“Adam, I said some shit that I really regret now. I blamed you for what happened and I shouldn’t have done that.”

I shrugged. “You weren’t wrong.”

His eyes narrowed. “Yes. Yes, I was wrong. I want you to understand where my head was at during all that. She…” He hesitated and then took a deep breath. “She was falling apart. You two had just broken up and then she found out about the cancer and she swore me to secrecy. I blame myself every day for keeping a secret I had no right to keep.”

My jaw tightened and then I relaxed it enough to speak. “You were being loyal. You were doing what she wanted.”

He shook his head. “She wasn’t rational. I shouldn’t have agreed. But I did and I blame myself for that.”

“There’s too many of us assuming blame for things that we shouldn’t be.”

He studied me, scratching the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yeah…so about that. I’m just saying—that day I took a swing at you and those weeks afterward when I wasn’t very kind…I was wrong. I was stressed out beyond words and worried out of my mind about her. And you were an easy target to focus all of that on.”

“Well, like I said before, thanks for being there for her when she needed someone…” I shifted, trying to power through this very uncomfortable conversation.

He looked away and then, when I moved as if I would open my car door to move this along, he put a hand on my shoulder. “Adam, don’t give up on her.”

My shoulders sagged. “It’s not a matter of giving up on her…”

“Man, I know what you are thinking. I know you can’t take what she’s doing to herself. She just needs the time to heal from all of this. It’s been a shitty year for both of you. But from her point of view…She had to make a gut-wrenching choice and we both know she made the choice for the best. But I don’t think she’s realized that yet.”

I shook my head. “She’s in hell and it’s not a hell of her own making. I put her in that situation—”

Heath’s hand slipped off my shoulder and he nodded. “Hmm. Somehow I knew that was at the bottom of all this. That she isn’t the only one wrapped up in her own irrationality. Given her emotional state these last few months, I’d expect that of her. But from you, I thought I’d get much more logical reasoning.”

“What’s more logical than she had to end a pregnancy that I caused in the first place?”

“Shit happens. You aren’t the first guy who got his girlfriend pregnant. It’s not like you invented that. Thank God I’ll never have to face that problem. Gay guys have plenty of issues of their own. But for God’s sake, man up and realize that shit happens. It happened and it might happen again. Or it might not. You never know with life. But it’s not like you set out to do that to her. Any more than she set out to have it happen to her.”

I took a pained breath and let it out. He was right, of course, but I wasn’t ready to admit that.

Heath spoke again. “I talked to her the other night.”

“She’s okay?” I asked between clenched teeth.

“She’s hopeful. She’s still very hopeful about the two of you. But she’s worried about you.”

I sighed. “I’m not so hopeful. That’s why she’s worried.”

“Well, you’ve got some questions to ask yourself, then. You need to figure out whether or not you’re willing to go forward without her. Because that’s what it’s going to be. You either do what’s necessary to have her in your life or you back away, declare it too hard and not worth it and live without her.”

“Thinking like a programmer. How very black and white of you…”

“Adam, you’re a problem-solver. You have a problem. You need to figure out a way to solve it. Put that genius brain to work.”

“I am. I have been.”

“Well, whatever the resolution you come to, I hope it’s the one that makes you happy.”

Happy. What was that? An elusive state of mind? A destination? Or a decision?

Days went by and I pondered over that. I occupied myself with some odd things that had nothing to do with work. I was struggling to find a way to communicate with her while we were on radio silence from each other. I had an alert set up that would let me know when she’d log in to the game. She never did. I wasn’t surprised. Either she was avoiding it or she was working hard at the task of finding herself.