Page 91 of I Knew You
My heart was beating so hard that it was hard to breathe.
“Not anyone I’ve loved,” he said, his response definite and immediate. “I slept around, started a few relationships, but everything always fizzled.”
“Then why didn’t you come for me?” I was breaking my own heart, and I didn’t care.
“I told you why.” His voice boomed. “What are you looking for? What do you want to hear? That I wasn’t man enough? That I didn’t really want you? I always wanted you. It was the guilt and the shame that overtook me, that held me back. That holds me back now.” He took a step towards me. “Something else you don’t know. All those women I was with, I never saw them. I only ever saw you. It was you I heard, you I pictured. Everysingletime.”
“But you could have had me, Bram. Not just someone you liked and could pretend was me. I would have taken you, flaws and all. After the football dreams had to end, I was still out there. And you’re telling me you were giving someone else what you wanted me to have. You chose yourself.” I spat the last few words, unable to hold back my vitriol.
“Julianna, please?—”
“Your reasoning is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t know how to feel right now.” I took off the thin band on my finger and calmly set it on the arm of the chair beside me. “I want to forgive you and tell you how much I’ve always lovedyou, too. But I can’t do that. Not when you won’t accept what I’m saying.”
He gritted his teeth and set his jaw as he watched my movements.
“Taking off the ring doesn’t make us unmarried, Julianna.”
“And me putting it on never made us married, Bram. It was a contract—a business transaction. Kallie was right. I should have left my stupid, fucking romantic heart locked away. This was my mistake.” Before he could speak, I walked past him and up the stairs as quickly as my back would allow me.
I collapsed on Bram’s bed with Lakey and shut the door. If I could have locked it, I would have. Yet I knew he wouldn’t confront me again right away, anyway. It wasn’t his style. My body was stressed, and thankfully, Bram’s mattress allowed things to settle. I cried intermittently in the darkness and the quiet until the daylight disappeared. At some point, Lakey and I fell asleep.
When I woke, the clock on Bram’s nightstand read seven pm. I had a text from Kallie:
Kallie: Running late. Should I meet you at your Grams’ house in town, or do I need to pick you up in the country?
I wasn’t sure. I texted her back that I would find out. Lakey was whining at the door, so I stood carefully, opened it, and moved toward the top of the staircase. The only light on was in the front hall downstairs. Slowly but surely, I made my way to the living room, where I realized all the other house lights were off. A sweep of the rooms showed no signs of Bram.
Maybe he was upstairs in the other bedroom? I was hurting too badly to go back to check, so I went to the kitchen for a drink, taking a pain-reliever. I walked over to the kitchen window, expecting to see Bram’s truck in the driveway outsidethe single-car garage, illuminated by the outside pole light. But it wasn’t there.
Maybe he had left the truck where it was when Vince had come. I moved to the living room, clutching my cup of water. I went out the front door onto the porch. Bram’s truck was gone. He’d left me.
Fresh tears tracked down my face as I wrapped my arms around myself and retreated into the house. I grabbed my phone and carefully climbed the stairs to pack my bags.
Chapter Twenty
Bram |October 14, 2024
The cup of coffee slid a small distance across the small kitchen island and into my awaiting hands. I let the hot liquid burn my tongue and down my throat.
“Geez. At least sip it,” Melanie admonished, bringing her steaming cup to her lips. “One of the great things about being young is that I can enjoy coffee late at night. Now you, on the other hand…”
“I don’t think I’ll be sleeping anytime soon, anyway,” I murmured, looking down into my cup.
“Tell me what happened, but start from the beginning this time. ‘Julianna and I got into it’ isn’t going to cut it.”
With my head pounding and my tongue burned, I spilled out everything. The night of the party, the wreck and its aftermath, the words I’d said to Julianna in the hospital when I told her I didn’t feel anything for her. She didn’t interrupt, but I watched her face morph into a thousand diverse expressions.
Then I recounted the moments earlier in the day, after I’d come home from the MCA runs. I told her about our father’s appearance and what he’d said about our marriage. And how Julianna had heard everything, including the insult about her weight.
“Holy crap. Why didn’t you punch him?” she mused.
“I wanted to,” I admitted. “But I watched him use his fists my whole life to inflict pain, even on me. And I don’t want to be that person. It wasn’t easy to hold back.”
Then I told her what Julianna and I had shouted in the parlor, the back and forth between us, and the way my insides twisted as I watched her fall apart. I told Melanie as much as I could remember, anyway. The moments were a blur.
“I’d wanted to hold her. But I’d lost that privilege again.” I rapped on the counter in frustration. Then I ran my thumb and forefinger against my closed, misty eyes a few times while recounting events.
There was silence for a moment after I finished, which I appreciated.
