Episode 548: Losing Hope

"I need to get to class," she announced. "I’ll leave the key. You can lock up and put it in the mailbox."

She stood. Paul blocked her path. For an invalid, he moved unfortunately quickly. "You need to talk."

Lucy looked into his broad chest. She wanted no part of his eyes. They would be either indicting or sympathetic. She didn’t need that. She needed to man up, or rather, woman up and stop going all moony eyed every time she saw that lamb. It was just a stuffed toy. An inanimate object. It wasn’t her baby. She didn’t have a baby. She had a degree to earn. A career to build. "I need to go to class."

"You need to talk to me."

Paul did the most awful thing. Well, the most awful thing next to forcing her to deal with the pregnancy on her own. He shoved Lambie into her hands. She wanted to shove Lambie right back at him. But letting go remained an ongoing problem so she accepted Lambie into her arms.

She could tell by the worry in his brow that he spied the unnatural attachment to Lambie, saw the very crazy, the very longing, she did not want to acknowledge out loud, she did not want to give more power than she already had.

"I don’t owe you any explanations Paul." She pulled out her keys, fired them at him, and once more turned to go, still hugging Lambie, as if it wouldn’t look incredibly insane in class.

"You’re right, you don’t owe me anything," Paul said. "I wasn’t there. I haven’t been there. I owe you." A heavy arm came around her. "Talk to me, Lu. Something isn’t right here. You need to talk. Pummel me if it helps. I know I’m way late in the game, but I want to help." He pulled her into the wall of his chest, a place she’d once felt impossibly safe. "How did you end up with Lambie?"

Before she could stop herself, it all tumbled out. The well-meaning visit over Christmas. The favorite toy accidentally left behind. The numerous times since then that Lucy had claimed she was too busy to return it. "I’m like, holding her dolly hostage. I hug it. A lot."

Episode 549: Grown Man