Page 58 of Mine Forever
Eden sits on one end of the sofa, tucking those long legs up underneath her. I set the bottles on the coffee table and sit at the opposite end from her.
“So, you heard your baby’s heartbeat,” she says.
I nod, my elbows on my knees, both hands tucked under my chin. “About two weeks later, we went to dinner. I’d been on a long road trip, one of the longest stretches since we got married, and we hadn’t talked much either. Kept missing each other on the phone. She said she had something she wanted to talk about.”
Rubbing my damp palms up and down my thighs, I do my best to keep the combination of residual guilt and anger at bay.
“Heather was out at the Hamptons house. I had the car service take me out to the house from LaGuardia, since I didn’t keep my car in the city. We went into the village, had a nice dinner, at least for a little while. Then she started in on me about being gone so much, but what the hell was I supposed to do?”
Try as I might, I can’t seem to stop the tangents of frustration that come out.
“It’s my job, for Christ’s sake. And God knows she loved the lifestyle my job brought her.”
Bitterness tastes like metal on my tongue, and I hate that it’s still there.
I glance over at Eden to find her watching me quietly but with no judgment in her eyes.
She lowers her chin as though to say “go on” but never verbally pushes.
“Anyway, I ended up drinking too much, and she’d still never gotten to her point. I decided it was better for her to drive us home. She threw a fit because she hated driving, but there was no way I was leaving my Ferrari there in town.”
I shake my head, a humorless smile on my lips. How different life would have turned out if I’d just left the car there.
“It was the worst decision I could’ve made. Heather ended up driving us home, and we argued. She was so angry with me for a number of things. Drinking too much that night, being gone…you name it, she was pissed about it. And that’s when she told me.”
I blow out a breath, willing my dinner to stay down and my stomach to stop tumbling.
“Turns out, she never loved me and wanted a divorce. She’d starting seeing someone else two months after we got married and continued to see him for the entire two years of our marriage.”
Realization dawns in Eden’s eyes and she gasps softly. “Oh no. Chase, don’t tell me…”
“The kid wasn’t mine. It was the guy she’d been fucking around with behind my back.”
She closes her eyes but doesn’t say anything, thankfully. I can’t tolerate pity. I’d seen enough of it after Heather died.
“Long story short, we started yelling at each other. And I asked her…” I swallow against the lump in my throat. “I asked her who the poor fucker was that she’d suckered into her web of lies. She looked over at me, took her eyes off the road, and told me who it was just as a flash of something caught my eye in front of the car. All I remember is yelling at her to watch out and then we were spinning. After that, I woke up in a tangle of metal.”
My vision goes hazy and I’m back on that dark road, the smell of earth mixed with gasoline, smoke, and blood all around me.
“I looked over at Heather and saw that she was…dead. Her side of the car had taken the brunt of force when we hit the tree. I kept passing out and waking up. My arm was bleeding. I felt it, but I couldn’t move to see how bad it was. The last time I passed out and woke up, I was being lifted into an ambulance.”
I rub my bicep over my T-shirt, brushing over the scars. “I had surgery on my shoulder, and they put some pins in it. The next day I woke up, and the police came in to get the story of what happened, what I could remember. I never told them about our argument. I just told them that Heather swerved to miss a deer and we hit a tree. And they confirmed she and the baby died at the scene.”
I fist my hand again, regret coursing through me, but when I hear a sniffle, I turn my head.
My heart hurts to see tears coursing downEden’s face.
When our eyes meet, she wipes them away. “Chase, I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. But it was my fault. The accident.”
Her eyes widen. “How can you say that?” Her voice pitches higher with every word she says.
“Because it’s the truth, Eden. My wife and a child who never had a chance at life are dead because of me.”
Her lips turn down into a frown. “Chase, that’s ridiculous. You weren’t even driving.”
My skin crawls, and I shoot up off the couch, crossing the room to the windows.
