Page 204 of Beyond the Badge: Nox

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I miss you so fucking much.

I can’t do this without you.

I don’t want to live without you.

Eventually they slowed to several times a day. One particular text caught her eye, causing a lump to get caught in her throat and her vision to blur.

We’d be celebrating her first birthday about now.

Guilt washed through her for reading such personal thoughts. Was she invading his privacy, or had he wanted her to see them all?

She risked a glance at him.

He was staring straight ahead with his face still a blank mask.

Since he hadn’t told her to stop or snatched his phone away, she continued scrolling to see a year later, the unanswered messages were reduced to a couple of times a week.

Then in the last few months, it returned to once a day. Sometimes more.

She wondered what triggered him texting his late wife that often again.

She paused when she read the reason.

We found Sadie.

Another dark moment in his life. A discovery that made his healing screech to a complete halt.

As Liyah continued on, she knew the exact point when he met her. Every text dripped with guilt and self-loathing.

He beat himself up over and over.

She stopped skimming the painful thread when the following caught her eye:I made a mistake. I’m sorry.

She looked at the date to find it was sent after the first time they had sex.

I don’t know what to do.

I feel so damn lost.

Each text cracked her heart even further until it was thoroughly shattered. But it was the final text… the one he just sent…

That made her stop breathing and that broken heart seize.

I love her.

Her eyebrows knitted together. Was Liyah the “her” in his text?

Did he love her?

She glanced up, her heart suddenly whole again and thumping so hard it made it difficult for her to hear anything else. “Nox…”

“I used to share everything with her.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Everything. I missed that. I know it sounds really weird—maybe even creepy—but at her funeral I tucked her cell phone in her coffin.” He shook his head and his voice caught as he continued. “It’s messed up, I know, but I was desperate to keep that connection somehow. I knew eventually the battery would die and no one would ever read the messages anyway…” He finally opened his eyes and met hers. “I thought it would help me cope or...” He shook his head. “Something.”

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