Page 43 of The Wedding Driver
This wasn’t that.
He was making a conscious decision and now she had to decide if she could live with that.
She dropped her feet to the floor and stood. Making her way toward the kitchen, she set her wineglass on the counter and pressed her hands on the quartz top. She sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. The night's events swam in her brain like sharks preparing to attack. “I want to understand why you don’t want more children.” She hadn’t met Foster until after the fire, so she hadn’t seen him with his daughter. However, she’d heard stories from others about what a great dad he’d been. How devoted he’d been to his darling Lisa.
“I worry that every time I look at that child, I’ll resent them because they aren’t Lisa.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. That was a statement that broke her heart into a million pieces.
“I’m not saying that to hurt you.” He came up behind her and rested his hand on the center of her back.
She shrugged it off. She shouldn’t have, but right now, she didn’t want to be touched by anyone. “You didn’t hurt me,” she whispered. “I just realized how selfish I’ve been.”
“No. Tonya, you haven’t been at all.” He took her by the shoulders, forcing her to face him. “All you did was go for what you wanted. That’s amazing. You should always do that. I was selfish, thinking this would work itself out, but it won’t. I wish I could be the man who gave you everything you need and desire. However, my pain runs too deep and having been in therapy for as long as I have, I know I will never get past it.”
Staring into his soft, sweet, blue eyes, she could see how much he cared for her and walking away from him romantically would be difficult. Learning to be friends with him might prove to be one of the hardest things she’d ever done; however, she would force herself to grow from this experience.
Live and learn.
She put her heart on the line. She loved deeply. And as her grandfather always told her, if you loved once, you could love again. Tiki proved that. And Tonya had other friends who’d been in love, had their hearts crushed, and found even more amazing partners.
She raised up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “No regrets and let’s make sure we remain friends.”
He smiled. “I want that.” He squeezed her shoulders. “We have a wedding tomorrow. We can start working on our friendship then.”
Swallowing her pride, she walked past him and opened the door. “Drive home safely.”
As soon as he stepped through the door, she closed it, locked it, and dropped to the floor, covering her face, letting the hot tears flow freely. But she meant what she said. They had been boyfriend and girlfriend for less than a week and friends for years. The latter was so much more important than a broken heart that would mend.
12
Foster spent the next few days looking for Victoria and trying to get Tonya out of his head.
The latter was impossible.
Tonya haunted his thoughts and tortured his dreams.
The door to his therapist’s office opened. “Hi, Foster. You can come back now,” Marge said. “How are you?”
“Troubled.”
“I don’t like it when you start our sessions like that.”
Foster took a seat on the sofa in the exact same spot as he always did. That gave him comfort. He set his coffee on the table and did his best to get comfortable. Nothing about therapy was easy. Sometimes his sessions weren’t earth-shattering, but he knew this one would be gut-wrenching.
“What happened that has you conflicted?” Marge asked.
“A couple of things,” he started. “The first one is Victoria. I found her with a big cut on her leg, which was infected. I managed to get her to the hospital, but she was wasted and by the time she sobered up, she wanted nothing to do with treatment.”
“And what did you do?”
“I let her leave against medical advice, giving her a ride back to the alleyway she’s been living in. I’ve gone back every day since then, but she’s not there. None of her stuff is there and the guy that usually gives me information said she packed up, left, and didn’t tell him where she was going. I’ve looked for her in all the usual places but no luck.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Deflated. Defeated. Guilty. I had promised Lisa I’d always look out for her mom. But I’m also tired. Victoria doesn’t care about anything. I can’t keep doing this. I know it’s one of the things that keeps me living in the past.”
“Just admitting that is progress.”
