He Forced Me To Abort Now He Begs Me Back Chapter 22
Before the trial, the court scheduled one last settlement conference.
Evan sat across from me. There was no coffee on the table this time, no agreement offering me property in exchange for joint custody.
This time, he tried to use child support as leverage.
“If you agree to equal decision-making and three days of visitation a week, I won’t pursue the fact that you didn’t notify me of the birth, and I won’t ask you to pay my legal fees.”
My lawyer closed her file.
“You seem to be confused, Mr. Cole. Child support is not a bargaining chip to be offered to Ms. Bennett.”
Evan didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes fixed on me.
“I’ve done the visits. I’ve signed up for the classes. What else do you want from me?”
“It’s not about what I want from you.”
I pushed the investigator’s report toward him.
“This is a professional recommendation based on your actions.”
“The report only sees the mistakes I made.”
“You’re asking for the right to care for an infant. Of course the court is going to scrutinize your past behavior.”
His breathing grew uneven.
“I never actually hurt Aurora. She was born perfectly healthy, wasn’t she?”
The conference room went dead quiet.
My lawyer slowly lifted her eyes from her notepad.
“Please say that again.”
Evan’s face changed instantly.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” I asked.
“At the time, I was trying to find a way to save Mason. The doctors would have assessed the risk. I never wanted anything bad to happen to either of you.”
“You wanted me to terminate the pregnancy.”
“She was only twelve weeks along then!”
The second the words left his mouth, he froze.
At last, he had stopped calling it a misunderstanding. Stopped calling it an imperfect choice.
Twelve weeks.
Now, Aurora was a daughter whose rights he was fighting for.
Back then, she had just been a number he was willing to erase.
My lawyer switched off the small recording device on the table.
“This settlement conference is over.”
Evan shot to his feet.
“Leah, I’m not here to win or lose.”
I stood, too.
“But every time you claim to love someone, you start by making someone else pay the price.”
His shoulders slumped.
“I just want to make up for it.”
“Making up for something means taking responsibility for the consequences. It doesn’t mean you get the outcome you want.”
Diane was waiting outside the conference room.
She had clearly overheard the last few lines. Her face was like stone.
“This is all Natalie’s fault,” she muttered. “If she hadn’t refused to continue the evaluation, none of this would have ever happened.”
Evan stopped in his tracks.
“You’re the one who said Leah was young and could just have another child.”
Diane’s eyes went wide.
“But you were the one who got on that stage and made the announcement!”
“You were the one who had the statement drafted!”
“You were the one who froze the accounts!”
They stood a few feet apart, pointing fingers at each other, neither one mentioning the choices they had made for themselves.
I walked right past them.
This time, I didn’t have to expose anything.
Every word out of their mouths was doing the work for me.