Don't Let Go Read Online Free PDF Page B

are we going to pay for—”
    “That’s your mother talking,” Noah said, jumping to his feet and pacing. “That’s that place they sent you to. It’s not you.” He dropped to his knees again in front of me. “Where are you, Jules?”
    I blinked against the rain in my eyes and instinctively palmed my belly as the baby did a somersault. “I’m right here,” I whispered.
    He shook his head and took my hands in his. “No, you aren’t. You haven’t been for a while. She’s got your head so filled with—”
    “With things that make sense,” I shot back. “You didn’t see that place, Noah. The girls my age that looked thirty, just trying to get through the day.”
    “They’re alone, you’re not,” he said. “You’ve got me.”
    “I want this too, Noah,” I said, my voice cracking. “I’d give anything. I live with it every day, feel it every day. This baby is depending on me right now and I’m scared to death. All I have to do is eat to make it happy, and still I’m scared to death.” I placed his hands on the squirming movement of my belly. “Feel that?”
    His eyes filled with liquid that had nothing to do with the rain. “Yes,” he choked.
    “How do we take care of that?”
    He reversed our hands so that mine were back underneath. “Feel that?” he said, fat tears falling from his eyes. I couldn’t breathe. “How do we walk away from that?”
     
    I opened my eyes to realize there were hot tears rolling down my face. That was the last time our baby had been ours. Two minutes later, my water broke, and I went into labor, setting off a comedy of errors to get to the hospital. And said good-bye to everything.
    How do we walk away from that? Those words had haunted me ever since.
    I swallowed hard, blinking my tears free to see his profile, and turned around. I walked as quietly as I could back up the path, thanking God I wasn’t wearing heels to clack on the sidewalk.
    Was he remembering that same night? Was he thinking about us? Of course not, I chided myself, wiping my eyes. He was back here with a gorgeous girlfriend and plans for the rest of his life. He wasn’t concerned with the nostalgia of an old flame. That look on his face earlier had been totally natural. We both were a little taken aback for a second at seeing each other again for the first time, that’s all. Had he stayed in town, we’d have become dulled to the other’s presence after a while, as all breakups go. We never got the chance to dull. So now—twenty-six years later—we’d have to awkwardly do that.
    My cell buzzed as I got to my car, and I checked to see a text from Becca.
    Out 2 eat wth Lizzy & Darlene. Spnding nite with L.
    I leaned against my car and steadied my breathing, still feeling the burn behind my ribs. Why was he back? Why couldn’t he just stay gone?
    I cleared my throat and shook the thoughts free. I had other issues . It’s a school night, I texted back, in full words, rebelling against the text-speak. I remembered her troubled expression from earlier and felt a stab of concern and curiosity. And wondered what she was really up to. I remembered seventeen. Way too well.
    They go 2 school 2, was her reply. Quizg 4 the govmt test. L mom said ok.
    Quizzing, my ass. She’d forgotten she’d already copped to that. But too tired to pick that particular battle, and remembering I’d dumped her at lunch with her dad, and knowing Lizzy’s mom was somewhat of a Nazi June Cleaver in workout clothes, stricter on Lizzy than I could ever be accused of, and would probably feed her a four-course breakfast in the morning and personally supervise homework, I broke my own rule and gave in.
    Loves, I texted. Our trademark word since she was little.
    Loves :).
    I got in, fixed my eyes, got my shaky nerves under control.
    And called Patrick.
     
    • • •
     
    Patrick was a guilty pleasure, unlike anything I’d ever done before. Never in my life had I had a one-night stand. I’d gone from Noah to a rotation