33. Ava

Chapter 33

Ava

A drian: Meet me by the fountain in Washington Square.

I stared down at his text for the fiftieth time as I stood beside the fountain, the bitter wind keeping most of the locals away. Gray skies loomed above with the promise of the first hint of snow—it wouldn't stick for another month or so according to Emily, but flurries would start soon, and despite the double layer of jackets around me, the smell of ice in the air made my teeth chatter.

But maybe that was just the stress.

I'd managed to calm down enough that the dizziness had abated for now. But I worried that no matter what I was expecting out of this, the dizziness would come back with a vengeance.

Tearing my gaze from my phone, I monitored the archway that stood at the main entrance to the park, looking for any sign of him. Tourists in I Heart NY merchandise strode past, some of them overdressed for the weather and some not wearing nearly enough, clutching tote bags full of gifts or souvenirs that would inevitably break before they'd even made it home. The man working the hot dog stand argued loudly with a customer, and across from them, a leashed dog barked and jumped at the pigeons nearby, sending a massive swarm of them flying off overhead.

"Are you happy with yourself?"

The voice behind me had me spinning on the spot, giving me just an inkling of vertigo as I came to a halt in front of Adrian.

His face was almost entirely expressionless, but the tic in his hard-set jaw was enough to tell me he wasn't happy. His thick wool coat was buttoned nearly all the way up around his neck, his nose just slightly pink in the cold.

He narrowed his eyes at me.

"What do you…"

"Your father called," he started, and just the mention of him made my stomach twist. "Asked me to come see him. I came from there."

I blinked up at him, searching for whatever he was trying to tell me in the sharp blue of his eyes, but there was nothing but steel to see.

"You're lucky I'm even here," he said, a hollow chuckle breaking from his lips. "I could have disappeared off the face of the fucking map. I could have not given you the ounce of grace I'm giving right now to allow you to explain yourself and never speak to you again. But against my better judgment, Ava, I'm here, again, giving you the smallest bit of trust that I absolutely shouldn't be."

I recoiled from the minor lashing, taking a step back as I clutched the sides of my jacket together. "What?"

"I know we're on the rocks, Ava, but we were supposed to do this together."

The nausea roiling in my gut doubled, tripled, quadrupled. "He knows?" I asked, my voice nothing more than a whisper. The backs of my eyes burned, but before a tear could even form, the cold air evaporated it.

Adrian didn't answer me.

No, no, no. No. Panic set in again for the millionth time, creeping up my spine and making me feel as if I was sinking into the concrete beneath my aching feet. "Fuck," I said, pushing the hair out of my face as if it would help me think clearer. "Fuck!"

Adrian's jaw ticked again as he watched me, not making a single move in my direction. This didn't make sense.

"Why?" I asked, my fingers catching on a knot and pulling regardless, making little blossoms of pain sprout from my scalp. "I don't understand, why?"

A flicker of something rippled across his face, but it was too quick, too small to decipher. "I was hoping you'd tell me that, Ava."

What? I opened my mouth to speak, but the words were trapped again, locked behind the building lump in my throat that I was so, so tired of.

"Thought so."

"I didn't…" I cut myself off as the words ran out, wracking my brain for more, for anything. How could he think I'd done this? "I didn't tell him, Adrian. I didn't."

He shook his head, his lips forming a tight line. "Who else would have?"

"I…I don't know. Maybe he asked for my discharge paperwork, maybe he worked it out…"

"You're an adult, Ava," he scoffed. "He can't just ask them for that. That would be a fucking HIPAA violation."

He stretched his neck from side to side, his eyes glazing over as he looked anywhere but at me.

"You told him. You conveniently left out the pregnancy, but you didn't consider the consequences for me."

A ringing started in my ears, loud enough it felt as though it blocked almost everything out—but I could hear him breathing, could hear the thunder of my own heartbeat, could hear his sigh as I struggled to find words to say. I hadn't done this.

I fished my phone from my pocket and hastily pulled up my texts with my dad. I hadn't gone into a fugue state and dropped that bombshell, I was goddamn sure of it.

I pressed my phone into his chest. "Look," I croaked. "Just look. I didn't. You can go through my whole fucking phone if you want to, Adrian."

