“I’m sorry about last night.”

“It’s fine. You can’t help how you feel. Or don’t feel,” she adds.

“I’d do anything for you or Christian. It kills me that I wasn’t here last night when you needed me, but I don’t do love and relationships so we’re just delaying the inevitable. I care about you too much to do that to you or him.”

“Why is that?”

Determined and angry isn’t a side of Katrina I’ve seen before. She’s fucking scary.

“I just don’t. Why does it matter?”

“No, that’s not good enough. I want to know why?”

“The last time I was in a relationship it ended horribly. It’s not a path I want to go down again.”

“In high school? How bad could it have ended?” The way she says it I know she’s picturing my high school days differently than hers. Easy – the way my life is now. Easy comes at a cost. The price, deep and meaningful connections.

“My high school girlfriend got pregnant.”

Her mouth forms an O and I can practically see her trying to guess what might have happened.

“For months she let me believe we were going to be a family. I was all in. I would have done anything for them. Which is why I was so shocked when the baby was born, and my girlfriend told me she wasn’t sure it was mine. She’d slept with someone else while we were together and couldn’t be sure. Would have been helpful knowledge before I held that baby girl in my arms. She wasn’t mine, of course, but for those months leading up to it and those two days after she was born when I thought she was… I loved her so damn much.” Fuck, if I concentrate hard enough, I swear I can still smell the top of her newborn head. Voice like gravel, I force myself to continue. If Katrina deserves nothing else, she deserves the truth. “I never saw it coming.”

Katrina stays quiet, her lips pulled into a sad frown.

“I admire you, Kitty. I know how brave you were to have Christian and raise him basically on your own. I just…” My voice cracks and I screw my eyes shut as I say the words. “I vowed never to get that close to someone again. Not to put myself in a position where I don’t have control over the situation. And with Christian in the picture, it just makes it that much harder for me. What if things end badly for us? Losing both of you, I just…”

“I’m sorry she did that to you. That’s really shitty.”

A rough chuckle rumbles in my chest. “Yeah.”

“It’s what makes Joel, Joel.”

I grind down on my back molars. Polly’s actions making me who I am is bullshit. I’ve moved on. Except, just the thought of her makes me so angry I can’t see straight. I’m pissed at a girl I haven’t seen in almost four years and at myself for falling for her in the first place. And doubly pissed it’s fucking with what’s probably the best thing to ever happen to me.