Four Weekends & a Photograph (WAYHAUGHT)

Chapter 32

It took me a few seconds to register Wynonna's revelation about the pregnancy. I could see how distraught she was, and how desperate was her need to tell me her secret, whatever that was. I'm not the natural hugging type, relying on others to make the first move, like Chrissy. Well, unless it's Waverly, who I would have no problem hugging forever.

Anyway, it was clear Wynonna's heart was breaking. Doc Holliday had indeed destroyed her, and here she was in all her fragility before me, in need of someone to reassure her it was alright to still have feelings for him.

I reached out, rubbing her arm. "Hey, hey, it's okay. It's going to be okay."

"It's not. It's really not. I thought if he...oh God, I wanted him so bad I was prepared to lie. I lied. Not some stupid fucking white lie, but a big, fat, unforgivable lie.

I kept my hand on her arm, wondering where she was going with this.

"I thought he would finally leave his wife if he knew I was having his child. They didn't have kids. I knew he wanted them, he'd said as much."

"You mean, it was just to get him. You weren't actually..."

She fell silent for a moment, the weight of what she'd done too much even for her to bear anymore. "It was me...I wrote to him first. I told him I was pregnant. Who does that? Such a stupid fucking thing to do. A wicked thing to do to someone. Especially to someone I'm meant to love."

"What did he say?"

"He said it was meant to be, and he was all in. Nicole, please, please don't think badly of me."

"No, no, I don't. Really I don't."

"I thought if he left his wife, it wouldn't matter if I wasn't having his child. I thought he'd still want to be with me. What was I thinking? Who fakes a fucking pregnancy to get what they want?"

Honestly, I didn't know the answer to her last question. I wasn't even sure I knew Wynonna anymore. From the gung-ho, big-balls bravado Wynonna I thought I knew, who supposedly took on Mercedes Gardner without flinching, this had entered fucked-up territory. We were now in that gray space we adults are expected to navigate seamlessly in the course of our lives.

I pulled my hand away without thinking. "You told him, right?"

She nodded. "Yes. He knows. I couldn't carry on with the lie. I knew as soon I'd sent the letter telling him it was beyond wrong. So very wrong of me. I had to tell him the truth, even if it meant losing him."

"His letter, the one you let me read, that's the reason he said what he said."

"I don't deserve him. He did the right thing, and what I did was the cruelest fucking thing ever. He desperately wanted children with me, and I used that to trap him."

From having wanted to punch Doc in his furry face, I too felt ashamed at the way I'd treated him. Yes, he had been cheating on his wife. Yes, he was having an affair with one of his students. No, Wynonna's lie didn't absolve him from all the wrongdoing. It did, however, shine a different light on the words he had written in his letter, and his decision for ending the relationship.

Waverly was right, honesty is the foundation of trust when it comes to who you're fucking.

It saddened me Wynonna chose to resort to this level of deception in the hope of getting her man. I'm guessing she sensed Doc had been holding back, unable to make a commitment to her, fearing he would keep her waiting forever. That could never justify lying to get someone, even if she did admit to the lie. But then, love can make us do crazy things.