He sighed as his hand covered mine, peeling back the screen from his jacket. He glanced down at it, his mouth scrunching up on one side for a second. "This means nothing when it could have been a phone call or a chat in person."

"You think I wouldn't have warned you?"

"I think you tried." He tapped on my screen a handful of times before turning my phone around, pointing out the last message I sent him.

Me: Can we please talk?

"That was an hour before David called me," he clarified.

I stared at the text, trying not to look at the last one above it from him that simply said, I miss you . "I…I wanted to talk to you about where we were at and how we were going to tell my dad…"

"So you told him yourself when I didn't reply."

"No," I snapped. The feelings from his insistence that I was lying were morphing from horror to irritation, and it was getting hard to keep myself from lashing out and screaming at him for even entertaining this idea. "Do you honestly believe that if I'd done that in person, I'd have been let out of his sight within an hour? Do you think that if I'd called him, he wouldn't have immediately come to my apartment? How would that have worked, Adrian?"

"You could have told him earlier. Yesterday. I don't fucking know, Ava, I just know that there is no one else who knew enough about what this was for him to have found it out," he said, his shoulders rising and falling in defeat.

But it was what he'd said in the middle of that last sentence that I latched onto in panic.

…who knew enough about what this was…

…what this was…

…was…

Was.

I choked on the only word I could focus on. "Was?"

He watched me for a moment, his gaze hard and unnerving, before looking away. "Was."

Everything in my mind came to a screeching, crashing halt. The sinking feeling was worse, now, and it felt as if the ground beneath me had cracked and split, eating me whole. That single word hung in the air, sharp and final. Was. He didn't want to be with me anymore. He was giving up.

"Your father told me that he would ruin me if I got within a hundred feet of you again. And I don't doubt him for a second," he said, squinting his eyes just barely as he looked toward the overcast sky, forcing his crow's feet to deepen. "I'm taking that risk right now, but I can't again. Not when everything I've worked for, everything I have, everything Lucas has, is on the line."

My chest tightened, the breath caught in my throat, and the sting of tears pressed hard behind my eyes, but I couldn't move, couldn't speak. A choked sound left me, but that was all I could get out.

"I don't know if you thought he'd come around or if this was what you wanted, Ava, but either way, I can't fight this. I can't fight him." His throat moved as he swallowed, his gaze slowly moving back to mine. "This is over."

Instinctively, my hand moved to my stomach and the little bump that was barely visible through my double layer of jackets.

It felt like I'd been kicked.

"I'll talk to him," I croaked, the sting of cold air feeling harsher against the trails of tears that freely came now. If a passerby saw and looked at me strangely, I wouldn't have noticed—I was so focused on Adrian that it was as if everything else melted away. "Let me talk to him, please. I can fix this. All of it."

He shook his head and took a further step back, his eyes glancing down at the hand on my stomach. He winced. "It wouldn't help."

"It would. It would. Please, Adrian, don't do this." The words were broken, battered. Everything about me felt raw, from my throat to my heart to my brain. Nothing felt okay. Nothing.

"Even if I could bring myself to be with someone who has lied to me twice now," he scoffed, "you and I both know that when your father sets his mind to something, it's not changing."

I didn't want to accept the potential truth in what he'd said about my dad. "I haven't lied," I sputtered, my breath hitching with each word. "I've admitted over and over that I should have told you sooner, and I've apologized just as much. But I didn't do this. I didn't. I'm fucking pregnant, Adrian, do you think I'd want him to hate you in the midst of that?"

Another step back, and he was further than arm's reach. He looked away again and it felt as though he were ripping my goddamn heart from my chest.

"Do you expect me to do this alone?" I sobbed. I truly, wholeheartedly couldn't give a shit if everyone could hear me, if everyone was judging me. Tourists would come and go. This was too big for that. "Do you want that?"

For the briefest, fleeting second, his lower lip trembled. "I will help you, Ava, and I will take care of the baby in the way I need to as a father once we know that David won't literally cut off my head for it. But that doesn't change anything." He took one more step back, almost hesitating. "I'm sorry."

Before I could get another word out, he was halfway across the park.