After Eight Years, She Left Me at the Altar for Her First Love novel · Chapter 22 of 48

Chapter 22: The Delivery Room

Twenty-six weeks later, at two in the morning, Troy stood in a delivery room with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

Celia was on the bed with her hair stuck to her forehead.

She had been in labor for nine hours.

She had not screamed once, and he knew that was pure stubbornness.

"You can make a sound," he said. "Nobody is grading it."

"I am aware."

"Celia."

"Do not talk to me."

The next contraction hit, and she gripped the rail so hard the metal rattled.

Troy took her other hand without thinking about it.

She crushed his fingers.

For the first time in his life, it hurt, and he did not pull away.

"Breathe," the midwife said. "Good. Again."

When it passed, Celia lay back, panting, with her eyes on the ceiling.

"I want to say something," she said, "before I'm too tired to say it properly."

"You can say it after."

"I might not want to after."

He waited.

"I asked you to be mine when you were twenty and bleeding in a hospital bed," Celia said. "I thought that made you mine. I thought eight years of staying meant you'd stay."

"I did stay."

"I know. I want to tell you I'm not asking you to anymore." Her voice shook, but she kept going. "I'm letting go of the leash, Troy. You weren't my husband. We were never going to be anything but what I kept pretending we were. I wasted your whole youth on a wedding."

"Celia."

"Let me finish. I'm not saying it to be forgiven. I'm saying it so there's no door left open."

He thought of the altar, and the long wait, and her back going out the ballroom door.

"You can close it," he said. "I'll hold it while you do."

She laughed, a ragged little laugh, and a tear slid sideways into her hair.

"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

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