Chapter 14 – I Know Your Secret

She woke up the next morning in a nearly-empty apartment. She had moved most of her stuff out a long time ago, as far back as they had been living in Los Angeles, subletting the apartment to a single woman holding a temporary job in the city for the past year. The women had moved out of the apartment and the city last month, and Addy had been telling herself the whole time that she would look for a new sublet as soon as life slowed down. Since then, they had been using the apartment part-time to store a few things they wanted to keep but couldn't fit in their apartment.

Now that she was back, and for who knew how long, those were the only things she owned. Luckily some of her furniture was still here, included for the sublet – her couch and chair, her dining room table, her bed, her television that they never needed, her coffee table. But currently, she had no dishes, no coffee pot, no food in the refrigerator, no bath towels – only a few of the most basic things she would need like toothpaste and a toothbrush, and about a week and a half's worth of clothes she was able to pack.

She didn't have the heart to go back to the apartment to grab anything. She missed her belongings; not just the clothes and basic necessities, but her photo albums, books, pictures – all the personal things that made her home hers. Maybe a part of her was scared to have to go through the heartbreak of walking out of the apartment again, but she also stayed away for his sake. The way he had looked at her the night before as she had opened the door, tried to kiss him goodbye, and had walked out – she didn't want to have to see that again. She didn't want him to feel that way again.

So when she walked out into her living room that morning and saw how pathetic it looked, with boxes laying around instead of decorations and her old, dusty furniture sitting there, she resolved that as miserable as it was going to be, she would live this way – for a while.

She groaned when she heard a knock on her door.

The last person she expected to see at eight in the morning behind the door when she opened it was Mel – in a t-shirt and track pants with her hair pulled back in a thin headband.

“Happy housewarming,” she said with a smile, holding up a white bag and a drink tray of coffees.

“I love you so much right now,” Adeline responded.

They sat down at the empty dining room table, Mel barely batting an eye at the different surroundings. They regularly met for coffee and donuts, either at one of their apartments or at their favorite cafe spot, but Addy knew that it had to be awkward for Mel. She had obviously found out what had happened the night before, otherwise she wouldn't be here.

“Did you walk here?” Adeline asked, noticing the way Mel was dressed.

“Ran, actually,” Mel responded.

“You ran all the way here?” she asked, surprised. “It's like ten or fifteen miles from your apartment to here!”

“Oh wait, you thought I ran all the way here?” Mel said with a laugh. “I ran to the cafe to pick these up.” She lifted the bag and the coffees before she placed them on the table. “Then I hailed a cab to your apartment.”

“That explains it then,” Addy said with a chuckle.

“I love to go for a run every now and then, but I'm not suicidal.”

“Still, that's quite a ways from your apartment to the cafe,” Adeline said, sitting down. “Five miles or so.”

“I needed it this morning,” Mel responded. “I needed to clear my head.”

“You and me both.”

“So,” Melissa said as she sat down. “Let's catch up. How're things? How'd you sleep? Why in the world did you leave your fiance in the middle of the night?”

“You get right to the point.”

“Apparently so do you,” Mel said, grabbing a doughnut out of the bag in front of her. “Last night when I left you were there. This morning when I woke up and went to your apartment to talk to you, Lance told me you had left, you were gone. In a span of less than eight hours. I was slightly curious.”

Adeline sighed. “I couldn't tell him, Mel.”

“I don't understand, Addy. Why? He's your fiance. You're marrying him – or at least you were.”

“I still want to get married.”

“Then why?” Mel asked. “I mean this is a good thing, isn't it? You both want kids. You'd be great parents. A baby with your nose and lips, his eyes and blonde hair...”

“I can't put him through it,” Addy responded. “I just...can't put him through this.”

“Through what, having a baby?” Melissa chuckled. “I know Lance is a little...well...immature, I guess, but I think he's capable of parenting. I think he'd be a great dad.”

“I could swear you complimented him.”

