A wave of shock coursed through me, but I kept my voice steady. “What happened?”
“I hit my professor. She was pregnant.”
Damn. I squeezed her shoulders. Had she been jealous? Bitter? Regret washed away the shock. I should have been there. “Did they expel you?”
“No. I had a really good relationship with the university since I worked in the main office. They let me leave quietly.”
I wanted to ask her why she’d done it, but just held on to her. She would say what she needed to say.
Corabelle looked out over the water. “She was smoking a joint behind a building on campus. I knocked it out of her mouth.”
Now this made sense. “You were protecting her baby.”
“Yes, but —” She silenced, her eyes following the flight of the gulls.
I waited, flirting with the idea of bringing up the line in the sand again. But that speech was self-serving. I didn’t want to tell her my past, but clearly she needed to tell me hers.
“I blew up because I felt like I knew the consequences of smoking pot. People say — doctors say — it’s not related, but it’s hard to separate what you’ve done with the end result when you know you shouldn’t have done it.”
My arm loosened its grip on her shoulders. “Are you saying you smoked pot? With Finn?” I washed cold. When? How? I knew her so well. It wasn’t possible.
“Katie thought it would help me on the SAT. I had no idea I was pregnant.”
I felt Jenny’s eyes on me. I kept my arm on Corabelle, trying to hold in my disbelief, my shock, my anger. I kept my voice even and steady. “So you were doing drugs while you carried my baby.”
She was shaking so hard now that I could feel the movement through her coat. I withdrew my arm. “You never told me you were smoking pot. I thought we shared everything back then.”
Something sparked in her, an electric charge so palpable that I could almost feel it flash through her body. “You know what, this is never going to work.” She stood up. “We’re both way more fucked up than we knew.”
I scrambled up after her. “Obviously. You never told me any of this. Not even when he was in the hospital. Did you at least tell the doctors? Maybe they could have done something!”
“They were never going to do anything!” Corabelle’s voice raised to a shriek, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jenny heading for us.
“You don’t know that!” I dragged my hands through my hair. “Thank God I can’t have kids anymore. This is way too fucked up.”
Her face bloomed red. “What are you talking about?”
Now I had her attention. I loomed over her, my fury peaking so hard I could barely see her through the haze. “I had a vasectomy. So no more of my kids can get fucked up.”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Jenny pushed at me, trying to put space between me and Corabelle, but I didn’t budge.
“Why did you do that?” Corabelle’s doll features contorted into something so tragic, it almost made me calm down, but hell no. She’d fucked up big time. The biggest way possible.
My fists clenched. “Because I always thought it was my fault Finn died. Because I would have been a crappy father, just like mine was. Because I signed to shut off the machines — lied even, to sign to shut them off, since we weren’t married.”
Jenny gave up on trying to move me and clutched Corabelle instead. “Come on, let’s go,” she said.
But I wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. Hell, all this guilt and I wasn’t the one guilty. “All these years I’ve been fucked up over this, and it was always YOU.” My body leaned toward her, and suddenly my father flashed before me, the same pose, and now Corabelle was the young version of me, cowed, bending down to escape.
Corabelle sank back into the sand like a paper lantern collapsing. Jenny let go of her and whirled around to me. “That’s enough, Gavin. Stop it now!” Her voice was a shriek. She snatched at my arm and dragged with everything she had. This time I let her take me away. I had to back off this. I had to regroup. But this was way beyond what I expected to hear from Corabelle.
Smaller birds scattered from an abandoned picnic as Jenny jerked me along the shore. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked. “She’s trying to come clean! What happened to your unconditional love and acceptance, asshole?”
“Our kid is dead,” I said, feeling the freeze come off my words.
“She didn’t kill it,” Jenny said. “Every doctor said it was not related.”
“Then why the hell is she bringing it up?” I ran my hands through my hair and glanced down the beach. Corabelle was still huddled in the sand, rocking back and forth. I’d never seen her like that. Instantly, I wanted to go back and gather her up, hold her close, kiss it away. Damn it.
“She needed to get it out. It’s what’s kept her so screwed up for so long. This was the only way to fix things. The only way she could actually be with you.”
Shit.
“She hurt just as much as you over that baby, probably more. So get back there and fix this.” Jenny grabbed my face and made me look into her eyes. “I really couldn’t give a rat’s ass if she ends up with you. I don’t think you’re that great. But it’s what she wants. And I’m helping her get what she wants.”
Corabelle wanted me back. Or she had. I’d told her about the vasectomy now. We were done with secrets. I shook off Jenny’s hands and we turned back to Corabelle. She was gone.