Page 60 of Waiting for Her

And by the look on her face, she really doesn’t. She’s been carrying around guilt over breaking up with me, over the miscarriage, for over six years now. That’s a heavy load on her shoulders to bear.

All this time she’s been gone, I was so angry. At her for abandoning me. But also, at myself for not working harder to get her back.

“You shouldn’t have been alone.”

“I wasn’t.”

That’s not true, and I can see in her eyes she knows I know it.

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean, just like you know what I mean,” I interrupt her. I gather my thoughts, wanting to make sure everything that’s ricocheting inside my head comes out right. I take a seat and gesture for her to do the same. I turn my chair so I’m facing her, my elbows on my knees as I lean toward her. “My pride was wounded. I admit that. You hurt me, Bri,” I whisper, and she flinches. It might be ugly, but it’s the truth and I’ve waited six long years to let it out. “I was twenty-years-old, felt like the world was at my fingertips. It wasn’t hard for me to see people knew who I was, saw my talent on the field, the potential of where I could be heading. I was cocky, full of myself.” I pause and she shakes her head, like she’s going to argue with me, but I keep going. “I thought I had everything figured out. My future…ourfuture.” I scoff. “But then you turned the tables. And I wasn’t only hurt. I was devastated. And yeah, I was pissed. So damn angry and it threw me off. I didn’t even know what to do with myself. I… I shouldn’t have let you go.”

Her eyebrows furrow slightly, but she doesn’t look away.

“I didn’t fight for us, not as hard as we deserved. I’m sorry.”

“I wouldn’t… I was not in a place where I would have allowed you to fight. Especially after—”

“I still should have.”

She looks back at where Hazel is still playing with Rocky, her happy squeals and laughter still dancing in the air between us.

“Do you accept my apology, Bri?”

“There really isn’t anything to apologize for.”

“You may not think so, but it’s important to me.”

She nods and wipes away a tear, but I’m not done. And what I have to say next might not go over well.

“I have more to say and this, I’m not going to apologize for. Here’s the thing. You had no right… No. right. to leave me,” I grit out. “To pretend in some sort of disillusionment I would ever—ever—do anything to betray you. Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t fight for us. But I shouldn’t have had to.”

My words cause her body to jerk but she nods quickly. “You’re right. You shouldn’t have. I screwed up.”

I wait, hoping she expands on that, but she doesn’t. I bite my bottom lip and look across my lawn, see Hazel and Drew are walking over to us with Rocky hot on their heels, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he relishes in the attention from her.

“I really don’t know what to make of all this. I’ve tried so damn hard this week to think of anything else but the anger inside of me. And I was doing a good job of it from the very beginning. So good, in fact, that I easily threw the past into the wind and got caught right back up in us again.”

“I did, too,” she admits quietly.

“But then tonight, when I was watching Hazel with Rocky, when I held her, it made me realize our baby would be almost her age by now. I haven’t had time to come to terms with it, and maybe it’s weird I’m so bothered now, all this time later, when I was never there for any of it when it happened.” I shake my head. “But then again, maybe that’s why. I don’t know, Bri. I feel like one second, I’m ready to move on, then I’m right back to angry and bitter again. I’m confusing the shit out of myself. I spent the last six years living without you. Growing up, learning that life isn’t centered around you. It wasn’t easy because I didn’t want that. I was perfectly happy with you being the center of my world. I was bitter because you took that away from me.

“I want to let it go. Ihaveto. You’ve held me captive for too long, and I need you to let me go. And then I find out you hid something as huge as a baby from me. Damn it, Bri. It’s not okay. And not knowing what happened, why you blamed me for something I didn’t do… I need to understand, and yet, I’m not sure I ever will. I can’t fall back into you again. It hurt too much to lose you the first time. Not just as my girlfriend, but as mybestfriend.”

She flinches. Seeing her hurt almost breaks me, but I also know for either of us to move on, I have to be honest with her and she needs to hear it. I don’t know what turned in me tonight. A few hours ago, I was sitting on the field looking at her, thinking of kissing her again… and a hell of a lot more. But then tonight, being reminded of something she kept from me, and worse yet, realizing all that’s happened over the last six years she hasn’t been a part of, well, I’m done. “I went through some of the best and worst moments of my life, and you weren’t there. It was always supposed to be you by my side. Me by yours.”

“If there was anything I could do to take back those years, listen to my family when they tried to tell me I was making a mistake, I would.”

“I believe you. But I think that’s part of our problem. We’re both living in the past. Don’t you think it’s time to get over it already?”

“Some of the past I don’t want to forget.”

I know what she means. So much of our relationship was good, great even. We were the couple people hashtag about. But unlike so much of social media, everything people saw on the outside was actually true.

Bri and I weren’t fake. We didn’t have to be. Being together was as natural as breathing, and our love for each other showed it.

“You’re my kryptonite, Bri Jameson. Five minutes of you being back in my life, I had my tongue shoved down your throat, and all week long, the only thing I could think about was doing it again. My biggest fear is I’ll never move on from you.”

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