Deflected Hearts: Chapter 4

Seeing August wasn’t what I expected to happen Friday night. After running into him, I can’t help but question my decision to disappear from his life. I still stand by it because he has enough stuff going on in his life and the last thing I want to do is disrupt it… but the look on his face when he saw my stomach, I can’t erase it from my memory.

It’s Monday morning and my weekend shifts are over, so now it’s time to switch back into school mode so I can focus on my classes this week. I’m literally so close to finishing and I’ll be graduating a year early with the way I’ve loaded my schedule. It was always my plan, but since getting pregnant, I need to make sure I’m done before the baby comes.

After losing my sister, I had this drive inside of me to help others. I toyed around with the idea of being a psychologist and working in the mental health field for the longest time after seeing Evie’s struggles. I’ll be finishing my bachelor’s degree this spring and will still need to continue my masters to make that happen, so for now, I plan on going into social work.

After the baby comes, I can always take online classes in the evening to work toward my end goal. It won’t be easy, but I just want to do something good in the world. I want to make a difference in someone’s life. I know social work isn’t where I want to stop, but it’s a starting point.

And we need as many of those as we can get in life.

As I get dressed for class, my mom pops her head into the bathroom door. Her bright blue eyes meet mine. “How are you feeling this morning? Do you have classes all day?”

I nod, curling my wrist as I add the wing to my eyeliner. “I should be home around dinnertime. And I feel like I do every morning… freaking tired.”

My mother laughs lightly, flashing her bright white teeth at me. She’s been nothing but supportive since I found out I was pregnant, even though she has no idea who the father is. Unlike my father, who I lost touch with after Evie’s death, she’s been involved in my life every step of the way. She picked up the pieces whenever they fell and was always a shining light in the darkness of life.

She remarried after the divorce and she’s been with Benjamin since. Growing up, we came from a middle-class family, but when she married him, our lives changed for the better. He is a lawyer, who makes a cushy income. My mother, though, she still refuses to be dependent on a man after things went south with my father.

Even to this day, although she doesn’t have to get a job, she still wakes up every morning and goes and works her nine-to-five job as a librarian. I honestly think she just needs the escape, that she would go crazy if she sat at home by herself every day doing the same monotonous bullshit. Losing Evie was hard on her too, but she accepted it as the accident it was.

There was nothing any of us could do to change what happened. Nothing was going to bring her back, and my mother clung to me even harder, since I was her only surviving child. She didn’t spoil me in that sense, but she always made sure I was okay and had everything I needed. We were close before Evie passed away, but her passing added a new level of closeness to our relationship. That was the only positive thing that came from her death.

My father, however… he moved on with a brand-new family, essentially replacing us. Even though he was remarried before Evie died, it’s like I was a painful reminder and just my existence made him cringe. It was hard for me to accept at first, but after many therapy sessions and a lot of internal work, I accepted it for what it was. That was just one of his flaws and I couldn’t fault him for that. Instead, I made the conscious decision for my own mental health that it was better to sever ties with him. And I couldn’t have been happier with that decision.

Especially now that I’m pregnant. He would never accept that, and not having him in my life only made it easier.

“Did you want to go get dinner with me after you’re done with your classes?” my mother asks after a moment. “Benjamin has meetings all evening, so I thought maybe just the two of us could go get something to eat and chat.”

“That sounds nice.” I smile back at her, pulling my braided hair over my shoulder before shrugging on my sweater. “I’ll call you when I’m leaving campus.”

“Perfect.” She beams, pulling me in for a quick hug. “Love you, Pop. Have a good day at school!”

I cringe at her words, a soft laughter falling from my lips. She says the words so casually, like I’m back in middle school, getting ready to go to school. But no. This is more than that. A lot of kids I have classes with mess around and throw it all away. I can’t afford to do that. This is more than just attending a university and going to class. My entire future—

entire future—depends on this.

As I head downstairs, I hear my mother shutting the garage door before her car disappears down the street. I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and a granola bar before heading out to my car in the driveway. Thankfully, my mom’s house isn’t far from campus, but I still like to get there a little early to get some studying in before I have to be at class.

And there’s one thing that always brings me comfort when I go to class. It’s my space, my domain. August may have shown up where I work, but I don’t think he knew that I worked there. He was there on a date, for Christ’s sake. Thankfully, we don’t attend the same university, so he has no reason to be on campus. I don’t have to worry about running into him again—reliving that pain.

It shouldn’t have hurt me, but it fucking did. Seeing him with someone else had my stomach in knots and I hated the way it made me feel. I wasn’t good enough for him to make more time for, but he could date someone else?

