Unraveled (Holding On Book 3) (19 page)

Then he’d made her dinner. She was quickly finding out that pasta was his specialty. While he was working on the main course, she attempted another dessert. She was beginning to realize that while cooking might not be her thing, maybe baking wasn’t so bad.
Other than the disastrous cookies she’d made with the help of Carter, her baking usually turned out pretty well.

They’d eaten manicotti with a chocolate torte for dessert. With dinner, they’d finished off a bottle of wine.

Now they were curled up on her couch, watching some bad made-for-TV-movie since Nolan had taken all of their DVDs. Carly was just relieved he’d left her TV behind.

“Nolan,” she said. It had taken her all day to gather up enough courage to make this confession to Jesse. Maybe to others, it wouldn’t seem like a big deal.
To her? It was a very big deal. It was humiliating and mortifying and not something she wanted to talk about. Yet, Jesse had been so open with her lately. She wanted to give something back to him. “He wasn’t even going to tell me to my face. He was going to end the engagement in a letter. Not even a letter. It was more like a stupid little note. And…”

He leaned back from her, watching her face as he waited her out.

“He initiated sex. Like nothing was wrong. Then I left for class but I forgot my phone so I had to come back. I found him packed, ready to go. He was going to leave me with nothing but a note. He wasn’t going to even say goodbye.”

“He really is a bastard, isn’t he?” Jesse said softly.

“Well,” Carly said, “I think so. Anyway, I just wanted you to know. I didn’t even tell Quinn that. I mean, I told Jemma, because she’s been through crap like that, too. But I just couldn’t make myself tell Quinn.”

Jesse was quiet for a moment before saying, “Why not?”

“Because it’s humiliating,” Carly whispered.

“It shouldn’t be. Not for you anyway. All that does is
show what kind of person
he
is.”

“
And
me because I was stupid enough to fall for him. Oh, and there’s more,” she said, pushing the words out through her constricted throat. “The ring? It was a fake. I mean, he probably got it at some discount warehouse because it wasn’t worth a thing.”

Jesse groaned. “Ah, Carly, I’m so sorry. You deserve so much better than that.”

“That’s it. Those are the things I’ve been holding back. The note and the truth about the ring,” she said. “I wanted to tell you because you’ve been so honest with me. From the start of this, you’ve just been so honest and open.”

“Actually…
” he began. His voice was quiet and hesitant.

Carly tensed beside him. Fear suddenly snaked through her. She finally bared a small piece of her heart to Jesse. Now was he going to throw it back at her? Tell her he hadn’t been open and honest at all?

What if this whole thing had been a game to him? What if this was the ultimate payback? She felt the blood drain from her face as she moved to jump from the couch.

Jesse latched onto her wrist, anchoring her in place.

“Hear me out?” His tone was pleading. His expression was pained. Carly knew, without being told, that whatever he had to say was going to be hard on him.

“What?” she asked. Her tone was crisp.

He didn’t take his eyes off of her when he said, “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone. You’re not going to like it.
I
don’t like it. You wanted to know why I stayed with Betsy so long? The answer I gave you before is only part of it.”

A si
ck feeling coursed through her. She hated talking about Betsy. The thought of Jesse with her, his long-term ex, made her feel things she hated to feel.

He raked his hand through his hair. “I maybe should’ve told you
this weeks ago. I just wanted to make sure our relationship was really going somewhere first. But there never seemed to be a good time. I mean, I still don’t feel like it’s a good time. Then again, for something like this, there never is. So,
I’m sorry
. I’m telling you that ahead of time.”

Carly swallowed down the growing lump of dread. “Whatever it is, just tell me. Just say it. Get it over with.”

“I got her pregnant.”

His words were like an emotional dagger, striking her straight in the heart. She heard her breath catch and the dagger twisted when she saw the tormented look on Jesse’s face.

“What happened?” she asked quietly.
Where’s the baby
, she wanted to know.
Jesse’s baby
…?

“I don’t know how to do this. I
mean, where to start. So I guess I’ll just start at the beginning. Kind of,” he said, looking unsure. “We’d been dating six, maybe seven months. You were with Nolan by that point and I was trying real damn hard to let you go.

“Anyhow,
I ended up getting her pregnant. She—”

“Are you sure?” Carly interrupted. “I mean, if you…if that happened, I would’ve thought she’d want
everyone
to know.” Carly couldn’t imagine that Betsy would keep that a secret. In fact, from what little she knew of her, she wouldn’t have doubted if she’d gotten pregnant on purpose. Or maybe she’d only
pretended
to be pregnant. Carly was sure there was no baby. Lanford was too small to let something like that slip by people.

“Yeah, well, I’m getting to that.” He licked his lips nervously as he tried to gauge her reaction so far. “At first, I didn’t believe her. I think because I didn’t want to believe her. So she took a test in front of me. It was positive.”

Carly gave a little nod. That answered that question, then. Betsy hadn’t been pretending.

“She, uh…she wanted to get married. Right away, before the baby came. I just couldn’t commit to that. I was really struggling. I mean, I was more than willing to do my part to help
with the baby.” He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath before opening them again. “It was right after Jake died. So my perspective on life had taken a huge hit. I won’t lie and say I was excited about the baby. At the same time, I think I took it better than I would’ve before Jake’s death. It wasn’t the baby I had a problem with,” he clarified. “It was Betsy. I knew I wasn’t ready to marry her.”

Carly’s body had exploded with a million pinpricks of anxiety. She couldn’t even define how horrible the thought of Jesse and Betsy creating a baby together made her feel. She wanted to ask him to hurry the story along. Yet, she could see this was something he was struggling with. She leaned back against the cushions, patiently waiting him out.

