“No,” he said as he shook his head. “It’s not you, Lisette—it’s me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said as I looked at his troubled face.
Michael turned to look at me and I was surprised by what I saw in his eyes. It seemed like he was sad, or scared, or both.
“That pregnancy scare really freaked me out,” he said.
“It freaked us all out,” I said. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell any of you until I was sure about it.”
“No, I’m still glad that you told me. I never want you to feel like you have to go through anything alone. You and I are in everything together now, and that is the way that it needs to stay.”
I nodded my head in agreement. He was right; we needed to stay tight.
“But I just can’t chance that happening again,” he said.
“What happening?” I asked.
“I can’t take the chance on getting you pregnant. I can’t be a dad,” Michael said with a shake in his voice.
“Ever?” I asked.
“I’m not sure about ever, but I know that I can’t be one now, or anytime soon. Lisette, my childhood was so awful; my parents were so bad. I’m terrified of becoming a parent myself.”
“Michael,” I said calmly as I reached out to take his hand against his lap. “We were all scared when the possibility was there, but that doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t have been able to figure it out along the way.”
“No,” he said abruptly. “It can’t happen.”
“Okay,” I said carefully. I could see that he was very serious about this. It was fear that I had seen in his eyes, and it was a deep and very real fear.
“I’ll be extra careful,” I reassured him. “I’ll make sure that I take that pill religiously at the same time every day.”
“That pill isn’t always a hundred percent effective,” he said.
“Is this why you haven’t been touching me or kissing me at all?” I asked. I could feel my forehead wrinkling as my eyebrows raised. “We can’t go through life together with you now afraid to come near me in any sort of intimate way. The birth control pill is like nearly perfectly effective and I promise that I will set a daily alarm from now on and make sure to take it without fail, okay? There’s nothing to worry about now.”
I reached out and held the side of his face with my palm. I had seen Michael in many situations before, but honestly, he looked more shaken up than any other time. I knew that he had a shitty childhood, and that his parents were downright awful; but that couldn’t be what was making him this upset. It was as if he was terrified of absolutely nothing.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Just make sure you don’t forget to take it okay?”
“I promise I won’t,” I said.
I reached over to hug him and when I felt his arms wrap back around me, I let go of an exhale that I had been holding in throughout much of that conversation. I would keep my promise and I wouldn’t give him any reason to doubt me or worry further.
Then, maybe someday far off in the future, if we ever decided that we wanted to have a baby, things would be better then and he would be more comfortable with the idea.
For now though, I was putting all thoughts of this ordeal behind me so that we could move on.
21
Tensions seemed to ease up that night after Michael and I had spoken in the greenhouse.
He seemed to be more relaxed and I was ready to close the distance that I had felt between us. Rob and Adam could see it too, and they seemed to be content hanging out in the cabin for the night while I spent an evening by the bonfire alone with Michael. We sat together, cozied up on the furs with filled wine glasses in our hands and a roaring fire that seemed to reach up past the tips of the trees on the horizon.
“We needed this,” I said.
Michael took a sip of his wine and pulled me closer against his chest as his arm wrapped around my shoulder and his fingers came down to rest on the top of my breast.
“I agree,” he said with a smile. “We really did. I’m not going to wake up to find you gone again this time though, right?”
“No,” I said, unsure whether to laugh at his tease or be swallowed up with remorse again.
He picked up on the hesitation in my voice.
“I was just kidding,” he said as he pulled me even closer still and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t feel bad. I shouldn’t have said that; I’m sorry. I was just trying to be funny and it failed gloriously.”
“No,” I said. “It’s fine. Honestly, if we didn’t joke around about some of this stuff, we would probably all go crazy.”
“There is one thing that is making me go crazy, though,” he said.
“What is it?” I asked as I turned to face him.
I didn’t want there to be anything else that could possibly ruin this perfect night. I just wanted one night where we could be together and reconnect after the pregnancy scare. But then, Michael leaned his face toward mine and when his mouth touched my lips, I melted.
I had missed him—this part of him—so badly.
His tongue slid inside my open mouth and I felt his hand lift the wine glass from my fingers before he set it on the ground beside us. I turned my body to face him as he came down over top of me, and I ran my fingers through his wild hair as my legs wrapped around his waist.
