, and I look up at him, his eyes glassy from his withheld tears.
“He forced me to get my shit together and turn my life around. For him. For me.” I take a breath, try to settle my breathing. “It was the first time I didn’t question or hesitate or wonder if I was deserving. For my entire life, I never really knew who I was or what I wanted, but I wanted him. I needed him. And that might be the most selfish thing to admit out loud, but it’s the truth.” I pause a beat, then add in a whisper, “I didn’t want you to resent him,” I whisper.
“Mia, you know me better than that,” he says quietly.
“I wasn’t in the right headspace,” I admit, my eyes struggling to hold his. “To me, back then, you walked away when things got hard and never once looked back. I didn’t want to force him on you when you wanted nothing to do with me. It would be me with my parents all over again, and Benny—he doesn’t deserve that.”
Leo sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes darting to the side before coming back to me. “It’s been over four years. I just… I don’t understand how you could’ve gone that long and not once thought about how this would impact me.”
“I did. I do,” I rush out, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Of course I think about you. Every day I look at him, and I see you, Leo. He has—”
“Don’t,” he cuts, his tone final. “I’m not ready to talk about him, Mia. You and me, I can deal with but—” He huffs out a breath, his cheeks puffing with its force. Then he throws his head back, his eyes on the sky, darting everywhere, all at once.
I open my mouth to speak, but my phone rings, cutting me off. Dad’s name flashes on the screen, and I’m quick to answer. “Hello?”
“Mama, are you coming back soon?” Benny practically shouts into the phone.
Leo lowers his gaze, listening. Always listening.
“Um. I’m not sure, bud.”
“I’m making Benny’s world-famous burgers!” he yells, but it comes out boigas.
I watch Leo frown as he looks at the phone in my hand.
“Mama?”
“Yeah.” I push down the lump in my throat. “I’ll come home now. Can’t miss your world-famous burgers!”
“Kay! Bye, Mama!” He hangs up before I can respond, and Leo’s eyes catch mine.
“I’ll take you back,” he says, hopping off the truck. He starts to walk to the driver’s side before pausing, then turning back to offer me his hand to get down. I take it, ignoring how his touch has always made me feel, and let him lead me to the passenger side. He waits until I’m seated and my belt is on before closing the door.
The drive back to the house is just as quick as the drive to the cliff edge. He pulls in the driveway and cuts the engine, then turns to me. “I don’t know what to do here, Mia.”
I face him. “I don’t know, either.”
He heaves out a breath, looks out the windshield. “Do you think,” he starts, before grasping his hair, making it stick up in all directions. “Will you send me a picture of him?”
I contemplate this for all of one second. “Will you unblock my number?”
He grabs his phone from the center console, and, shaking his head, he taps at a few buttons, then nods to go ahead.