Page 130 of The Truth About Love

He can see the tears on my face, I know it. But he doesn’t comment or acknowledge them, he just carries on.

“Baby, I wasn’t lying when I said I’d wait forever for you. I’d wait a thousand lifetimes if only to hold you in my arms one more time. I wouldn’t touch another woman for the rest of my days if it meant touching your skin again just once. But I didn’t know Cara was pregnant when I made you that promise.”

He paces back and forth across the room, his brow furrowed, his hands trembling.

“I married her because I thought that I’d be as bad as my father if I didn’t. I didn’t leave after Oscar passed away because her grief reminded me too much of Mama and her sickness. And then that day when I told you I’d be back for you and Cara told me she was pregnant again, I swear I’ve never felt such resentment towards a person. I was weak. I thought the right thing to do was to stay miserably together rather than raise the baby happily apart.”

“I don’t understand. What changed?” I ask. “Why are you here now?”

“It wasn’t my baby. She lied. I never touched her, Summer-Raine. Not since long before you went to rehab, not since the night Oscar was conceived. She just let me believe I did so that I’d think the baby was mine.”

Relief like I’ve never felt settles over me, it floods my heart and fills my veins.

“So, you’re only here because you found out it’s not your kid?”

“No.” He shakes his head forcefully, walking over to the couch and crouching down in front of me. “I used to drive here and sit in my truck across the street just to feel close to you, always hoping I’d catch even the slightest glimpse of you as you worked downstairs with your clients. There was this one day, when you took out the trash, looked to the sky and cried. I saw your pain so viscerally, I felt it in my heart so powerfully, that I realised in all my efforts to do the right thing, I’d only hurt you.”

I sob at his words. Even after I told him to leave me alone forever, he still couldn’t bring himself to do it. He still had to be near me, even if I didn’t know he was there.

“And I realised that the fear of turning into my father isn’t even close to justifying causing you that amount of pain, or any pain at all. It was then, in that moment that it dawned on me just how wrong I’ve been all along. So, it didn’t matter whether or not Cara was having my baby, I’d be stood here right now begging you to have me back either way. I’m not mad at her for having an affair, I’m furious with myself for wasting so much time worrying about duty and honour when I could have spent it with you in my arms.”

I reach for him, my hands finding the back of his neck and my fingers getting lost in the overgrown strands of his hair.

“For the first time in my life, I’m not worried about doing the right thing,” he whispers, leaning into me. His lips are just a breath away from my own. I could taste them if only I poked my tongue out the smallest amount. “In fact, it’s probably better for you if you tell me to go to hell, but I’m praying on every star in the sky that you don’t. That you tell me to stay instead. So, will you have me back, Summer-Raine? Will you be my pretty girl again? Now, forever and always?”

And though all I want is to close the distance between us and answer his question with a kiss, I don’t. Because I’m still so hurt. I still feel broken.

His words are pretty, but I’m still dealing with the emotional fallout of his actions. He’s told me pretty words before and then chosen another woman.

What if I take him back so easily only for another damsel in distress to come along that he can’t help saving?

I nudge past him and stand, my hands gripping the roots of my hair. “I need a minute.”

He twists his neck to look at me, his body still angled towards where I’d been sitting on the couch. The look of sheer terror on his face crushes me, but I’m too overwhelmed to reassure him.

To tell him that I’m not saying no, I’m just not saying yes right now.

His head hangs.

“Yeah,” he rasps. “Yeah, I get it.”

I don’t stop him as he stands and walks to the door. I don’t say anything when he turns back to look at me as if pleading for me to call out and ask him to stay. I don’t even breathe as he turns downcast eyes to the floor, nods sadly and leaves.

I suck in a breath as if I’m drowning, but my lungs still feel empty. Auden took the air with him when he left.

Because that’s what he is to me, the air I breathe. It’s what he’s always been. In all the time we’ve been apart, I’ve been on the brink of passing out from lack of oxygen. I can’t function, can’tlive,without him.

So why the hell did I just let him walk out the door?

Guess I’m still a masochist who’s addicted to pain.

There’s no other feasible explanation for not running after him when I can feel my heart splintering a little more with every step that he takes away from me.

It’s like I’ve been frozen in place, the shock of him showing up at my door after believing that I’ll never feel the warmth of his arms again paralysing me. I don’t know how to deal with it.

I don’t know what to do.

I ache to run to him and believe all his promises, but I’m terrified that they’re empty. There’s no way I’d make it through him letting me down again. It doesn’t matter how much work I’ve done or how much progress I’ve made with my mental health, there aren’t enough pieces of my heart left to survive another break.

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