Chapter 146

“Here.” Elisa slides down beside me on her bed where I have been sobbing to her for the last hour, pushing the warm cup of cocoa into my free hand. I’m clutching a wad of tissues with the other, looking pathetic and snotty, blotchy and red-faced. Sniffing chaotically and gulping as the last evidence of my almighty emotional breakdown fades back into calm. I feel like I have been hit by a train.

I guess I had been holding so much inside concerning the paternity test that it finally came to a head. I had been ignoring its existence, trying not to wait for it as deep down, I had resigned myself to believing there was no hope. So, seeing it and knowing it was all for nothing somehow broke me.

Not just in a painful way, but I get a sense of relief, and that is as equally overwhelming as the tension I have been holding in a tight ball finally coming undone. I cried not just for loss but for the removal of some of that weighty pressure.

“Are you feeling a little better?” She