He Asked For Space I Left With His Baby Chapter 14
Years ago, Roman would just disappear after dinner.
Hours would go by before I’d finally ask, *Everything okay?*
His reply was always the same.
*Yeah.*
It never occurred to him to tell me when he was done, or to ask about my evening.
When I brought it up, he would just sigh. “Don’t you have anything better to do than wait for me to text you back?”
I had long since stopped caring if someone replied in minutes.
Even so, a quiet warmth spread through my chest as I listened to Ethan’s message.
I wrote back:
*No worries.*
*Take care of what you need to do.*
Almost immediately, the status above our chat changed to *typing…*
Then a long message filled the screen.
*No one is ever too busy to let someone they care about know they’re thinking of them.*
*It takes two seconds to write, “I’ll be busy for a while.”*
*Or, “I’ll call you after.”*
*The people who matter deserve that much.*
*I hope someday you’ll let me be that person for you.*
I stared at his words, but didn’t reply.
That afternoon, I left the office early.
Mostly, I wasn’t ready to see Ethan after a message like that.
Instead, I found Roman waiting outside my building.
He was holding a bouquet of white roses as snow drifted down through the lamplight.
“I want to show you I can be different.” His breath clouded in the cold air.
“Let me do all the things for you that you used to do for me.”
“I’ll be the one to check in. I’ll make the calls. I’ll send the first text.”
I watched him in silence. “You couldn’t do any of that when we lived in the same house. Why would being apart make it any easier?”