Melissa chuckled. She thought it was funny too, considering how her encounter with Lance had gone this morning. He had answered the door half-asleep as it was and he hadn't been pleased when it ended up being her behind it. He hadn't slammed the door in her face, but he had been cold and short, giving her a dirty look before trying to get her out of his way as quickly as he could. Justin wasn't exactly welcoming either.

“It gave me a funny feeling I didn't like, but at least my nose didn't grow so you can tell I'm not lying when I say it,” Melissa replied. “I do think he would be a great dad. And he loves you to death, Ad. I can't see him being mad at you for lying to him about being able to get pregnant, under the circumstances. And I think if you went back and told him that you're pregnant, he would actually be thrilled.”

“It's not only about the lie,” Addy said. “I can't put him through the pain, Mel.”

“What pain, Addy?”

She started tearing up, leaving Mel to reach out for her hand and give it a squeeze across the table.

“The pain of him watching my stomach grow. The pain of him watching his son or daughter grow inside of me. Him touching and kissing my stomach and telling the baby how much he loves it, and planning a nursery, picking out names...and then one day, it's not there anymore.”

“Oh Addy...” Mel felt a stab of sadness pierce her heart. “You don't know that it's going to happen.”

“It's more likely to happen than not,” Addy said, more tears falling. “I have this fucked up body that...that just...betrays me. And I can't put him through this, Mel. I just can't.”

Melissa went silent, watching Adeline sniff a few times and wipe her eyes, trying to compose herself. The combination of hormones and the emotional baggage that had come back around to her friend had to be rough, and she wished she knew the right thing to say.

“So out of curiosity,” Mel asked, “what exactly is your plan here? Hang out and cool your heels here until you're ready to tell him? Wait until he figures it out for himself? Never tell him?”

“I'm going to wait until the inevitable happens,” Addy said. “I can hide the pregnancy from him until then. Then I'll go back to live in the apartment and tell him I've finally sorted out my head.”

“There are so many things wrong with that plan that it's ridiculous,” Mel said, rolling her eyes. “First of all – look at you. Addy, you're already starting to show. You'll be able to hide it another couple of months, tops. Then he'll start questioning why you're wearing hoodies in August when it's eighty degrees outside.”

Addy reached down and touched her stomach, feeling the bump that felt like it had grown overnight already. Right now, it was easily disguised by a t-shirt and loose pants – but she couldn't do that forever. In fact, she would start growing out of her current size within a month or two if her last pregnancy was any indication. And she refused to wear hoodies in August at almost five months pregnant in the midst of the New York summer.

“Second of all,” Mel continued, “you guys are still technically 'together', right? What if you two are together and decide to have an intimate moment? You know that even apart, you two probably won't be able to keep your hands off each other. How are you going to explain that belly when you take off your shirt – you're smuggling a basketball full of drugs in from Mexico as a side job?”

Another good point. Yes, she hadn't thought it out as much as she should have. She would still see Lance; and when she did, she couldn't say that the scenario wouldn't go down something like Mel had described. She could hide from him the fact that she was still throwing up from morning sickness, not taking the pills she had been prescribed every day, and constantly going to the bathroom by moving out of the apartment. But there were things that wouldn't be so easy to hide from him.

“Third – what happens if, God forbid, the supposedly inevitable does happen? What are you going to tell him when you're laying in the hospital and he asks you why?”

Aside from not calling and telling him when it did happen – which would nearly impossible on a practical level and unbearable on an emotional level – she had no answer.

“Even if you could successfully hide this pregnancy from him until after it happened – and there's no way you could – how can you of all people say that you'll go back to living with him in the apartment and tell him you've finally sorted out your head? You'll be an emotional wreck. The last thing you'll be is 'sorted out', Addy.”

He would be her main source of support, if it happened. She knew how it felt to have an unsupportive husband, and it made something that was already a nightmare that much worse. But he wasn't her ex-husband – he would be there for her, he would take care of her. He would be as devastated as she would be.

That was the problem. She knew what it had been like getting through that, and she still wasn't over it. She never would be. She couldn't put him through that.

