Chapter 29 #2
"I lost you the night of your senior prom. I lost my heart to one fatal wound, but it wasn't my hand that killed a man…" I lick my lips, tasting salt and fear, and find the courage buried beneath six years of nightmares to add, "It was yours."
Her pupils dilate, her right eyelid twitching as if her body is trying to reject what her mind is processing. Tears well in her eyes and threaten to spill over. I pull her head against my chest before they can fall and shatter us both completely.
"No." The word comes out barely a whisper. "No, London, that's not... You took the blame. You told everyone it was you. You?—"
"I lied." My voice cracks. "I lied to everyone. To the police, to you. Your stab wound hit his femoral artery. He was going to bleed out within minutes."
Her face crumples and I watch the weight of years of believing I was a killer shift into the crushing realization that she was the one who took a life. "Oh God," she breathes, looking down at her hands like she's seeing blood on them for the first time, turning them over.
"You survived." I grip her face tighter, desperate to make her understand. "Laney, you survived. He was going to hurt you. You fought back. You saved your own life."
Her eyes are wide and unfocused, and I can practically see her mind replaying that night with terrible new clarity. She presses her palms against her temples, shaking her head like she can force the truth back out.
"I'm sorry." I pull her against me, and this time, she doesn't resist, but she's rigid in my arms, her body locked in shock. "I'm so fucking sorry."
Long seconds stretch between us, her breaths coming heavy and ragged against my chest, but I never feel her tears fall. She's holding herself together with sheer will, and it's the most heartbreaking thing I've ever witnessed.
"Six years," she whispers. "Six years, I lived with the guilt of what I thought you did for me.
.. Going to prison for my crime." She expels a heavy, stuttered sigh.
"It's done," she says softly, her voice hollow but steady.
"It's been done for years, and nothing I feel about it now will change that. "
"I wanted to tell you so many times. Every letter I never sent, every phone call I never made... I wanted to tell you that it wasn't your fault, but I also wanted to spare you from ever having to know."
She pulls back to look at me, her eyes red-rimmed but lost, like she's drowning in her own guilt. The shock is wearing off now, replaced by the crushing weight of reality.
"You just... left," she says quietly, her voice hollow. "You let me think you were running from your own demons when you were really protecting me from mine." She takes a shaky breath. "I can't take it back. I can't change what happened that night."
"It was self-defense, baby," I quickly add when she pinches her lips together and closes her eyes.
"I know," she whispers, and there's a strength in her voice that amazes me. "I know it was." Her eyes flash open. "But if you believe that, then why did you do it?"
"Do what?" I ask as I stroke her hair.
"Why did you slit his throat to cover my crime? Why did you lie to everyone? Why did you steal my choice and make it yours?"
Her words have the air in my lungs catching as I hold my breath.
Why did I do it? Where do I even begin? I know the number one reason, but it's one I'm still not brave enough to speak aloud.
It's not one I can give her without destroying what's left of my soul.
I've loved her unconditionally, maybe more than I've ever loved myself.
Now, then, and for eternity, I'll be her shelter, her rock, the safe place to lay her head because being her everything makes me whole.
"I didn't want you to live with the weight of taking a life," I whisper against her hair.
"The eternal haunting that comes with blood on your hands.
The way it changes you, piece by piece until you no longer recognize yourself in the mirror.
I didn't know…" My voice cracks completely.
"I didn't know my sacrifice would cut so much deeper.
That staying away would hurt you more than the truth. "
She's silent again, and it kills me. I can't stand not knowing what's going on in her head, feeling useless when her heart is hurting. "You asked me to trust you with the pain, heartbreaker. Your silence is killing me. Let me help you."
"It's just a lot to process. I saw things one way for so long. There's not one part of my life that night didn't change. The truth doesn't change the past, but it colors it differently…" Her head tips up, her sad, honeyed gaze finding mine. "We lost so much time."
"I'm so sorry," I manage. I want to give her so much more than sorry, and given the chance, I will, but for now, I start there.
"We should get dressed," she says, pushing out of my hold, taking the comfort of her warmth with her.
"Are you upset with me?"
"Yes and no," she says, brushing my shirt off of her shoulders to pull her dress over her head. "Even though I don't like it, I understand why you did it. I can't be mad at you for doing something I would have done."
Her response is better than I expected, though I couldn't say I planned on ever hearing one since I never planned on getting her back.
But now that she's here, I hate the cold that feels like it's settling between us as she dresses.
Her words say one thing, but I fear her heart isn't giving me the whole truth.
Glancing over her shoulder, she sees I haven't moved. "Aren't you going to get dressed?"
"In a minute." I lean back on my palms as she searches for her shoes. "Why does it feel like you're in a hurry to leave me?"
"I'm not," she says too quickly, her voice pitched higher than usual.
The way she won't meet my eyes tells me she doesn't believe her own words.
She fidgets with the cuffs of my discarded shirt.
"You could... You could take me on a date?
" The suggestion tumbles out, shaky and uncertain, like she's afraid of the answer.
That's when I realize why her mood has changed. We've said a lot of things, but we haven't defined what this is. This isn't some meaningless hookup with a stranger. We're exes, but not just any exes. We're the kind who used to say "I love you" like a prayer, the kind that planned on forever.
"A date," I repeat, letting the word settle between us while I study her face. A date isn't nearly enough. I want everything.
"Yes...we could go to dinner," she says meekly. I watch her shoulders tense as she misreads my silence, bracing for rejection.
"I can't do dinner."
"Oh," falls from her lips, and I see her physically deflate.
My hands find her shoulders, and I press my lips to the curve where her neck meets her shoulder, in the spot that has always made her melt.
"I can't do dinner," I murmur against her skin, "because I'd rather take you to breakfast." I feel her breath catch. "I'm not ready to let you go yet, heartbreaker. Not when we just found our way back to each other."
She turns in my arms, and I see everything I've been hoping for reflected in her eyes: relief, want, and something that looks dangerously like the love we used to share.
Maybe some things are worth the risk of breaking twice.
I'd break infinitely until they put me in a casket just to share moments like this with her.