Page 23 of Let's Be Forever

“Jesus, you two look”—his gaze jumps between the screen and my face, brows arched—“so alike. Sylas, I think…” He cocks his head from side to side, studying the picture and my face. Hesitation flashes across his eyes, but a second later it’s replaced with awareness. “She’s yours.”

“But Anna didn’t tell me anything,” I say, my voice just above a whisper. “We talked about this.” My throat constricts, the weight of what I just found out making it hard to breathe. All the thoughts wildly running through my head abruptly stop, making me feel sick. “We said we’d do it together…Anna, she’s not like that. She would’ve told me.”

“She obviously didn’t,” he replies, irritated. “Unless she’s not yours.”

“You know she’s not like that,” I snap, my eyes becoming slits. “Don’t ever make that fucking accusation.”

I know he didn’t mean it, considering he’s drawing the similarities between the toddler and me.

“Well then what the fuck?” He raises his shoulders in question. “Why didn’t she tell you? That little girl is almost three years old. She had all this time to tell you.”

I shrug and drop onto a chair, unable to answer.

Whydidn’tshe tell me? How can she be mad at me when I didn’t know? Why did she act like I did? Why…fuck…I…that little girl is mine. I know she is. I feel it so deep in my bones.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

10

ANNA

“So that’s…”My chin quivers, but I fight against it, urge my lips to remain flat and the quaking to stop. “That’s what you want?”

“I-I don’t know. I just…” Sylas scrubs a palm over his mouth, briefly closing his sullen eyes. When they pop back open, I feel what he’s going to say before his lips even part. And the last bit of hope I’d been clinging on to withers. “Anna, we just…it’s for the best.”

“Who is it best for? For me or for…” My voice trembles, the words almost inaudible. I try to regulate my breathing, will my lungs to steadily pump, but it feels like something is sitting on my chest while my heart splits into two. “You?”

“For…” His voice breaks but he clears it. “Us.”

A lone tear creeps down my cheek and his eyes immediately trace it. He lifts a hand and takes a step forward, but I take one back. His hand stays suspended in the air, and when he closes the distance, I don’t draw away.

He wipes it away and cradles my cheeks in his palms. Anguish mars his face. “I’m sorry.”

“Then don’t do it,” I plead. The composure I was clinging to crumbles before me as desperation slips through every crevice. I raise my arms, circling my fingers around his wrists in an attempt to keep him where he is. “Stay, please. Don’t do this.”

“It’s better this way. You will be fine without me,” he says, but his eyes betray the determination in his voice. He drops his hands limply at his sides.

“No I won’t. I want to be with you. I’ll come back. We will get the house. We will?—”

His eyes harden, jaw clenching. “You’re not throwing everything away for me. You worked hard for this.”

“We’ll build a future like we promised we would,” I continue. “We’ll?—”

“Anna.” He speaks over me, my name leaving his mouth in a quiet but cold tone. It freezes me in space. The tears build in my ducts but don’t spill. “We’re done. We—I can’t do this anymore.”

“Mama, open.” Rosie holds a toddler-sized fork with a piece of pasta on it. “Ah ah.”

I blink a few times, locking away the memory.

She urges me to lean down and open my mouth, and when I do, she shoves the pasta in. She’s going through a phase where she wants to feed everything to everyone.

“Thank you, my love.” I give her cheek a soft pinch.

She smiles in return and continues eating, her little pigtails bouncing as she tilts her head from side to side. She eats without a care in the world, her mouth and hands covered in Alfredo sauce.

Maya brought her over to the bakery for lunch and bought Em and me food.

Guilt and anger land like a tornado on my chest, twisting and destroying whatever happiness I thought I had finally managed to find. Ever since Sylas showed up last night, I’ve not been able to feel anything but those two emotions.