Griffin
Cosy stands on the opposite side of the small living room, her lips pressed into a thin line. Her eyes are red and puffy, a clear indication she’s been crying. I hate Imogen so much for forcing me to come here and have this conversation that likely isn’t going to go anywhere good. How can it?
“Imogen broke off the engagement almost six months ago. As far as I was concerned, we were over. Until today, I had no idea she was pregnant.”
“Is she the one who broke it off because you travel too much for work?”
I look down at my shoes. “Yes.”
“And that’s the only reason?”
“It was the biggest one. She left me an extensive list of my shortcomings.”
“Like a grocery list?”
“More like a manifesto, or a thesis paper.”
“What a . . .” She shakes her head with something like disdain. “How far along is she?”
I raise my head. “Twenty-six weeks.”
She swallows hard. “So it’s yours.”
“We don’t know that for sure.” It’s so lame, but it’s out of my mouth before I can reconsider how I frame my response.
“Really, Griffin?” Her voice rises along with her incredulity. “Pretty sure since you were engaged to her, it’s yours!”
I run my hands through my hair, trying to figure a way out of this that doesn’t include losing the one good thing in my goddamn world. I don’t want Imogen back. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life raising a child with her. Which sounds horribly selfish and dickish, but it’s the truth. I don’t want to be tied to her for the rest of my life, and now I am.
She doesn’t make me happy. I don’t love her, and maybe now, in this moment, I can admit I never truly did. Not the way I should have, anyway. She was stable and predictable, and she fit into my world, but we didn’t fit together. I see it in the way my brothers are with their significant others, the way my parents are with each other. They have that soul-deep love that allows them to weather all the storms. I would’ve weathered them with Imogen if we’d gotten married, but I would never have been truly happy with her.
Cosy, on the other hand, is everything I didn’t know I wanted. Or needed. She’s everything warm and good and perfect in this world. She’s sweet and innocent; she’s knowledge and adventure. And I’m hopelessly, desperately in love with her.
The realization hits me with the force of a semi truck skidding around a corner at seventy miles per hour, almost knocking me on my ass. But it’s Cosy’s next words that do that in the metaphorical sense.
“Look, Griffin, I really like you. It’s been fun. But this.” She motions between us, eyes never meeting mine. “It always had an expiration date. You were always going back to New York, and I was always going off to the next place.”
“We were making a plan,” I remind her.
“Well, now there’s a wrench in it, the kind you’re responsible for, for at least a couple of decades, if you’re lucky. You can’t be with me if you’ve having a baby with someone else, least of all someone you were engaged to.”
I want to fight her on this. I want to tell her that in my head I had her working at Mills Hotels, not directly under me because I know there’s no way she’d tolerate that, but still, she’d be working for my family. And then she’d still be close, and I’d find a way for her to come with me on every single trip out of the country. We’d see the world together. But I’m not stupid. I know if I say any of this to her, she’s going to freak out. And she would have every right to.
“A lot could happen between now and the baby being born.” Jesus. I sound like an idiot.
She lifts her eyes, and her expression breaks my stupid fucking heart. It’s full of pain, disbelief, uncertainty. “You’re right. A lot could happen. That woman is carrying a life inside her, and you’re fifty percent responsible for that happening even if you don’t want to be. You don’t get to be selfish about this, Griffin. Your attention needs to be on the mother of your child. It doesn’t matter how much I like you, or if you think I make you happy and she doesn’t. None of that matters anymore. I can’t get in the way of this. I won’t be the reason a kid grows up in a broken home. You have to give this a fair shot, and I refuse to be the reason you don’t.” She brushes past me and heads down the hall to the door.
I know once I leave, it’s truly the end. She’ll never want to see me again. She’s only twenty-two. She’ll bounce back. In a month, she’ll be somewhere across the ocean, and some guy who isn’t me will get to fall in love with her. And I’ll be preparing to raise a baby with someone I don’t love. “Cosy, please—”
Her head bows, her raven hair covering her face for a few seconds before she finally looks up at me, eyes liquid and so torn. “Please, Griffin, just let me go. Please tell me goodbye. Please say I’m right and you understand.”
I want to tell her she’s not right, that I need her, that I’ll find a way out of this. But I can’t say any of those things with certainty. Instead of giving her what she wants, I force my way into her personal space, trapping her between the door and my body. I take her face in my hands. “Tell me you don’t feel what I feel.”
She stares at my mouth, eyes swimming with pain that makes my chest ache. “What I feel is irrelevant, Griffin.” She closes her eyes, refusing to look at me as I memorize her perfect, beautiful face, features etched through with anguish I put there.
Even though I shouldn’t, I press my lips against hers—unyielding and unforgiving. It’s not how I want this to end. “Cosy.”
The sound that comes out of her is pure agony, but her lips part, and I sweep inside her mouth. She latches onto my wrists for the briefest moment before her fingers slide into my hair and grab on. We kiss until we’re breathless, and she finally pushes away.
I try to hold her to me. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” Her body is rigid, and her voice is tired. “You have to go now, Griffin.”
She unlocks her door with shaking hands. Opening it, she tips her chin up and lifts her azure gaze. All that pain is locked away, and in its place is sad resolve. She presses her fingers to her lips and then taps them over my chest. “Please do the right thing.” Leave me alone. Don’t call. Don’t torment me.
“I’ll try.”
“Promise.”
I exhale slowly as I step into the hall, trying to find a way to alleviate the weight on my chest, but the next words I utter are like a gavel, sentencing my heart to a lifetime of emptiness. “I’ll do the right thing.”