Page 22 of Atonement

9

Wednesday

3 a.m.

The pastonly serves one purpose.

To destroy you if you let it.

We struggle for power from the day we’re born.

We wrestle with control from inception.

From the second we take our first breath; we feel both invincible and paralyzed by the fact that we’re fucking mortal.

Most days we can convince ourselves that the lie we’ve built is impenetrable. Bulletproof to all the fiction we’ve surrounded ourselves with. An illusion that only seeks to destroy us.

I’m no exception if I don’t play my cards right.

But, my most honest truth is, I’d give up all power, all control, if it meant I could change our past. Magnolia and my own. Erase the nightmare that haunts us daily. But the truth is, we both can’t outrun it, no matter how much bullshit we try to throw at one another along the way.

As I hold Magnolia in my arms, feel her heavy breaths feather across my chest, and subconsciously pull her tighter against me, I know no matter how many lies we’ve tricked ourselves into believing, we’re sentenced to be forever ruined. Gutted. Shattered by the fact that if we don’t face our past head on, it’ll always get the better of us.

“Do you miss them?” she whispers, and my breathing stops. I will my hands not to shake, but they tremble slightly as they run up and down the length of her spine. I sit in agonizing silence for a moment and roll her question around in my mind.

Do I miss them? She can’t be serious. Of course, I fucking miss them.

“Every second,” I grit out through clenched teeth. “Every day. Every powerless moment I’m forced to realize my worst mistake. That I failed them. I failed us.”

She sighs and pulls me in closer. Her voice shaking as she replies, “Every night. Every morning. Every time I look in your eyes. My biggest fear is that I’ll one day forget them, Dec. If I do what I know is right in order for me to heal. Let you go.”

“Never,” I demand harshly, a possessive jealousy coursing through my veins as my grip on her tightens. “You’ll never forget. I won’t let you. What’s more, you can forget the idea of ever letting me go. That concept is inconsequential now, don’t you think? Time, and the way I fucked you into submission moments ago, should be proof enough.”

“Mm,” she seductively sighs as she pulls me closer. “Kind of like the way my mouth fucks you into submission, outside the bedroom, Ace.”

I laugh wholeheartedly, “Yeah, Sweetheart,” I smile. “Kind of like that.”

We both fall silent, wrapped in each other’s arms, and enjoying the brief lighthearted feeling between us for the first time in years. But it doesn’t last long.

“That’s what scares me most,” she startles, being pulled back into our past and having a one-track mind I can’t seem to break through, no matter how hard I try. “I don’t want to remember, and I don’t want to forget. But how can I do either when I can’t stand to be near you, and can’t live without you, Declan?”

My heavy sigh echoes through the room as I reluctantly release my hold on her. I sit up on my side, letting her slip from my arms and feeling the coldness seep in between us. Sternly looking her in her eyes, I get lost for a moment in everything that encompasses us. The past. The present. The fucked-up nightmare we’ll never be able to forget.

How can I answer her?

We’re cursed.

I know it as surely as I’m sitting here about to take my next breath. Over time, I’ve just found a way to deny it. What I’ve grown to realize is, my wife, Magnolia, can’t.

“If I knew I was going to lose you,” I whisper, reaching out and brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I would’ve killed myself when I had the courage. When the pain was so strong, I was delirious and mad trying to stop it.”

“Don’t,” my wife whispers as she takes my hand and pulls me closer. “Don’t make false promises in hindsight that you don’t have the guts now to fulfill,” she teases with a small smile, but I see the depths of her despair crying out in her eyes. A tormenting storm staring at me from deep inside her soul. I look down at our joined hands and find myself strangled by the truth we both don’t want to face. The fact that even if we forgive each other, even if we try and move on from our tragedy, we’ll never, ever, be able to forget it.

“I mean it Magnolia,” I insist as I look back up and silently beg her to not look away. Facing the past is hard, but it’s impossible not to look at when she stares back in my eyes. “Losing our children was the death of me. The only thing that kept me alive since then, was knowing you were still breathing. That you were still somewhere in this world with me. Even if you wouldn’t have me in your bed, and even if you didn't want me to be a part of your life. Knowing that you never filed for divorce gave me hope, when I damn sure didn’t deserve it. It made me believe we had a chance, when I should’ve never been given the smallest possibility of your future. If you had really left me, filed for divorce, that for sure would’ve killed me, even when loosing them didn’t.”

She looks down between us, averting her eyes from mine this time and hiding her thoughts. My chest hurts with a soul sucking pain I haven’t felt in years as I study her, waiting to see how she’ll respond to my confession. Right now, I want only one thing. To show her that what we had can be brought back to life. If we’re both willing.

“Why did you,” I question before I can think better of it. “Why did you not let me murder myself when you had the chance? Why’d you never ask for a divorce? Because I’m going to be honest, Sweetheart. I don’t think I would’ve been so nice if the tables were turned.”

---