At the waiting room, Hudson held the door open for me to go in first. It was a small room, completely enclosed with several couches and a counter with coffee supplies. It was empty, thankfully. Babies might be born at all hours, but no one was expecting one at the moment. At least that gave us privacy.
I turned to face Hudson as he shut the door behind him. “I know you want to be in there with your sister. I can leave. Or we can pretend things are all hunky-dory, if you’d rather. I’ll under—”
Hudson cut me off. “Don’t leave.”
His desperation stunned me. Did that mean he did want me there? The man was a bunch of mixed signals. This signal I liked. I’d cling to it, if he’d let me. “Okay. I’ll stay.”
“For Mira.”
My spirits plummeted. “For Mira. Of course.” Not for him. He didn’t want me to stay for him.
All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure if I could do it anymore, if I could remain self-controlled around him. I turned away and made my way to a couch. With shaking knees, I took a seat.
Sitting was better. It made me feel stronger than I was. I thought about the reason we were there—the perky romantic sitting in the room nearby. Her faith and encouragement had been instrumental in reuniting me with Hudson. Even if she couldn’t save us again, I owed her.
I lifted my chin and met Hudson’s eyes. “Then we need to put everything else aside for right now and give Mira our happy face.”
He held my gaze for only a second. “I agree.”
There was plenty of room on the couch by me, but he took a seat in a chair instead. He couldn’t even sit by me. The rejection rippled through me with excruciating pain. Every move he made, everything he said, hurt.
I wanted to do the same to him. Wanted to hurt him in all the ways he’d hurt me. My fists tightened into balls as I thought about ripping into him, telling him all the things that were barely under the surface of my composure.
But again, I remembered why we were there. Mira would be upset if we didn’t walk back in her room together. The best thing I could do for her and myself was make a plan and get back to her. Back to the comfort of people who made me feel good rather than sad.
Obviously this would require some acting. A lot of acting. “So any idea how to give Mira a happy face? Because she read right through us in there.”
“She is very perceptive.” Hudson leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, his chin in his hands. “But I think if we wait here for a while, give us time to supposedly talk things out, then if we go back in there with smiles and…holding hands, she’ll believe it.” His pause said that even holding hands sounded uncomfortable for him. “She wants to believe it, so she will.”
I made a gruff sound in the back of my throat. “Pretending we’re a couple. Just like old times.”
His head spun toward me. He fastened me with a piercing stare. “We aren’t pretending we’re a couple. We are a couple. We’re pretending that we’re…that we’re not…” He moved his hand in the air as he tried to figure out how to finish his sentence.
When he didn’t come up with an end, I pushed him. “That we’re not…what? Not fighting? Not completely confused and heartbroken? Not miserable and lied to?” My voice cracked, and I refused to cry. Biting my lip, I crossed one leg over the other and put all my energy into jostling my knee up and down. It helped to focus my pain.
Hudson stared at the wall across from him, refusing to respond or look at me.
I should have dropped it, but I couldn’t help myself. “I don’t understand how you can say we’re a couple when you’re living in one place and I’m in another. When you’re on dates with another woman.”
“I told you what that was,” he said quietly.
I ignored him. “When you won’t even let me touch you without acting like it burns.” I shook my head. I was getting too upset. “I said I wouldn’t do this here. I’m sorry.” Except I really wasn’t. “Sort of.”
I wanted him to refute my words, wanted him to explain how things really were. But he didn’t. Sure, it wasn’t the time or place—I knew that in my head. My heart, on the other hand, didn’t care. I was in so much pain, how could he not be? And if he wasn’t, what did that mean?
It means he can compartmentalize, I told myself. That’s all. God, what I’d give to believe that was all it was.
We sat in silence, the only sound the clicking of the seconds ticking by on the wall clock. Finally, Hudson spoke, his voice low and sincere. “Touching you only burns because it reminds me how much I want to touch you more.”