He Married My Best Friend While I Gave Birth, So I Left novel · Chapter 27 of 48

Chapter 27: Two A.M.

I woke at two, and Byron's side of the bed was cold.

On the monitor, Poppy slept on her back with both fists up.

Downstairs a floorboard creaked, and a boy mumbled something in his sleep and went quiet.

Cal was on the daybed in the front room under my grandmother's quilt, because I hadn't known what else to give him.

I pulled on Byron's flannel and my boots and crossed the frozen yard.

The light was on in the cider room.

Byron sat on the stool by the workbench with a pencil and the back of a feed receipt, and he didn't look up.

"Sixteen birthdays," he said.

I shut the door and leaned on it.

"I did the math four times. Sixteen first days of school. Sixteen Christmases. I wasn't at one of them, because I didn't know to be."

"I know."

"I bought a crib for a baby I didn't know was mine," he said. "He never got one from me."

"Byron."

"He's asleep in my front room, and I don't know how to say good morning to him."

"You say good morning."

"And in a week and a half I have to decide whether to stand up in a hearing room for my mother," he said. "The ninth. Victims can speak. I'm the victim."

"One thing a day. Today it's breakfast."

His laugh was short and cracked.

"You're allowed to be furious," I said, "and sad, and scared. I'm going to say this once. It isn't your fault. It's your mother's. The rest belongs to us, and we start at breakfast."

He put the pencil down.

His eyes were red, and I knew he'd been crying where nobody could hear.

I crossed the floor and took his face in both hands.

"Now stop thinking," I said. "I'll do it for a while."

He kissed me hard, with both hands in my hair, and I tasted salt.

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