Page 31 of Going Home

Tears fill her eyes, and Ky hates how much this hurts her. It's part of the reason he never wanted her to know. "You can't take it back, but you went and told others what happened. Then you kept it a secret for our entire marriage. Hell, it would still be a secret if Mom hadn't sent me Vicky's diaries. You lied to me, Ky."

"Why would I want to tell you the truth and hurt you? Huh? It would have destroyed you. It would have destroyed youandus. Of course, I didn't want to tell you!"

"You knew doing that would hurt me. Some part of you, drunk or not, had to have thought, even for a second, that fucking my sister would gut me. And that’s the underlying reason you chose to go off with her. You could have fucked any bunny in there, but you were pissed I didn't reach out, and you chose my sister to get back at me."

"No!" he says, his palms slapping the sides of his thighs in frustration. "I never want to hurt you. Don't you get that?"

"No, I don't. I can't see that."

Sighing, Ky tries to calm himself. Yelling at her won't do him any good, but he can't understand how she can't take a step back and see the rest of what was going on that led up to this bad decision. "I didn't do it to hurt you. It wasn't about you. For just a little while, I needed something to feel other than devastation and abandonment. The alcohol barely numbed the pain, and I know it was a bad decision. I knew that, but I was also sixteen and in more pain than I've ever been in my entire life. Until now. Can't you see where I'm coming from? Even a little bit?"

Nodding, Felicity looks at her feet, her hair falling and sticking to her wet cheeks. "You don't have a brother, but what if I told you that I'd lost my virginity to Colt? That for almost twenty years, I lied to you about it. Told you I gave it to you, and we shared such an experience of love together. You had such a harsh reaction to him hooking up with your sister, so imagine how you'd feel in my position right now."

"I'd be pissed."

"Exactly."

"But if you'd just lost your mother because she was brutally murdered, and I stayed away for weeks afterwards without checking on you, I could see why. Why you'd need to find some type of comfort. It wouldn't make it right, but at least I could understand your frame of mind at the time. And if you didn't tell me because you didn't want to hurt me, I'd also understand that."

"So, this is my fault?" she asks, her voice barely a whisper. "I didn't think you'd want to see your ex-girlfriend right after your mom died, so that makes it okay for you fuck my sister?"

Sighing, he looks up at the sky. "You are so damned determined to be pissed off that you refuse to see anything outside the scope of your own perspective. I get you’re mad, and you have more than every right to be. I'm just asking you to try and see where I'm coming from. What happened. And I want you to understand that I didn't want to hurt you, which is why I didn't tell you. I see it was the wrong decision now, and I think I've always known it was, but I never want to cause you pain, baby. Never."

"I do see where you're coming from, but you're overlooking what hurts me the most—lying to my face about something you knew was so important to me. I gave you everything. My heart, my body, and my soul. And it was all just a lie."

"What do you need from me to get past this? We need to get past this, baby. Our daughter needs the both of us, and our son is in the club. I'll do whatever you want me to, short of building a time machine and undoing what I've done. Mostly because I'm not even a fraction smart enough to be able to figure out how to fucking do that."

"It's not funny, Ky."

His tongue slides along his lips, and his hands tremble as she still refuses to look at him. Her eyes stay cast down at the ground, and her tears continue to hit the deck by her feet. The same deck he's been promising to re-stain for two years now. "I'm sorry."

"I don't know that we can get past this."

His breath hitches. "Excuse me?"

"I can't forgive you, Ky. I can't... There's no getting past this. I didn't just find out that you lied to me. It became very clear that our relationship, the one that brought us here, was based on a lie. A lie you told others. I wasn't just betrayed by the man I trusted more than anything else in the entire world, I was betrayed by people I thought were my friends. I don't just lose you, I lose them, and the thought of what we all had."

"That's not true."

"Lex was always your friend, not mine. It's very obvious now."

He wants to reach out and hold her. Touch her. Tell her it's a nightmare right now, but they're going to get through this. But he knows his wife well enough to know that it would end nothing short of poorly, so he keeps his hands at his sides.

"She is your friend. She's been telling me since I told her about this that I needed to tell you."

"She could have told me, but she didn't. Because she'syourfriend."

"You two had beef before any of this came to light that has nothing to do with my stupid decision with your sister. But don't think I've forgotten what Lex said about keeping secrets for you, too. Let's get it all out on the table to see whose is worse."

"She'll be lucky if I don't knock her ass out the next time I see her. No matter what secrets I have, they won't touch this."

He laughs. "She'll break your face before you have the chance, and we both know it. Your reaction tells me you know exactly what she can share, and it's bad. What are you hiding, hmm? Must be pretty bad that if you think you could hurt Lex rather than tell me."

"Fuck you."

"Or are you worried sharing those secrets means you won't have a leg to stand on to continue to be so damn angry? Is that why you won't say anything? Because you can't keep this indignant act up once I know what you're hiding?"

He knows he's pushing her buttons, but he also knows whatever she’s hiding is as bad, if not worse, than what he did. Felicity gets defensive when she's in the wrong, and she now glaring without tears in her eyes.

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