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Finally, I take a deep breath and stare at her

“Penny, why? Why, if you had my child, didn’t you tell me?”

She opens her ins

13

Patrick

She confronts e in her voice

“Why didn’t you call y “You said that you would after we , Patrick”

I look at her with surprise Penny is tre as the air whooshes in and out of her chest This is going to be difficult to explain, but I have to try

“Penny, you couldn’t have expected in “The e met, it was so—”

She cuts me off

“Wonderful?” she asks in a choked voice “Magical? Incredible? Yes, and that’s why I expected you to call I was a young girl, Patrick, and you took inity I’d never been with a man before, and you claimed my innocence and then left me stranded like a piece of discarded trash!”

I stare at her I suspected that I claih there had been no blood It was h of course, the curvy girl tookhole I hang my head with shame

“I’m sorry, honey I didn’t knoas your first time, and even if I had, what I did was inexcusable But it was precisely because you were so young and innocent that I couldn’t contact you afterwards I’m a thirty year old er in the supply closet at my company I’m supposed to set an example, and yet I went completely off the rails that afternoon I’s over, I would”

She stares at ed But when she speaks, her voice is a torn whisper

“But didn’t you care about me?” she asks “Why would you disappear like that?”