Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“A part of me?” A scoffing laugh booms from my chest. “Keep a part of me here? All of me was here, Yas. My kids, the house we built, our life together. My wife.”
I point through the walls in the direction of Byrd’s house.
“The man who lived two streets over? That was a shell. Everything that mattered was still here. You exiled me, so don’t talk about keeping parts of me. You had it all. You took custody of our whole life. And you toss a pair of shoes at me like it’s proof you still wanted me?”
“Do you think I need you to tell me again how badly I fucked things up? I’m well aware it’s my fault that we’re in this situation. My fault that Deja resents me. My fault that Seem’s in therapy.”
“You know his issues aren’t all about the divorce. He has a fear of death. Losing so much at a young age, I get that. It’s normal to feel those things. It’s only in therapy myself that I realized what’s not healthy is refusing to deal with them.”
I meet her eyes, remorse sifting into my anger and frustration.
“And I don’t blame you for everything that went wrong. I told you that. It was unhealthy the way I dealt with the shit that happened. And to make matters worse, when you asked me to go to therapy, I refused.”
We stare at each other, the hard-learned truth of my words lingering in the air.
“But what I didn’t do,” I say, setting my jaw, “was give up on us. You didn’t try to save us.”
“I did try,” she says, emotion clogging her voice. “I tried and tried, but I couldn’t save us and save myself.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I was losing both battles, Si.” Tears trickle down her cheeks. “The fight for us and the fight for me. I didn’t even want to live.”
She clamps her hand over her mouth like the words barged out of her without permission. Her eyes are smudges of agony in her face. She alluded to this in Charlotte, but seeing her now, her misery, I realize I didn’t know how bad it was. Didn’t fully grasp how dark it got.
“The way we were with each other,” she says, looking tired and sitting on the ottoman. “The coldness, the fights, the pain—I was already fighting myself just to be here, to stay here. I didn’t have the energy to do both. Losing our marriage hurt in a way I can’t even describe to you, but losing the other battle? For myself? That would have been fatal.”
The word “fatal” hangs in the air like a noose. A sharp pain serrates me, leaving uneven cuts and bleeding memories of just how bad things were at the end. If I listen closely enough, I can still hear echoes of the clashes we had in this very room, in this closet. Angry words trapped between these walls. Miserable, enraged, helpless. I was all of those things and so was she.
And yet.
Here we are again. Arguing in this house. Didn’t I learn my lesson? I can’t stop thinking about her. I want to be with her all the time. The stupid grin I wore when we were dating and I knew I would see her—it’s back, dammit. I haven’t tried to stop these feelings because I knew it could only go so far, but now she’s asking for more.
After everything we’ve been through, when it comes down to it, I’m still the idiot who wants to give Yasmen the world. But to trust her again, enough to come home? To hand her that much of me again? I’m not sure I can give her that.
She thinks she barely survived the first time? I’m not sure I did. Am I intact? Or just a pieced-together version of myself fooling everyone?
“I know I said I couldn’t find the love,” she continues, fresh tears sliding from the corners of her eyes. “But I promise it’s still here. It wasn’t your love I couldn’t find under all that rubble. It was me I had to find. I had to dig myself out.”
You don’t love me anymore?
Her answer that night shattered me in a way nothing else ever has, and as emotionally obtuse as I am sometimes, even I recognize I never recovered from that conversation.
“I know it’s a lot,” she says, voice trembling. “But I’ve learned to be honest with myself. I love what we have, Si. You know that, and I thought I could live not knowing where this would lead, or if it would ever lead anywhere, but I don’t want that.”
“What are you saying?”
“I want it to lead you back to me. Back here. I want to earn your trust again. I want to talk openly and do it better this time. To do it right.”