Page 312 of Tell Me I'm Enough

He turns toward me like he’s bracing for whatever I’m about to say because of the switch in my tone.

“Huh?”

I stare straight ahead, not wanting to look at him and fall apart.

“There’s something I never told you,” I say.

I can see him tense up at that. “Okay.”

I take a shaky breath and notice my hands are trembling, so I tuck them under my thighs like I can pin them down.

“I didn’t want to have to tell you,” I whisper. “I didn’t even know how to feel about it myself. But…I can’t keep holding it alone anymore. And you deserve to know.”

Mason’s throat bobs. “Simone, you’re scaring me.”

I let out a shaky laugh that sounds more like a sob. “Yeah. Me too.”

I finally look up at him. His eyes are on mine, steady. No haze. No distant glassiness. Just…my Mason. It makes my throat burn.

“I was pregnant,” I whisper.

It feels like someone hit pause on time. He just looks at me like he’s trying to both take in those words while also wanting to reject them.

“What?”

My eyes fill instantly. “I was pregnant a few months back,” I repeat, voice cracking. “And I…I miscarried.”

Mason doesn’t move.

He just stares at me like he got punched.

“Simone…” he says, barely getting my name out.

“I didn’t know until it was already happening, and it got bad, really fast. I had to go to the hospital, and I had to have a D&C.”

“You…you went through that?” he whispers, horrified. “Alone?”

I nod silently.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I can tell he’s not angry, just sad, and that makesmeeven more sad.

“I don’t know. I was scared, and we were going through a lot, and—”

“And I wasn’t what you needed. You couldn’t lean on me.”

“I—it’s not that I didn’t want you there with me,” I quickly say, not wanting him to be mad at me.

“Simone,” he says, stopping me. “That was a statement, not an accusation. I wasn’t what you needed then, and I’m so,sosorry that I wasn’t.”

I crumble.

The sob that leaves me is ugly.

Mason reaches for me, finally, and pulls me into him.

His arms wrap around me tight, one hand cradling the back of my head, pressing my face into his shoulder like he’s trying to shield me from this fucked up world.