Voir Dire (N.H.)

thirty-five

"What are you saying?" Niall asked, but he was pretty sure he knew what exactly what Krystal was saying. He just needed to hear her say the words out loud.

"The baby's not yours, Niall. I got a paternity test."

Niall felt the world come to a stop. Words were leaving Krystal's mouth in flustered sobs but he was hearing it all in slow motion, like someone had shoved him underwater and he could only make out bits and pieces. He wasn't sure if it was relief, anger, disappointment or a combination of the three, but for a man who usually had an endless supply of words, he found his reserve to have suddenly run dry.

"How long have you known?" he asked, fighting back the lurch in the back of his throat. The thought that if he had simply asked, if he had done what Kelsey said months ago, he could have avoided this mess in the first place. Niall thinks of all the nights he spent tossing and turning over how to make this work, how he was going to be a father and travel the world playing music and do right by his kid. Except it wasn't his kid now, was it?

Krystal's eyes dropped to the floor in shame. "About a month."

"Were you going to tell me? Would you have even told me if it wasn't for Kelsey?"

Krystal bit her lip, because even she wasn't sure of the answer. She'd like to think that in the end she would have come clean, that she wouldn't have let her one mistake ruin the life of the one man who had done nothing but treat her with respect. The man who had changed her life, and in most ways for the better. But the truth of it was Krystal had wanted to be selfish, because the thought of having to raise this child on her own had been nearly unbearable.

She tried to get out the words but they became incomprehensible, instead turning into gruntled sobs, her breath labored and face becoming an unflattering shade of red. She expected Niall to get up and leave, because how could he possibly stay when all she had done was lie to him for the past 4 months. But instead she feels the warmth of his arm as it wraps around her shoulder, then ever so gently bringing her head to his chest.

"Hey, it's okay," Niall said softly, rubbing gently circles on Krystal's back as she cried into his shoulder. He's well aware that they have become the lunch hour entertainment, but he ignored it. He could imagine how hard this must be for Krystal, to have harbored that secret for so long.

"I'm so sorry," Krystal whimpered.

"It's okay," Niall whispered back, Krystal's head still pressed against the side of his neck.

Niall wanted to be angry at Krystal, because his life over the past few months would have a been a lot simpler if she had just told the truth from the beginning. Kelsey wouldn't have hated his guts. Kelsey wouldn't have doubted their relationship when they finally found each other again. Niall wouldn't have worried what fatherhood would do to his career.

But he can't be angry with her. He knows how hard this has been on her. Losing her mother's support, her heart being broken by a man she thought could be something more, possibly losing the acting career she was working so hard to achieve.

Krystal pulled back from his embrace, using the back of her hand to wipe her now running nose. "I wish I would have told you from the beginning that it could have been Eric's. Honest to god, Niall, I do. But then you were so good about it. So attentive and caring and I knew that you would be such a good father. I was afraid of what would happen if it wasn't yours," Krystal's bottom lip quivered. "And then you went to Vegas, and you saw Kelsey again and I knew I should get the test. And even when I held that flimsy piece of paper in my hand ready to look at the results I prayed to God that it would be yours. Because I didn't think I could do that alone. And when it wasn't, well... I didn't know how to tell you."