Chapter 27 #2
"Do you really think so lowly of me, Asha?
" Warrick cuts me off, his voice rising with a rawness I haven't heard from him before.
His face pinches with pain, and every carefully maintained line of composure cracks.
"You think I'm so evil that I could stoop so low as to hurt your mother?
" His voice breaks on the last word. "To kill my wife? "
"You told him?" She whips toward me, and the look of pure betrayal in her eyes feels like a knife straight to my heart, twisting with each second she stares at me. "Why would you tell him?"
"Asha—" I start, but my throat tightens. I can't stand her believing I'm doing anything other than trying to help her.
"So it's true, then?" Warrick steals my words, his voice hollow. He takes a step toward her. "You actually believe I could do that?"
Asha swallows hard before accepting defeat and throwing her arms wide. "What else am I supposed to think?" The question comes out somewhere between a shout and a sob.
She begins to pace, her movements shaky with emotion.
"You sent me away and never let me come home.
You kept me away from here and all of her memories.
You stopped talking about her, and even when I'd point-blank ask you questions, you'd either shut me down or give me half-ass answers that were clearly not the whole truth. "
Her voice rises with each accusation as years of hurt spill out.
"Then, this past year, with the sale of the property, you hid it from me.
You've hidden everything from me." She stops pacing, spinning to face him head-on.
"How come I never knew Mom was friends with Baylor growing up?
That the Hales and the Fairfields weren't always enemies?
Those are just a few of my glaring questions, but I have a million more, small details I've collected over the years. "
Warrick opens his mouth to speak, but she's not done.
"You tried to hold this house over my head to scare me. I know my name is on the title. I know Mom left it to me and you."
"How do you—" Warrick attempts to ask, genuine shock breaking through his pain.
"It doesn't matter how!" She throws her hands up, her voice cracking. "All that matters is you lied."
"I didn't lie," Warrick cuts in. "I just didn't tell you."
She rolls her eyes, a bitter laugh escaping her throat. "You of all people know an omission is a lie dressed in sheep's clothing."
"But that's nothing compared to your biggest omission, the one that makes you a murderer." She says it flatly, like she knows for a fact it's the truth.
Jesus, Asha.
"You've been lying to me my whole life. I don't think Mom died in her sleep at all." Her voice drops lower. "A man doesn't order his wife's medical records and death certificate sealed if he's not trying to cover up a crime."
Warrick doesn't respond. He simply stands statue-still, arms crossed, staring at Asha like he's still trying to determine if whatever he's holding onto is worth giving up. His dark eyes are unreadable, but it's his lack of automatic response that has my blood turning to ice.
She just accused him of murder, and the accusation alone isn't enough to make his lips move. What the hell could be worse than that?
The silence stretches on for what feels like an eternity, and I keep my eyes glued on Warrick, waiting for a tell, something that says we have it all wrong.
I see the moment something inside him breaks.
His eyes close briefly, and when they open again, they're glassy with unshed tears.
He releases a long, shuddering sigh, and the tension in his shoulders drops like the weight of whatever he's been holding onto is finally too much to bear.
Without a word, he moves to the leather couch beside the bourbon decanter and sits heavily.
Then, he opens the drawer beneath the side table.
We watch in absolute silence as he pushes on one of the corners, and the false bottom pops up with a soft click, revealing a pile of envelopes underneath.
The paper looks old, yellowed slightly at the edges.
He takes them out carefully, his fingers gently thumbing over the corners like they're made of glass. For a long moment, he just holds them.
"I didn't murder your mother." His voice is rough with emotion. "I loved her, and because I loved her, I kept her secret."
His eyes finally lift to connect with Asha's, and when they do, I see nothing but pain, raw, unfiltered anguish that's been festering for years.
"I didn't lie when I said I sent you to boarding school to keep you safe, but I did lie about the reason." He pauses, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows hard. "It wasn't because we worried about you getting hurt at school. It was because we worried about you getting hurt at home."
Asha's brow furrows, confusion replacing some of the anger. "I don't understand." Her voice is gentler now, uncertain.
"Your mother was sick." His voice breaks on the word 'sick.' "We sent you away so you wouldn't be here to witness her death."
Asha's fists clench at her sides, not from anger this time, but from sadness and the sudden understanding of what was intentionally taken from her.
I'm at her side in an instant, wrapping my arms around her.
She doesn't pull away, but she doesn't lean into me either.
She's frozen as she processes his words.
Warrick traces over the handwriting scrolled across the top of one of the envelopes, and when he angles it toward us, the writing becomes visible. Asha's name is written across the front.
"She wrote these for you." He says it so quietly I almost don't hear him, still not bothering to look up from the stack.
"What do you mean she wrote me letters?" Asha's voice is strangled with a mixture of anger and sadness. "How come you never showed them to me?"
Warrick's fingers tighten around the envelopes, and for a moment, I think he won't answer.
"Because I was scared of what they might say," he admits.
"She wrote one for every milestone. College.
Birthdays. Your wedding." He finally looks up at her, and the devastation in his eyes is almost unbearable to witness.
The next thing I know, Asha tears out of my arms and crosses the space between her and her father in three quick strides. She grabs the letters from his lap, clutching them to her chest like they might disappear if she doesn't hold them tight enough.