Mel stayed for hours. At first it had been tough for Addy, talking through all that stuff with her, but eventually it felt cathartic. She could talk with Lance openly and easily enough about some of these things, but as a man, he didn't understand. He didn't have the natural instinct in him to be a mother like most women did. Melissa was a woman and therefore understood the natural pull to have children and take care of them. She could understand how much it would hurt to be told it may never be possible; to be told that your body didn't work quite right.

She could relate.

“Thank you for today,” Addy said quietly as she opened the door for Mel as she was ready to leave.

“That's what friends are for, right?” she responded with a smile.

“Now I wish I knew what to do.”

“You do,” Melissa said, stepping out into the hallway. “You don't think you do, but you know exactly what to do. You're afraid.”

Afraid wasn't the word for it, she realized – she was terrified.

“You have to tell him, Addy,” Mel finally said. “Would you rather him feel the pain of losing a child that he was able to fall in love with in the short time he got to know it, or feel the pain of losing a child that he never knew existed until it was already gone?”

All she could do was nod in understanding and close the door behind Mel as she walked away. It hit her hard, and when she was alone, all she could do was take the ultrasound out of her purse and sit on the couch with it, crying as she looked at it.

It looked so much like the first ultrasound she'd had with April – a grainy, black and white blob that you wouldn't be able to see any distinguishing features of if you only gave it a glance. But if you looked close, there were tiny hands, feet, and a beating heart.

How long that heart would beat remained to be seen.

Eventually she was able to dig herself out of the hole she'd managed to bury herself in, and decided she needed to run to the store for some much needed groceries and shower products. She brushed her teeth, splashed cold water on her face, and tried to make herself look as presentable as she could by throwing on a bit of foundation and mascara.

She was only mildly happy with her appearance when she grabbed her purse and got ready to step out the door, but once she sat one foot outside the threshold, her appearance was the last thing on her mind.

Laying on the floor in front of her door was another plain, white note card.

She cautiously leaned outside the door, looking down either side of the hallway – not under the illusion that she might actually see who could have left it, but out of instinct – before picking it up and turning it over to reveal the words on it.

I know your secret, Adeline. Tsk tsk. What would he think if he knew?

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Lance was on his way as soon as she had called.

“You didn't have to come,” she said after she had opened the door to him.

“Yeah, I did,” he said. “Were you going to handle this by yourself? I don't think so.”

She sighed as he walked into her apartment. He could tell that this wasn't what she wanted, him coming by, but she had called him for a reason. What was he supposed to do, ignore it?

“The place is kind of empty, isn't it?” he asked as he caught sight of it. For the last year they had essentially used the place as a storage shed, only keeping her name on the lease because it was convenient and being all the way across the country, they didn't have the time to move out her stuff to give up the apartment. When the chance to sublet it came up, they jumped at the opportunity to unload it off to someone else temporarily until they had time to deal with everything.

Now he honestly regretted that they had kept the apartment at all.

“I'm working on it,” she said, clearly displeased. “It will do for now.”

He shrugged. He honestly didn't understand it. He had spent the whole night before trying to comprehend what he had done wrong that she felt she needed to move out of his apartment. They had lived together for a year and a half, it wasn't anything scary or new. Even before they had officially moved in together in their apartment in LA, she had stayed at his apartment so much that she was living there.

He thought he gave her everything she needed or wanted. He had thought they were happy. The night before had blindsided him.

“Seems like between living here and coming back to our apartment, the choice would be obvious,” he said, planting his hands in the pocket of his jeans.

“Lance, don't start with me,” she said, her tone soft but warning. “I don't need this today.”

“Where is it?” he asked with a sigh.

Rolling her eyes slightly when he wasn't looking, she walked off to her kitchen counter, grabbing the note from where she had placed it. She brought it to him completely silent, crossing her arms across her chest as she handed it to him.

“Cocky little bitch,” he chuckled lowly to himself, letting a smile cross his face as he read it. She knew that smile; it was his pissed-off smile, the one that told you he wasn't impressed at all.

“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.

“The only thing I can do,” he said as he looked at her. “I'll take it to Abrams in the morning. I have an appointment with him at ten anyway.”

“What for?” she asked. She felt alarmed; she knew nothing of this meeting.

