Page 51 of Unspoken Confessions
“So, I did the only thing I could think of, I stepped up and supported her. She still worked because she wasn’t the type to sit around. I took a second job at a bar working nights during the weekend.”
It worked for a while because we both knew it was for a better future.
“It wasn’t planned and very unexpected, but we were happy about it,” I said and was glad he wasn’t actually facing me as I told this story. “But then she lost the baby. It was a little over three months into her pregnancy. It hit both of us hard.”
“I’m sorry,” Nick whispered and I felt his lips press tenderly against me again.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and took a deep breath before going on.
“I tried so hard to stay strong for her— for us both. I cried at night when she was asleep. It took a year for things to stop working between us. I still loved her even though there was nothing but tension every time we were around each other. I always will love her. But we were fighting all the time. She lost her job because there would be days when she couldn’t get out of bed. And those days became more frequent than not. I ended up taking on more shifts at the bar to where I was working damn near all the time between the lumber yard and the bar. The house… it just kept getting worse since I didn’t have the time to fix shit or the extra money to hire someone to do it for me.”
I wasn’t normally a hot-head and we’d never fought the way we had then. It got worse every day. I’d yell, she’d yell, and we went to bed angry, both of us sticking to our side of the mattress. I didn’t know how to break the cycle, especially not when I was in the thick of it and worn out every single day. I wasn’t in the right, and I’d never try to say that I was. I should have controlled myself better but I had no outlet and no hope of getting back the relationship we once had. Losing the baby wasn’t her fault, just like it wasn’t mine. It was something that happened and it happened to both of us, though I often felt like she didn’t think that I was mourning the loss as she was. Maybe instead of trying to be strong, I should have told her what was going on with me. I should have told her I cried and there were days I didn’t want to get out of bed either. But what did I know back then? Clearly nothing.
“One night, she was laying into me. I shouldn’t have fed into her anger but at this point, it was almost natural to. Yeah, I know, you don’t have to say it, there was nothing healthy about the way we were going on.” I sighed heavily, wishing I could go back to that night. “She threw a dish at my head. I ducked and it shattered on the wall behind me. And that was when I looked at Kelly and didn’t recognize the woman in front of me.”
The same feeling I had that night rose up in my gut. This ache of knowing there was no way to fix the situation and all the holding on you’d been doing wasn’t working.
“I locked up. She continued to yell at me and if I could have only seen it back then… if I could have seen that it was all a desperate plea to get my attention. She needed to know that I still loved her. And the fucked up thing is, I did. I never stopped. But instead, I told her she was fucking crazy and I wanted out. That I wanted nothing to do with her anymore.”
I could still hear the roar of my voice as I yelled those words at her. I could still see the shock on her face as what I’d said sunk in. I could still feel the house shake as I walked out and slammed the door behind me.
“What happened?” he asked, his voice so low that it barely registered to my ears. I was sure he wanted to know, and didn’t at the same time.
“I left. Drove around for a while to calm down. I was planning on going back and telling her I was sorry. I wanted to work it out, but that plate had been like the last straw and a wake up call all in one. I knew saying I was sorry and moving on wouldn’t fix it. If we were going to make it work, we needed a serious change. When I got home, I expected her to be there since her car was on the fritz. I hadn’t had the money to get it fixed so it had been sitting for a few months. It drove, sometimes. It was damn unpredictable so I didn’t think she’d even try to use it.”
“She left?” he asked and by the tone in his voice, he was caught up and really listening to my story. Sadly, it wasn’t such a good one to get sucked into. But I appreciated the comfort and the chance to get this shit off my chest. It had been locked up a fucking long time.
My head nodded a few times even though he wasn’t looking at me.
“Yeah, she did. I came home to an empty house. I didn’t know what to do, so I waited for her to come back. I was still pissed and hurt and thought that she’d gone to a friend’s house or something to cool off for a bit. But she never came back. And the next day, I got cops showing up at my door.”
Nick gasped. I’d already told him that she was dead so I’m sure he had an idea of what happened next.
“Her car cut out on her way out of town. Not sure where she was going but it looked like she was headed for the highway. I… I think she’d had enough too. She was leaving me. The flashers were on and the car was vacant. There was blood, and the evidence of a struggle.” The tears were in my eyes again. “They found her body two days later in the woods just beyond where her car had broken down. She’d been raped and beaten to death.”
Fuck!
I could still see those crime scene photos clear as day in my mind. And her face… her beautiful face looking pale, lifeless, and swollen as she laid on that table in the morgue.
“That was when I decided that I wouldn’t ever say anything again unless it was necessary,” I told him. “They say words can’t hurt you, but that’s bullshit. I hurt her that night with my words. Hurt her so deep that she took off and got caught up in something she never should have been a part of. Something she never should have had to go through. And she died thinking I didn’t love her anymore.”
“I get it now,” Nick said and kissed my hand again. “Thank you for stopping me from going after my father yesterday. I understand why and it means a lot to me that you did. And I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that. I—”
It was at that moment my phone went off.
Nick jumped ten feet in the air, I would have sworn it. His body ripped away from mine and I held back my sigh. Yeah, he had a lot of shit packed inside him too. But there wasn’t time to deal with that now.
I sat up, put my feet on the floor, and reached for my pants.
“Yeah,” I grunted as I answered Austin’s call. I pulled all of my emotions in and stuffed them back deep down inside.
“You up? Your shift.”
“Yeah, I’m on it.”
Austin snickered and I wished I could actually reach through the phone to strangle him.
Okay, so clearly I still had some things to work on.