It doesn’t matter anymore. I can’t focus on that and let August Whitley fuck with my head again. We went our separate ways for a reason and what he does now is out of my control. I can’t let it bring me down.

As I drive to campus, his face lingers in my mind. The way he looked when he realized I was pregnant and the possibility of it being his… Hell, his unanswered question had nestled itself inside my mind, worming its way into the darkest crevices of my mind. August Whitley wasn’t done with me until he got his answer.

I just need to figure out how to tell him the truth.

I get through my first few classes without any issues. Since I’m only about four and a half months pregnant, the baby isn’t too big yet, so I’m not completely uncomfortable or having to run to the bathroom every five minutes. It was terrible at first, with the morning sickness. I almost thought I wouldn’t survive it, but I did. Now, I just feel like I’m tired all the time.

And thankfully, I have an hour and a half until my next class. Just enough time to get something to eat and try to take a quick nap in my car. I should really use the time to study for the material we just went over in my morning classes, but I can’t stop yawning and I have to give my body the rest it needs. I am growing a damn human inside my stomach right now, after all.

I stop by the café and grab a sandwich and a drink before heading outside. It’s nicer out today, even though the air is cold. The bright sun hanging in the sky above is a nice contrast and the warmth it lends soaks through my winter coat, cocooning me in the heat. I find an empty picnic table and sit down to eat my lunch alone.

Unwrapping my sandwich, I take a bite as I glance around the courtyard. Other students sit with some of their friends, all conversing over their meals. I’ve made a few friends, but none I really cared to reach out to, to spend time like this with. It was weird but I preferred the silence and my own company over having others around sometimes. Especially on a day like this, where my brain is struggling to keep up and I really just want to go to sleep.

“Poppy…” I hear his voice and my body stills, my sandwich falling from my hands onto the wrapper in front of me on the table. I don’t bother turning around, but my senses are on high alert. August doesn’t go to school here, this is my safe place and he’s somewhere he doesn’t belong right now.

I watch him from the corner of my eye as he switches from my peripheral vision to directly in front of me and he stands by the picnic table with his hands tucked in the front pockets of his black joggers. My throat feels dry, my heart pounding erratically as it threatens to burst through my ribs and flop onto the table in front of me.

“Is anyone sitting here?” he asks, feigning innocence with a shy tone. His hazel eyes search mine and he shifts his weight nervously on his feet. The sun shines down on his dark hair, highlighting strands as it gives dimension to the soft waves.

Not trusting my voice, I shake my head as I take a large gulp of my drink, my hand shaking as I set it back down. August swings his legs over the bench and sits down in front of me as he folds his hands on the table. Leaning forward, he softens his gaze on mine.

“You’re not an easy person to find, Poppy Williams.” August tilts his head to the side, a smirk playing on his full lips. “Do you know how hard it was for me to find you? After months of trying to figure out where the hell you went, when you were literally less than thirty minutes away.”

“Why are you here, August?” I question him, not taking the bait as I pick my sandwich back up and take a bite of it. It’s my feeble attempt to seem unaffected by his presence, by his surprise visit, when in reality my appetite is completely gone and I just want to run back home and curl up under the covers in my childhood bed. “You don’t go to school here.”

“Oh, I know.” He grins, a shadow passing over his expression. “But you do. And you’re the exact reason why I’m here.”

I sigh, chewing my food before washing it down with another sip of my drink. Setting my sandwich back down, I give him an unamused stare. “What do you want, August?”

“The answer to my question.”

He’s so simple, so matter-of-fact. It’s as if he thinks that I’m going to just spill my secrets that easily, because he asked that of me. I swallow hard over the lump forming in my throat and toy with the thought. I could lie to him—it would be the easiest way to get him out of my face right now. He doesn’t deserve that, though. Just because we couldn’t make things work between us doesn’t mean I can’t be honest with him.

After all, this isn’t just my secret to keep.

“Ask me again,” I challenge him, tilting my head to the side as I fold my hands in front of myself like he did with his.

August’s throat bobs as he swallows roughly. He narrows his eyes on mine, chewing on the inside of his cheek as an uncomfortable silence envelops us. He doesn’t speak a single word, instead he stares directly through me, as if he already knows the answer without asking the question.

“Is it mine?”

My heart stops in my chest before crawling into my throat. Our surroundings simply fade away and it’s just the two of us, suspended in time, hanging by a thread. How easily that thread can be frayed…

“It’s yours.”