Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Gavin
“ L ena!” I yell as I move toward her quickly.
Her face is pale, and she’s clearly in the middle of a panic attack as she struggles to breathe and is gripping the back of the chair tightly. Seeing her like this breaks my heart. The last thing I wanted to do was cause her this pain, but she had to know the truth.
“Lena, look at me.”
I grab her hands in mine, and her eyes quickly focus on me.
“Breathe in through your nose and count to four in your head.”
She shakes her head, but I continue.
“Do it. I’ll do it with you.”
I breathe in for four, release for eight. Touching her will help ground her, but she’s fighting me.
“We can fix this, okay? I’m not going to let you deal with any of this alone. I’ll make sure that you and Jayla are safe, okay? That’s my job, to protect you.”
The words are out of my mouth before I can rescind them, but it doesn’t matter. I know that they’re true. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, even if I was too blind to see it.
She shakes her head, still focusing on breathing. She’s no longer struggling for air. That’s a good sign.
“Let’s move to the living room,” I tell her as I take her hand and lead her to the couch.
I sit beside her, watching her as she leans back into the soft cushions. She’s calm now, or at least she looks like she is. It’s unnerving how composed she’s being after everything. Her hands rest lightly in her lap, fingers intertwined, but there’s tension in the way she’s holding them, knuckles barely brushing against each other. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know how she’s still holding herself together after everything Aaron put her through.
It's killing me to see her like this. The anger at my brother is at an all-time high. This entire town trusted him, his family and he betrayed all of them. He took advantage of so many people. He had everyone fooled.
She breaks the silence first, her voice soft but direct. “Gavin, do you know who she is?”
I blink, confused for a second. “Who?”
“The woman Aaron was with. The one he cheated on me with.”
Her eyes search mine, and even though her voice doesn’t waver, there’s a quiet desperation there. She wants answers, maybe closure or something to make sense of the mess my asshole brother left behind.
I inhale sharply, not sure how to respond at first. I’ve been trying to piece everything together myself, but the truth is, I don’t have all the answers. Not yet.
“I haven’t got a name or anything solid yet.” I shift in my seat, feeling the weight of her stare. “But I’ll find out. I promise you that.”
Which is true, because I forgot to ask Mike for that. I’m not about to tell her that Mike also knew because I don’t want her to feel like everyone but her knew.
“Thank you.”
Her calmness and her lack of anger now take me by surprise. If it were me, I don’t know if I’d be able to keep myself from breaking something, or screaming, or doing… I don’t know what. Anything. She’s sitting here as if Aaron didn’t just shatter her world, as if the man she loved hadn’t betrayed her in the worst possible way.
I was angry and bitter when I learned that Sarah cheated, but…I didn’t react the way I thought I would. I didn’t love Sarah the way I thought I should, though.
She straightens a little, her fingers finally separating and resting against her knees. “I won’t fight the death benefits going to the child.”
“What?” I say, caught off guard.
That’s not where I thought this was going.
“The baby,” Lena says, looking directly at me. “Aaron’s other child. They’ll be taken care of. The death benefits he allotted… they should go to the child. If I could fight it, I wouldn’t.”
I stare at her. “Lena, are you serious? After everything he did? You’re still going to—”
“I’m not doing it for Aaron.” She cuts me off. “This isn’t about him. It’s about the child. None of this is that baby’s fault. It’s not even that woman’s fault. I know how convincing my husband could be. That child didn’t ask to be brought into the world under these circumstances, and they shouldn’t have to suffer because their father was a lying, manipulative bastard.”
I’m floored. I try to wrap my head around her logic and her kindness. “I don’t know if I could do that,” I admit, shaking my head. “You’re being so calm about this, so… generous. I mean, how are you not angry?”
She looks away for a moment, her gaze falling to the floor. She lets out a long sigh.
“Oh, I’m angry, Gavin. I’m furious. But I’m also tired. I’m tired of being angry all the time. It doesn’t help anything. Aaron was convincing, you know? He knew how to lie and manipulate people into believing whatever he wanted them to.”
I let out a slow breath. “You’re a better person than me, Lena.”
She smiles, but it’s a sad, worn, and tired one, the kind that comes from someone who’s been through hell and back. I reach out and take her hand in mine; I just need to touch her right now.
“I don’t know about that. I just know what it’s like to be fooled by him. I was married to the man. I know how many times I fell for his bullshit. I can’t blame someone else for believing the same lies I did.”
“What he did… it isn’t a reflection of you,” I tell her. “It’s a reflection of him, his insecurities. You can’t let his choices make you feel like you did something wrong.”
I remember needing to hear those words after learning about Sarah’s infidelity. I’m not innocent in the downfall of our marriage by any means, but Sarah’s cheating was about her and not me.
She doesn’t respond immediately. She just stares at me for a moment, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she’s studying me, trying to figure something out. Finally, she shakes her head before she leans into me. My arm goes around her shoulders, and I pull her into me.
“I appreciate that. But I haven’t felt like I was really married to Aaron in a long time.”
“What do you mean?”