“Let me worry about it,” he said. “Stay out of it, Addy.”

She huffed; she knew he was upset at her for what had happened the night before, and the last thing that she wanted was him here either. She wanted her space to cool off, too. But there was no reason for him to talk to her like that.

“Is there something that I should know?” he suddenly asked her, a look in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“What secret don't I know?” he said.

She froze momentarily – the note. He'd read it, and in the panic of receiving another one, she hadn't considered that she'd given him too much information, given him a reason to question her. She wasn't prepared to lie her way out of it.

“What secret?” she asked pathetically.

“That's what I asked you,” he replied, a slight smirk on his face.

“I don't know what that note is talking about, Lance,” she said, trying to act confident.

“You sure about that?” he asked. “Funny that it comes at a time when you need 'space' then.”

She sighed. “Look, Lance, I know you're upset with me...”

“Upset?” he scoffed. “You're damn right I'm upset! I thought everything was good. Then you suddenly leave, and you give me absolutely no explanation as to why. Do you expect me to be okay with this?”

“I don't expect you to be okay with it at all,” she said, raising her voice. If he could yell, so could she. “All I'm asking for is understanding from you that I've got shit to work out right now.”

“So you talk to me about it!” he yelled. “You don't leave!”

“I can't talk to you about it!”

It had been a long time since she'd lost her temper like this. In fact, she didn't normally lose her temper quite this much. She figured it was partially due to the crazy ride that hormones were taking her on, because the next moment all she wanted to do was burst into tears.

“Is there someone else?”

She didn't think he'd ask it so blatantly – but after she thought about it, it made sense. That was how he was.

“Is that what you think?” she asked.

“I don't know what to think,” he said.

He tried to gauge her honesty by her face – could she look him in the eye when she answered him? She had her arms crossed, staring at him with that are you stupid look on her face that she gave him when she found his behavior ridiculous. But what was that supposed to tell him?

“So what are you trying to do, accuse me of cheating on you?” she asked.

“Do you blame me?” he asked. “First I get a bug in my ear asking if I know what you're doing when I'm not looking, what lies you've told me. Then you up and leave one night – and now this.” He held the note card up in his hand. “This one wasn't intended to go to me. It was intended to go to you, as if you clearly know what it means, that there's something that you're not telling me.”

“And the first thing you think is that I'm seeing someone else behind your back?”

“Wouldn't you?” he asked. “It's not like you haven't done it before, Addy.”

She stared at him a long time, shocked that he would have the nerve to bring it up. Their history, it had been rough and had started out because of infidelity – hers. But she never could have imagined that he would throw it back in her face.

“If that's the way you feel Lance, I think you should leave.”

He nodded, looking down at his feet.

“Fine,” he said. He quickly stuffed the note card she had given him in his back pocket, turning around slowly toward the door. “You should stay in the apartment and lock all your doors and windows. You shouldn't be going anywhere.”

“I have things to do,” she said simply. “I'm not locking myself in my apartment because you tell me I should.”

“I'm trying to keep you safe,” he said, turning around to face her suddenly as he put his hand on the doorknob.

They shared an uncomfortable, silent stare for a few seconds. It was the closest they had been to each other since the scene at his apartment the night before.

“You know what?” he said, throwing a hand up. “Do what you want, Addy. You always do anyway.”

Before she could say anything, he roughly turned the knob and threw the door open, quickly walking out and closing it behind him.

She felt so much rage and anger that she stood in front of the door for a moment. Clenching her eyes closed, she brought her hands up to the door, leaning her head against and squeezing her hands and every muscle she could, she let out a closed-mouth scream to release some of it. Afterwards, she stood there against the door, slowly breathing in and out to let the anger flow through her and out easily.

She never thought he would accuse her of that – but now that she knew that it was out on the table, a part of her was thankful she hadn't told him about her pregnancy. Who knew what can of worms that would open up for her. She didn't want to think about it. She knew the truth.

The problem was that she was stuck. He didn't know the truth – and apparently, someone else did. And that person wasn't above trying to ruin her life.