The Weight of the Truth [POV: Abigail]
Abigail lay in bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, covers tangled around her legs from tossing and turning for the last two hours. No matter how hard she tried to push it aside, Nate’s words played on an endless loop in her head.
“And you didn’t fight for him?”
It wasn’t an accusation, but it might as well have been. Because the truth was, she hadn’t. She never fought for Vincent. Never gave him the chance to explain, never demanded more from him, never told him the one thing that would have changed everything.
She never told him about the baby.
Her hand drifted to her stomach, fingers brushing lightly over the small swell beneath her nightshirt. He didn’t know. He had no idea that while he had been unraveling his life, she had been carrying the one thing that still tied them together.
But what would it change if he did?
Vincent still cheated. Whether or not Hannah’s child was his, he still made the decision that shattered their future. He still let her walk away without chasing after her, still told her he had to marry another woman.
And yet, the thought gnawed at her.
If he had known, would he have fought for her?
Would he have chosen differently?
The questions had never mattered before. She had been too angry, too heartbroken to even consider them. But now, with Nate making her feel things she hadn’t let herself feel in months, the weight of it all pressed down on her, refusing to be ignored.
She reached for her phone, hesitating as her thumb hovered over Vincent’s number. She still knew it by heart. It had been months, but she had never deleted it, never truly erased him from her life.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she pressed the call button.
It rang once.
Twice.
Her breath caught, panic rising in her chest. Just before the third ring, she dropped the call.
Her heart pounded as she stared at the screen, her pulse erratic. What was she even thinking?
She tried again, pressing the call button with shaking fingers.
Ring.
Ring.
She hung up.
Frustrated, she ran a hand over her face, exhaling sharply.
Damn it, Aby.
Her phone vibrated against her palm. The screen lit up.
Vincent.
Her chest tightened, fingers gripping the edges of her blanket. She should ignore it. She should turn off the phone, pretend she never made the call in the first place.
But she didn’t.
Lifting it to her ear, she swallowed against the tightness in her throat.
“Hello?”
There was a pause, the kind that made time stretch unbearably. Then, finally, his voice came through the line, softer than she remembered.
“Hey, Aby…”
Her breath hitched. It had been so long since she had heard him say her name like that—gentle, hesitant, like he wasn’t sure if he still had the right.
She swallowed hard, gripping the phone tighter. She had called him for a reason.
“Can you meet me tomorrow morning?” Her voice was steadier than she expected. “Le Petit Jardin. Nine AM.”
Another pause. Then, “Yeah. Of course.”
The lump in her throat was impossible to swallow. She forced the words out anyway.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
A beat of silence, then his quiet, careful reply.
“Okay.”
She ended the call before she could change her mind.
Placing the phone on the nightstand, she lay back against the pillow, staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow, she would tell him.
