“You will.” He said softly and for the first time, I wondered if his words were to convince me, or himself.
“No,” I shook my head and felt a surprising tear slide down from my face. “This time, what you’ve done - it’s not an action I can forgive.”
“You love me, Nova.” Calix reminded me.
“I do.” I whispered and another tear fell. Calix took a step toward me, but I took one back. “And I thought you loved me too.”
“I do.”
I shook my head. “You don’t. If you did, you would never have done this to me.”
“I can’t lose you, Nova.” He said, sounding broken. “I did it because I need you. You make me better. Our baby, it’ll make me better too.”
I shook my head. “I don’t trust you, Calix. If I can’t trust you - I can’t trust you with our child.”
“What are you saying?” He growled low, but through the threatening rumble of his voice, I was certain I caught a hint of fear.
I wanted to tell him I didn’t want him anywhere near our child - but I still had nine months to really think about this. If there was one thing my mother taught me - and I had always taken with me as I moved about my life, it was to never speak words in anger. So, I swallowed the bubbling rage, hurt, and deceit - and I spoke.
“I’m saying that I need to go to bed, Calix. I’m saying that tonight, I don’t want you to share my bed.” I swiped at a stray tear as I made a move for the door.
Calix spoke and I stiffened. “I won’t sleep away from you.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but I closed it. Arguing with Calix was overwhelming and pointless. Right now, I just didn’t have it in me. Every fiber of my being was filled with sorrow. Every step I moved away from Calix and toward the bed - our bed - made my chest feel so tight, I feared I was suffocating.
I was so terribly hurt by him.
Reaching out for the blanket on the bed, I thought about slipping beneath the sheets - but then I decided against it as I pulled the entire duvet off the bed, cocooned my body in the soft, Calix scented material, and curled on the bed to cry myself to sleep.
Chapter 20
I fell into sleep only to startle awake with tears in my eyes. I wasn’t sure if I simply began crying every time I woke, or if I continued to cry while I was sleeping. All I knew, was that even though I’d slept, the pain was still there - still strong. Still debilitating.
I knew Calix was beside me on the bed - awake, because every time I opened my eyes, he shifted on the bed behind me. His hand was on my hip now and I could feel his warmth through the blanket. I wanted to tell him to take his hand away, but I couldn’t seem to manage the strength. In spite of all he’d done to me - the thought of losing his touch was terrifyingly painful. It didn’t seem to mater that Calix was the reason for my pain, that he had manipulated me in the worst of ways, or that he’d destroyed everything we’d built - I couldn’t seem to find the will within to shut him out of my heart the way I knew I should.
That was when I realized that love isn’t conditional.
Love isn’t only patient and kind - but it’s messy and often mean. Love is afraid and love is confident. Love is passionate and blind. Love is everything all at once - it’s power and irrationality - it’s beauty and fear. Love is anything and everything but conditional. True love will find some form of light to ignite the darkness.
And right now, that light was inside of me. It wasn’t much and it wasn’t bright - but it was there. It was a little piece of Calix and a little piece of me. It was us. Our child was our love - our child was the light we needed to ignite the dark.
And then I fell into sleep.
Gasping, I swallowed my tears as I woke again for the billionth time tonight. I heard Calix take in a sharp, pained breath, and then I heard his voice. “Nova, I can’t just sit here.”
I held my breath, fighting my sobs.
“Tell me what to do, baby.” He whispered, his body was so close to mine. “Tell me how to make this better.”
I didn’t have instructions for him. I didn’t know how to make this better. What he had done was wrong, but the more I thought about that, the more I realized that wrong was just who Calix was. So much wrong had been done to him in his life that somewhere along the line, wrong had become the only path Calix knew how to take.
Through shaky breaths, I asked. “Why tell me?”
“What?”
“Why tell me what you did?” I asked. “Why not tell me I was the odd percent that birth control didn’t work on? I don’t understand why you told me.”