Cooper shook his head and sat down beside me. “Not until after the shit with the fishing pole and even after that I didn’t meet Dickson until I was seventeen, at Mum’s funeral.” Cooper raised one of his knees as he stared at the wall across from us. “I wanted to hit him. I wanted to kill him that day.”
I gave him a pained look. “Cooper—”
“She loved him. And all she ever got from him were a million excuses.”
And suddenly, what he’d said to me days, weeks, ago about his mother loving him and everything he’d represented to her made sense.
“I’m so sorry,” I stuttered.
Cooper held up his hand, shaking his head. “Don’t be. Dickson and I’ve been trying this father-son bullshit for years. It probably won’t ever work but I’ll keep trying because despite what a selfish ass he’s been, Mum genuinely loved him.”
Then he reached out, cupping my face with his damp palm. Our eyes touched, and I suddenly felt like the room was closing in on us. “Wills, why are you drinking?” When I started to climb to my feet, he locked his fingertips gently around my wrist. “You wanted me to spill my shit so I did. There’s no way in hell I’m letting you leave this room tonight without you coming out with yours.”
And though I wanted to fight him, though I just wanted to escape, I eased back down on my bottom, feeling every inch of my body numb as I said in a monotone voice, “I lost my baby.”
He dropped wide blue eyes to my stomach. “What?”
“Tyler and me. We had a baby and I lost him.”
He was quiet for a long moment, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “So he got you pregnant and you had a miscarriage?” When I shook my head, he continued, “You had an abortion?” The last word was spoken in a whisper.
I didn’t deny it, and I didn’t acknowledge it, I just let out a thick sigh. “When I told my mom and dad they freaked out. I mean, I was sixteen and”—I hugged my arms around my stomach, as the memories hit me—“We went to this little clinic in Washington and I’m lying there getting an ultrasound, scared out of my mind. The sonographer looks up at my mom and says ‘Looks like you’re going to have a baby in four months’.”
“Wills—”
“I’d hidden it from them for too long to get the abortion, so my mom sent me to live with her step-mother in Oregon until he was born.”
Cooper sucked in a long, hard breath through his teeth. “And you gave him up for adoption?”
I nodded. “Tyler didn’t care. He was more worried about being charged with statutory rape than whether or not I was okay. My parents and Kevin kept telling me it was my choice—that they weren’t making me do anything even though I knew they were. So I signed him away when he was born. I signed a closed adoption and was too f**king stupid to realize that that meant I’d never see him again.”
Cooper came close to me, trying to draw me into him but I shoved him away, staggering to my feet. Yanking my jeans down around my hips, I turned to him. When I pulled my tank top up, his electric blue eyes narrowed.
And my heart broke. My whole body was shaking but I didn’t make an effort to straighten my clothes. There was no point. “There you go. That’s why I won’t let you f**k me with the lights on.”
He reached forward and grabbed my hips hard, tugging me to him and burying his damp head into my bare skin “Don’t say it like that,” he said in a low growl.
“Why?”
“Because you’ve never just been a f**k to me. I love you, Wills.”
And then I slid down on the floor with him again, and I was crying into his bare chest. “I found out tonight that I lost my suit against the adoption agency and then I just lost myself. All I wanted to do was black out and forget. Forget myself and the baby.”
“I’m so sorry, Wills,” he whispered into my hair, and I sobbed harder. When there was nothing left inside of me, I dragged myself away from him, suddenly aware of smelling like alcohol. I’ve never been more ashamed of myself “I’m a wreck,” I said.
“We’ll fix you.”
He kept saying that, and it left a bitter pang in my chest each time. “How can you talk about fixing me when you’ve got your own issues?” I demanded, lifting bleary eyes to look up at him.
He closed his eyes for a moment. “When my mum died I realized that that it’s possible to live without someone you love.” When I asked him what he meant, he wrapped me back in his arms. “I love you, Willow, but I can live without you. I just refuse to.”
We lay there on the floor for what seemed like an eternity before Eric tentatively knocked on the door saying that Miller was downstairs and wouldn’t budge until he knew that I was okay. Drying away the tears with the backs of my hand I started to get up but Cooper held me back again.
“Stay,” he said. “I don’t care if you messed up and got drunk with Jessica. I just need you with me.”
I nodded, gently pulling my hand from his as I stood. Eric had an awkward expression on his face before he turned away from me to jog down the steps. Miller met me at the very bottom and I took a deep breath. “I’m alright,” I said.
He slid his teeth over the tiny gap in the front. “You’re crying,” he pointed out.
“There were some things that needed to be said.”
“And you’re leaving now?” he asked.
I shook my head, looking back over my shoulder to where the light strained out of Cooper’s bedroom door. “No, I’m staying.”