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Dean walked away with Jennifer, leaving Hannah alone in the chair, but the weight of his conversation with her lingered on him, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He accepted the fact that there’s a high chance he won’t be there to walk their daughter down the aisle, but he also realised he had been denying the obvious for too long.
“I think we should break up,” he said gently, out of the blue.
Jennifer froze mid-step. “What?!”
“It’s not you. It’s me. And I know it sounds cliché, but it’s the truth.” his voice was steady but low. “You deserve someone who’s into the relationship as much as you are. Someone with no complications. And I can’t be that person.”
Silence stretched between them, and for a long moment, neither of them spoke. Jennifer didn’t react immediately, but she wasn’t mad or surprised. She studied him; his posture was rigid as if he were bracing for impact.
“When you told me you weren’t in love with her, I believed you. Or maybe I wanted to believe you,” she continued. “I thought that the way you looked at her was just admiration, that you cared that much just because she’s having your daughter. But today…I realised it’s more than that.”
Dean looked down between his feet, as if he were ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry…”
”I’m not mad, but I don’t wanna be the third wheel in my own relationship,” she said firmly but with no resentment in her tone. “You’ve been lying to yourself all this time, Dean. My question is, why?”
He got caught off guard by her calm reaction, and for a second, he was speechless. Then he shrugged, his hands tucked in the pockets of his coat. “I didn’t know.”
She tilted her head slightly with a questioning look on her face.
“Or maybe I just didn’t wanna admit it yet,” he corrected himself. “And I thought that being with you would make that feeling go away. But it didn’t.”
A moment of silence stretched before Jennifer spoke again. “Do you love her?”
“Yes, I do,” he answered with no hesitation. Admitting it out loud felt like taking a weight off his chest.
“Then tell her,” she said simply. “If we can learn something from Jeremy’s story, it is not to waste time because we never know how much we have left.”
He let out a humourless chuckle. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“I wish you the best, Dean,” she said and didn’t wait for his answer as she moved to leave.
”Jennifer…” he called her gently, making her turn to look at him. “For what it's worth, I never meant to hurt you.”
She simply nodded with a faint smile on her lips and walked away. He stood there, watching her leave until she disappeared behind the doors of the ward, before returning to Hannah. She was still there, looking at no specific point, her hand was absently caressing the round belly. She looked surprised to see him standing in front of her.
“I thought you left.”
He exhaled deeply as he took his seat next to her again. For a few seconds, he said nothing, gathering the courage to speak.
“I called things off with Jennifer.”
Hannah blinked at his words. “What? Why?”
“Because I realised I don’t wanna waste time in something I know has no future,” he continued. “And because she deserved honesty.”
She looked at him for a moment, trying to read what was going on in his mind.
“And so do you,” he added, looking at her.
“Dean…”
“I might not be there to walk our daughter down the aisle,” he started, his voice breaking slightly enough for her to notice. “But I wanna be there when she wakes up every two hours because she’s hungry. When she says her first word, and when she takes her first steps.” He paused, his eyes fixed on her. “I wanna be there for every moment I can get.”
“And you will be there, Dean,” she said softly.
“What Jaremy said earlier…” he started hesitantly, and took a deep breath before continuing. “Made me realise that I’ve already found that person. I was just too blind to see it before.”
Hannah looked at him with eyes filled with tears. Her features softened instantly. Her lips pressed together in a faint smile. In that moment, a wave of mixed feelings washed through her. Months of uncertainty, of pretending it wasn’t real, didn't matter anymore. She knew exactly how he was feeling because she felt the same way. Too blind to see what was right in front of her. Too scared to ruin a friendship she cared too much about.
“You know, I tried to convince myself I was fine with you and Kingston dating,” she admitted quietly, after taking a deep breath. “I told myself it was for the best. That we had an agreement…just friends, that’s what we said,” she let out a shaky breath, wiping the tears from the corner of her eye. “But then I saw you two kissing. And in that moment I realised I wanted more.”
He frowned. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because it hit me so hard, I didn’t even know how to deal with what I was feeling,” Hannah confessed, looking down at her hands. “And because I was the one who told you to go out with her in the first place. And you seemed happy.”
The way her voice broke with the last word broke something in him all the same. The redness in her eyes felt like a stab in the chest to him. And the thought that he was part of the reason she was feeling that way was unbearable.
“I said yes because I thought it would’ve made things easier for you,” he admitted, eyes fixed on the floor now, because he didn’t trust himself with looking at her. “You made clear that being just friends was what you wanted, and I played along.”
He paused for a moment before finding her gaze again. His eyes were as watery as hers. “But I never wanted that. I want this,” he said firmly, gesturing with his hand between them. “I want us to raise our daughter together…as a family.”
“I want that too,” she said. The words slipped out before she could stop them, not that she wanted to.
For a second, they just stared at each other, letting both of them fully absorb what they had just admitted. Then Hannah let out a genuine laugh. Admitting that out loud was enough to break the tension that had built between them over the past months. Dean laughed with her as she wiped off the tears of joy she couldn’t hold anymore.
“It took us long enough,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” Dean chuckled softly. “That’s one way to put it.”
Hammah swallowed, a bit hesitant to speak. “So, what now?”
“Now…” Dean started, offering his hand open to her. “We don’t waste any more time.”
There was no room for any doubt in his voice, and Hannah knew he meant that. Her expression softened even more as she smiled and reached for his hand without hesitation. Their fingers intertwined, fitting as if they had always meant to be.
Dean tightened his grip slightly, like he was afraid it was just a dream and he would wake up at any second. He realised it was real when Hannah tightened her grip in response. He smiled at her, and they stayed like that for a long moment, finally allowing themself to relax after acknowledging out loud what they already knew but were too scared to admit.