“I don’t want to get into details. I’ll just say that I tried to convince her that we didn’t need to rush into marriage. And that I would do my part with the baby either way. She wasn’t having it. She started threatening me. She said if we didn’t get married that she was going to have an abortion.”

So that’s what happened to the baby
, Carly thought. She felt her heart ache because judging by the expression on Jesse’s face, that’s not what he’d wanted at all.

“I’m guessing that’s why she never told anyone. She didn’t want people to think badly of her if they knew she was pregnant and
was constantly threatening me with an abortion. So we kept it to ourselves. I kept trying to talk her out of it. She kept telling me her mind was made up. If I didn’t marry her, there would be no baby. So I was seriously considering it because with each passing day, I felt myself getting more attached to that little life,” Jesse said quietly. “Part of the reason
I
didn’t tell anyone was because Jake had just died. I didn’t feel right running around telling people we were having a baby. It felt wrong, you know?

“I missed Jake so damn much that first month,” Jesse admitted. “I know it’s selfish of me, but that’s when I could’ve used him the most. He and Quinn had just gone through the same thing. Well, except for one huge, obvious difference. They loved the hell out of each other so when it came to the baby, there was no choice at all.”

Carly worked hard at keeping her mouth shut. She knew Carter had been a surprise, truly unplanned. But she did not doubt one bit that there was a very good chance Betsy had gotten pregnant on purpose. Maybe she’d even gotten the idea in her head because of Quinn and Jake. A few years ago, she would’ve jumped at the chance to point that out. Now, she realized what’s done is done.

She pushed aside the nagging bit of spitefulness she felt. There were more important things to contend with.
Jesse’s feelings being first and foremost. She knew Jake and Jesse had been best friends since their Little League days. She had spoken with him briefly at Jake’s funeral and she knew first hand that he’d been completely wrecked. To find out, only weeks later, that he was going to be faced with one of the biggest surprises in his life, only to know his best friend wouldn’t be there? It had to have been horrible. Jesse would’ve relied on Jake to help him through it. To make sense of it. She knew Jake would’ve listened and done his best to give him level-headed advice.

Jesse hadn’t been able to get that. He had still been grieving over his best friend’s sudden death on top of it. She realized it had to have been a horrible time for him.

“I didn’t have anyone to talk to,” Jesse said, confirming the conclusion she’d come to. “Shane, he’s going to be a perpetual bachelor. Bart, he’s got a big mouth. Luke was in no condition to talk to anyone right then.”

Carly swiped at her cheek. She hadn’t realized that her eyes were filling with tears until one spilled over and ran down.

Jesse made a pained face. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it sucks to hear this.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not that. I mean, yeah, it does suck. But I just feel bad for you. I can’t believe she went through with it. I can’t believe she’d do that to you. Especially if she knew that you wanted it. Why did you stay with her after that?”

“Uh…” he grimaced. “That’s actually not what happened at all. She started hemorrhaging one night. I got her to the hospital right away but there was nothing they could do. She ended up losing the baby. It was pretty awful. The thing is, she was a mess after we lost it. She blamed herself because she thought it was karma or some damn thing. Like since she’d been threatening to get rid of it, fate decided to do it for her. Then she blamed me, telling me that since I wouldn’t just marry her, I’d caused her too much stress.”

“Jesse,” Carly said quietly, “those things happen. They aren’t anyone’s fault.”

He nodded miserably. “Yeah, I know that. But I couldn’t walk away from her after that. She was depressed and it scared me. She wanted that baby more than she would ever admit to me. I mean, she was completely broken. I just felt like if I walked away from her then, I’d completely destroy her.”

“Do you really think she would’ve aborted it?” Carly carefully asked. “I mean, she was crazy about you. I can’t imagine that she’d willingly cut that tie to you.”

“At the time, I took her threats seriously. We had some pretty heated arguments. I believed her. I think she’d even convinced herself she’d do it. But I think she knew me well enough to know that I was going to cave. I would’ve married her, if it had come to that. Looking back, hindsight and all, I think she was bluffing. A few months after it happened I found a bag of baby clothes in the closet. That right there told me she’d planned on keeping it all along.”

Carly’s eyebrows shot up. “So she was manipulating you.”

He nodded and his embarrassment was clear. “Yeah, I guess she was. Probably, I should’ve been pissed about that. And part of me was. But after we lost the baby, we were both so crushed. Jake’s death made me look at things differently and after all that happened, I just let it go. She made a mistake and she was paying for it with her guilt.”

She tried to put herself in his place but couldn’t. It was impossible to know what she would’ve done if she were him.
She was sure she couldn’t have been so forgiving.

“For a while, things were good for us. I mean, I think in a way, losing the baby brought us closer together. We agreed not to tell anyone. She didn’t want people to know after the fact. She didn’t want to deal with questions. I mean, she had a really hard time talking about it. She also didn’t want people acting weird around her. So we just kept it to ourselves. You’re the only
person I’ve ever told. So please don’t be pissed that I’ve waited this long to tell you. But really, I promised Betsy I wouldn’t tell anyone. So I’ve been torn. But I just can’t have this between you and me any longer. I needed you to know.”

“I’m not pissed,” she assured him. She hated that he and Betsy had had this huge secret between them all this time.
Not to mention, a life changing connection. Yet she understood his hesitancy in telling her. “Now that I know, it explains a lot. I mean, you were with her a long time. It just didn’t make sense when you claimed that you didn’t really love her.”

He shrugged guiltily. “Honestly, I felt obligated to her. I mean, part of me knew that the miscarriage wasn’t my fault. But another part of me couldn’t stop wondering if she was right. If it was because of the stress, you know? But like I said, on top of that, I couldn’t walk away
. She’d just lost the baby and she kept telling me she couldn’t survive losing me too. So I stayed. Things weren’t great. But they weren’t bad. They were just
comfortable
. So I stayed.