Chapter 100
100
GAVIN
T he two-lane road felt exceptionally dark as Gavin drove toward home. Though his foot was pressed hard on the pedal and the Mercedes was going well over eighty miles an hour, he felt no motion. His gaze was fixed on the few feet ahead where the headlights shone on the road, and the rest of his body was just as paralyzed.
His thoughts kept leaving what had just happened and focusing instead on what he had done to Sophie. How he had abandoned her when she was vulnerable and in need. It felt like a sick replica of what his mother had done to him. He’d meant it when he told her he didn’t want to be like her. Now that all of the artifice was torn away from his imaginings of what had propelled his mother to run away, he had to face the facts as they were. He had to take responsibility for his life and his choices in a whole new way, without the safety net of his childhood hurt as an excuse.
Sophie was in California, suffering the traumatic effects of a miscarriage and the end of their marriage. While he knew she was staying with her parents in Malibu, they had never given her the care she craved. She had always said he was the only one who could do that. He wanted to go to her, to wrap her in his forgiveness and beg for hers in return. He wanted to push past this painful part of their lives.
The farther he drove, the more certain he was that he needed to take action and win back his wife. “It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.” That was what she had told him once when he was reeling. She had suffered the weight of his burdens all these years, just as he had begged of her in “You’re My One.” He could do the same for her.
Besides, hadn’t he told her long ago that he would always be the one to mend her heart?
Nodding to himself, he knew it was time to live up to his promises.