"What was so bad that you'd go to such great lengths to keep me from knowing?" Her voice rises, desperation bleeding through. "What did Mom die from?"
Warrick pinches the bridge of his nose and rises slowly before meeting her eyes. "Your mother died from ALS."
The confession feels like a punch to the stomach. Fuck.
"What?" Asha gasps, the envelopes pressed tightly to her chest. "How could you keep this from me?" Her voice rises to a near scream. "That is something I need to know!" Panic edges into her tone.
"I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to know!
" His voice matches hers now, loud and desperate and full of years of justification.
"That was the deal your mother and I made.
She didn't want you to watch her deteriorate from a disease that may or may not take your life.
She didn't want you to live in fear, and I didn't want to get you tested. "
He takes a breath, forcing himself to calm down, to explain.
"So the deal was she'd agree to no testing if I agreed to send you to boarding school to spare you from watching her die.
" His voice softens, becoming almost pleading.
"Your mother's gene mutation was sporadic and rare.
Fifty percent of people with the gene will live their entire lives and never develop the disease.
You've already lived longer than her and—"
"It doesn't matter how rare it was or that I've already lived longer!" she screeches, backing away from him. "I could still have it!"
"But why would you want to know how or when you might die?
" Warrick's voice splinters with emotion, his hands outstretched toward her like he's begging.
"I never wanted to know that information.
I didn't want you to know and live anything less than a full, happy life.
I didn't want that cloud hanging over you. "
He takes a step toward her, but she matches it with a step back.
"Could you stand there and tell me you would have accomplished all that you have if you knew your last breath might be taken at age twenty?
" His voice drops, becomes almost gentle.
"Would you have gotten married?" he trails off, his eyes briefly flicking over to me before swinging back to her.
"Or would you have prepared for a funeral?
" He reaches for her arm, but she jerks away from his touch.
"That's why I kept those letters from you," he continues, his hand falling back to his side. "I couldn't be sure what they said. What if she told you? What if reading them made you want to know?"
Asha's head whips toward me so fast I flinch. "You knew?"
Her eyes are full of sadness and betrayal, searching my face for confirmation of her worst suspicions.
"What?" My heart hammers in my chest. "Sweetheart, how could I know that?"
"You've defended my father this whole time.
Baylor was friends with my mother. He told you.
" She's putting pieces together now, pieces that don't actually fit but make sense to her in this moment of pain and confusion.
"I could tell when you were telling me what you overheard Baylor and my dad fighting about the other day.
You were holding back. You were holding back because you knew. "
She slowly backs away from both of us, and it's like watching something break in real time.
"I heard you say as much when I walked in," she continues, her voice breaking. "'You can't keep this from her. That's what you were discussing, right?"
A tear runs down her cheek, and I've never felt more helpless in my entire life.
"Asha, that's not what we were talking about. I fucking swear it." The words come out desperate, almost frantic. I take a step toward her, my hand outstretched. "I've never lied to you."
"Then tell me." She shrugs, tears now streaming freely down her face. Her voice is quiet, defeated. "Tell me what you were talking about."
My gaze instinctively flicks to Warrick, and I see him stiffen, see the warning in his eyes, and I hesitate.
Not because I don't want to tell her, but because now feels like a really fucking terrible moment to add one more betrayal to the pile.
My indecision lasts only a second, but it's a second too long.
"That's what I thought," Asha says, her voice flat now, emotionless.
She reaches into her back pocket and pulls something out. My eyes track the movement, not understanding what I'm seeing until she slams it down on the coffee table with a sharp crack. A blue-and-white test.
My entire world tilts on its axis as every certainty I had dissolves.
"You should have told me," she says, her voice hollow. "Congratulations. You're going to be a father."
My heart drops to my stomach, and I have to command every cell in my body not to fall to my knees. It feels like the air has been sucked from the room. I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't process anything beyond those two pink lines and what they mean.
"Asha." Her name comes out choked.
But she doesn’t waver as she moves toward the door, the letters still clutched to her chest, as I try to make my legs move, but they won't. They're rooted to the floor.
"Asha, wait!" I finally force the words out, taking a stumbling step forward.
She pauses at the door, one hand on the frame, but she doesn't turn around.
"Don't follow me," she says quietly, and there's a finality in those words that terrifies me more than anything else that's happened in this godforsaken library. "I need to be alone." And then she's gone.
I'm frozen, staring at the space she no longer occupies.
Another empty hallway, just like before.
I need to run after her, need to chase her down and explain, but then I blink, and my eyes catch on the coffee table and the test she left there.
My legs unlock, and in three strides, I'm there, snatching it off the table.
My hands shake as I stare at it. It's real.
We're having a baby. Joy and terror collide.
This should be the best moment of my life, but instead, I'm standing on a cliff's edge.
She's pregnant. And she's alone.
I clench the test tightly. I'm her husband. I don't care if she told me not to follow her. She needs me, and fuck if I don't need her.
"Don't." Warrick's voice is sharp when I reach the door. "Let her go," he says, his tone softer. "Give her time to process and read those letters. She needs her mom, and right now she has pieces."
My grip tightens around the knob until my knuckles turn white as I stand there, torn between the door and the man who's already lost his daughter once. I know he's right, and Lord knows I can wait. I've done it for years.
So why does it feel like waiting might be the biggest mistake of all.