The hopelessness of their situation hit her all over again. And she felt like a fool.
Then it hit her, like a sledgehammer to the stomach.
"This was never going to work out, was it?" she murmured, defeat making her shoulders slump. She stared down at her belly and put a hand there when she felt the baby give a light kick. And, even though she hated herself for it, she missed the nights where Caleb would touch her there and she would be able to see every emotion on his face.
"Don't say that," he said, his gaze darting over at her words, trying to read her. Whatever he saw in her face made him shift towards her, his hands reaching out to cradle her face in his palms. "Don't say that, Maddie," he pleaded.
"I was kidding myself," she said, closing her eyes. His hands were warm on her face and she didn't have the strength to pull away. "I thought that if we lived together, if we played family," her lips twisted bitterly, "for long enough, then a relationship between us would just happen naturally. And I'm so stupid for thinking that, for wanting that."
"Maddie-"
"I can't force it though," she continued. "I can't force you to have feelings for me, or for you to want to be more than just our child's father, or for you to just let me in. And it wasn't fair for me to expect that of you. I know that all you want is for her to grow up in a healthy, normal environment. I get it. But … I don't think this is the way to go about it, Caleb. Not anymore. This isn't healthy. And it's not normal."
Caleb stared at her, the space between his brows pinched, his mouth tight. "I thought … I thought what we had was good, Maddie. I thought you were happy."
The way he said those words made tears sting her eyes. "I was happy, Caleb," she said. "You did make me happy. I just-I can't live like that, always wondering and never knowing. I wanted to give you everything, but then I realized that you weren't able to reciprocate. And don't I deserve to be loved, Caleb?" She forced a small smile on her lips, but it didn't quite meet her eyes. "I think I do, at least. And it's not fair for me to be in a situation like that, knowing that we're only playing pretend when I want the real thing."
"We're not 'playing pretend,' Maddie," he growled. "We were building something. It might not have been conventional, but I wasn't pretending that we were anything more than what I expected us to be."
She closed her eyes.
There it was. The root of their problem.
Caleb didn't want anything more than what they already had-a comfortable friendship. With perks, of course.
Maddie wanted his love and for him to accept hers.
"And what happens if down the road, you meet someone? Or I meet someone else?" she asked, looking at him. His hands slid off her face and he fell back against the driver's side door, a scowl emerging. "What happens if I fall in love with him and he falls in love with me? What then? Would you just stand aside and let it happen?"
His jaw ticked so hard that it was like a throb and he shifted his head so that he looked out the windshield, away from her. This was what confused her. He would act like this. He would act like a jealous lover-he did it with her doctor, with the flirty check-out guy at the supermarket, with basically any man who looked at her twice-yet he still insisted that they were just friends. Was it because she was pregnant? Maybe he wasn't even jealous. Maybe he just felt threatened since she was carrying his child.
She almost laughed. Yet another thing that she'd read wrong …
Her voice hitched when she spoke next. "I'm just trying to point out that even though our arrangement might work now, it would fall apart in the future. I-I don't want to spend the rest of my life waiting for it to happen, Caleb. It would eat away at me until nothing was left. And I need you to understand that. And I need you to give me time to get over you."
"So," he said, voice guttural, "you've already made up your mind?"
"I was prepared to fight for you, Caleb," she whispered, wiping her cheeks. "But even I can see that this is a losing battle. I can't fight for you when you don't even want to be won."
Her words hung heavy in the air.
Caleb was silent.
He still wasn't looking at her. His eyes were darting between watching the people, the families, walking down the sidewalk towards the museum, and the cars passing them by.
"Caleb," she whispered, reaching out to touch his hand. And he flinched. Maddie withdrew her hand, biting her lip, tears blurring her vision. He hadn't done that in so, so long, not in months, that she'd forgotten the way it made her feel.
Caleb's fingers twisted the key in the ignition but he still wouldn't meet her eyes. He murmured, "At least let me drive you to your car. Did you park in Walnut Creek?"