She exhales slowly, her fingers tracing idle patterns on the edge of her knee. “A few years after Jayla was born, I caught him in a big lie. He’d been spending money we didn’t have, but instead of admitting it, he tried to convince me our account had been hacked. He even claimed his identity was stolen. It was elaborate and convincing. For a second, I almost believed him. Almost .” She gives a bitter laugh, shaking her head. “But when I started looking deeper, I realized how much he’d been lying to me. It wasn’t just about the money. He lied about a lot of things. Big things, small things… they all added up.”
I’m stunned. I never knew any of this. Aaron had always seemed to have everything under control, like he was this responsible, upstanding guy. But hearing this… it’s like I’m seeing him through a completely different lens.
“I had no idea.”
“No one did. I didn’t tell anyone because I was embarrassed and ashamed. I didn’t want people to know I’d married a man who could lie so easily and smoothly. He’s the sheriff’s son and made it clear that he’d take his dad’s place when Henry retired. I wanted the mayor position when Charles retired. It all…none of the reality fit the life we wanted. So I hid it.” She pauses, her eyes darkening.
My jaw tightens. “Lena, why didn’t you—”
She cuts me off, her voice hardening. “What was I going to do, Gavin? Leave him? Break up our family? I stayed because of Jayla. For her. Not for him.” She shifts slightly, her hands pressing against the fabric of the couch. “But emotionally… mentally… I left him a long time ago. By the time Jayla caught him making out with one of her teammate’s moms, I wasn’t even shocked. I wasn’t surprised. I was just… done. If it weren’t for Jayla and a friend catching him, she would have never known.”
I shake my head, still trying to process everything she’s telling me. I never imagined things were this bad between them, never realized how much she’d been carrying all these years. I dig my hand into the couch cushion, needing to squeeze something.
I left because I thought he was better for her.
My dad had protected Aaron all of his life, and this, this is what he was capable of? He was always so hard on me, so adamant that I was the problem when my brother actually was.
It still doesn’t make sense why he treated me like a problem all my life. It does feel nice to know that the golden child wasn’t that at all.
Seems like Dad put his eggs in the wrong basket.
“You were miserable,” I say quietly.
“We both were,” she replies softly. “I told him that he had to end it with the woman and any others he had waiting in the wings for him. I set up appointments for couples therapy, and he did counseling for himself in order for me not to file for divorce. He went to one appointment and said that I was unreasonable, and the therapist recommended divorce. He didn’t go to counseling more than twice, and I didn’t want to fight him over it. Ultimately, we stayed together for Jayla, but we were both miserable. And the worst part is… we put on this show for everyone, this fake persona like we were this happy family, but inside, I was dying. He was, too, I think. He just handled it differently.”
I want to say something, anything, but I don’t know what. I’m so angry and heartbroken for her at the same time.
I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, trying to understand everything.
“Is that why you never came with Jay and Aaron when they’d come to visit?”
She hesitates for a minute before she nods and blows out a breath. “I used to tell myself that I hated you and didn’t want to be around such a jerk, but…if I were honest with myself, then I would say yes. If Aaron and I had been together around you, you would have called me out immediately.”
“You’re stronger than I think I could ever be,” I finally say.
She gives me a small, humorless smile. “I don’t feel strong. I feel like I’ve been through a war. And now… now I’m just trying to pick up the pieces.”
“I still don’t know how you’re being so calm about all this.”
She shrugs, a resigned look crossing her face. “Maybe because I’ve had so much time to process it. I’ve been grieving the loss of my marriage for years before Aaron even died. This… this is just the final blow. And as much as I hate Aaron for what he did and how he lied, I can’t bring myself to lose my mind over it again.”
I nod slowly, trying to wrap my mind around her perspective. It’s not the reaction I expected, but I respect her for it. It takes a lot to see beyond the pain and the betrayal to recognize that other innocent lives are caught up in the mess Aaron created.
“I just wish I’d known sooner,” I admit, my voice low. “Maybe I could’ve helped.”
“There’s nothing anyone could’ve done. Aaron was good at hiding things and covering his tracks. I wouldn’t have left, and it would have just been more drama in the family. But now… now it’s over. All of it.”
We sit in silence for a while, the weight of everything settling between us. She’s calm, but I can still see the sadness in her eyes, the hurt that she’s too strong to show outwardly.
“You probably think I’m a fool,” she mutters as she stands.
“I don’t think that at all.”
“You should. Who lets their husband cheat and doesn’t leave his pathetic ass?”
“A woman who thinks she’s doing what’s best for her child.”
She shakes her head in disgust, tears rolling down her cheeks. “It’s not okay.”
“You can’t change the past, Lena. We can only learn from it, look at the positives of the bullshit that happened, and grow from it. I know that’s easy for me to say right now, but…if you focus on the negatives, it will eat you alive.”
“You’re right, I know that, but I…”
“We don’t have to figure anything out right now, okay? Let’s just be together and make new happy memories.”
I walk toward her, pull her into my arms, and kiss her softly.
“I kind of want to be alone.”
“And I get that, but…what if we went horseback riding to see the sunset and then, if you still want to be alone after that, I’ll let you be.”
She eyes me carefully, hesitation all over her face before she nods slowly.
“Okay.”