Page 53 of Almost Home
I swallowed a bite of the delicious pasta. “That’s a long time.” A lifetime.
And he was here with me now, making all of this far more intense. And while no, not everything was about me, the possibility that the way I’d treated him had influenced his choice to not try with someone else had my throat tightening painfully.
He didn’t demur or make light of it. He simply held my gaze, and with a slight nod said, “It is.”
The waiter interrupted to make sure everything was fine—it was. Delicious, even, though I couldn’t seem to concentrate on my meal. And after a few minutes of holding back, I let loose. “So you didn’t really date or have relationships. Whatdidyou do?”
He blinked twice as he finished a bite, and one side of his mouth kicked up. His brows raised as if to ask, “really?”
And then I heard it—what my question sounded like. Not simply what had he done with his time, but had he been with anyone inanyway. My cheeks flushed red for the nth time. “I mean, just, what was your life like? Who are your friends? You know, that kind of thing.”
That half-smile deepened before he shook his head. “No, I think it’s your turn.”
The charm of that expression on his face lost its effect. I wanted to explain and yet dreaded it. I needed him to understand me, but my throat tightened against the words that would help that happen because I couldn’t guarantee he would. How could someone so strong, directed, and independent understand anything about my life to this point?
I nodded so he’d know I wasn’t ignoring his statement while I gulped down a too-large drink of wine. As always, he waited patiently. I decided to start with the least interesting bits. “Well, you saw that I got my degree and then taught for a few years.”
He nodded, full attention on me. No verbal response, and I knew what that meant.
“After a while, I met Aaron.”
No reaction.
“He was my mom’s friend’s son, and they’d always wanted us to give it a try. He’d been living somewhere else but moved back, and so we started dating.”
The dip of his chin was the only acknowledgement he’d heard, but it signaled for me to continue. I would’ve loved to stop now and skip ahead to, well, anything else, but I plowed through and got it done.
“He was nice. We got along well.”And I was deeply lonely and always a little sad, even though it’d been nearly a decade since my life had gone off course when I left you.“He proposed and I said yes.”
“And then?”
Merciless man that he was, he wanted the rest. “And then, that’s all it was. Agreeable. Friendly. I should’ve called off the wedding before it happened, but my parents were so thrilled and…”
His gaze darkened. “You do love to see them happy.”
The arrow pierced right where he’d shot it—in the oldest child’s heart beating in my chest, the one that’d broken her parents’ hearts and had spent years trying to make up for it while also resenting every moment she felt so beholden to them.
“It’s been a long road to get to a place where I could tell them no. For so long, I bought into the idea that I didn’t know what was right for me. I didn’t have strong opinions, not after—not for a long time, I mean, and so I just did what they suggested. Then once I did think about leaving, Eddie left and broke them all over again, and I couldn’t stomach disappointing them. But it wasn’t like I was strong-armed into marrying Aaron. He was a good man, and he treated me well.”
“But that wasn’t enough?”
I’d had a few years to make peace with how things had gone with me and Aaron, and for the most part, I did feel peace. But that question would likely always sting because the truth was that I would’ve let the marriage persist indefinitely if he hadn’t ended it, andthatwas something I’d grieved, too. “Actually, it would’ve been for me, or so I convinced myself. But it wasn’t for him.”
His brows jumped.
“He came to me one day and said he loved me, but he’d never been in love with me and suspected I felt the same. I admitted I did. He said he’d found someone he thought he could really love and wanted to know how I felt about divorcing.” I shrugged. “It was always like that between us—no drama.”
“No fights.”
The subtext of what he was saying—not like we’d been. We weren’t dramatic the way some teens could be, but we were intense. And that dig about my parents came from a real place in that they’d never been comfortable with me and Wilder, even though they hadn’t stopped us from being together—at least not until we moved.
“I always felt safe with him, but I always knew marrying him was a mistake.” Even before it happened. I’d been so sick on my wedding day, literally sick to my stomach, that I couldn’t enjoy hardly anything. But I’d bucked up and smiled and acted like it was the best thing to ever happen to me because the real best thing, the person I’d loved more than anyone on earth, was gone. And I’d been the one to make it that way.
I couldn’t have saved our baby, and in retrospect I couldn’t have even stayed in Silverton. But we were a year from graduation. I could’ve called him. Let him call me. I could’ve done so many things differently, and because I didn’t, I’d married a man I didn’t l love and wasn’t even attracted to.
The only man I’d ever felt passion for had been missing from my life for too long.
Until now.
