Page 45 of Endlessly Yours
Ava’s face paled, and I cleared my throat. “So you agree?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think that you guys are wrong for each other. But I remember that day. The exact date, Rory.”
I stiffened, leaning against the back of the couch since we both stood in the living room. “Why do you remember that date, Ava?”
“Because that was the first anniversary of Brooks losing his wife, Rory.”
I took a step back, my hand on my chest as it beat rapidly. “Oh my God. No wonder he hates me.” Tears pricked at my eyes, and I remembered him that night. The haggard look, the broken betrayal on his face.
The first anniversary of losing his wife and he had drunken sex with a random woman who turned out not to be so random.
“He doesn’t hate you, Rory,” Ava whispered.
“I don’t hate you,” a deep voice growled behind me, and I whirled, nearly falling over my feet.
“What are you doing here?” I gasped.
“The door was unlocked,” he answered simply.
“That’s not an answer.”
“You know what, I’m just going to go,” Ava said as she scampered away, out of reach of my hand as I tried to grab for her. The door slammed behind her, and I stood there in front of Brooks, wondering what the hell I was supposed to say.
“I don’t hate you, Rory. I hated myself for a while, but not because of you.”
The tears finally fell, and I angrily wiped them away. “Why didn’t you tell me? About it being the anniversary? No wonder you looked at me later when you saw me like I was a memory you wanted to forget.”
“But it wasn’t you,” Brooks snarled as he moved forward. He wiped his thumb along my cheek and then looked down at the wetness. “It wasn’t you.”
“Then what was it?” I asked softly.
“That night, I needed to drink my way out of memories. I thought I had been handling the loss well. Amara had been sick for a while. We knew it was coming. It wasn’t a surprise. And yet, it felt like a gut punch. As if part of me had hoped that the cancer hadn’t spread. But it had, and she was gone. And I’d been dealing with it in an analytical way because that was how I dealt with things. And then I didn’t deal. And then I saw you.”
Amara. Her name had been Amara. I had known that, at least on the periphery. I had known she had died of cancer that had spread far too quickly. But never because Brooks had told me. I didn’t know if I was supposed to lean forward and hold him or move away so he could have space. Once again it felt like this wasn’t my life, and I was failing in every level.
“When I saw you again here, it reminded me of that night. Because part of me thought that I had cheated on my wife.” I opened my mouth to say something, but he put his fingers over my lips. “I was wrong. I was dealing with grief, and I wasn’t doing it well. And I was wrong. It’s not cheating on my wife. I know that now. But it took me a while to get there. So what we did last night wasn’t cheating.” His hands fell from my lips, and I swallowed hard.
“Then what was it?”
“I have no fucking clue,” he said, his lips twitching.
I smiled right along with him, though I wasn’t sure either one of us truly saw the humor in this.
“Rory, I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I am trying not to be an asshole, and yet every time I’m around you, I can’t help being a colossal jerk.”
“You are kind of growly when I’m around.”
“It’s because I want you, and part of me told myself that I wasn’t allowed to want you. But I promised Amara that I would try.”
I frowned. “You what?”
“My wife made me promise that, when she was gone, I wouldn’t become the grouchy loner who never saw another human being. And I would try again. And I have tried my hardest to break that promise. But I can’t stop thinking about you, Rory.”
Mind whirling at the revelation, I tried to come up with words, but I had nothing.
To say this was complicated would be an understatement.
“I have the girls, and there’s the Wilders, and now this, no matter what we do, we’re going to end up hurting each other.”
