Chapter Sixteen
RYAN
THREE MONTHS LATER
The silence was deafening.
No matter how often I reassured Amber that she wasn’t a failure, that losing our baby wasn’t her fault, my words never seemed to be enough. I couldn’t break through to her, and slowly but surely, our life had become a train wreck. Our marriage had become a disaster. We were practically two strangers living under the same roof, tied together by a legally binding piece of paper.
She had lost so much weight; her clothes were just hanging off of her thin frame when she moved from the bed to the bathroom and then to the couch. She didn’t eat or drink unless I fed her myself. She just stared blankly at the wall for hours, allowing herself to waste away. And I didn’t know how to help her anymore.
Three months ago, I thought I had broken through when I saw hope shine in her green eyes again. I thought that maybe, just maybe, she was back—the strong, determined, foul-mouthed red-head I had fallen in love with—but I was wrong.
I took time off work, but a day here and there eventually turned into week, and then, that became a month. I just couldn’t leave her alone. I was scared she would wither away to nothing if I wasn’t here with her. I hadn’t told our families how bad her depression had gotten, finding excuses every time they wanted to meet for why we couldn’t be there, and so far, no one had questioned us. I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about it.
I watched her over the rim of my coffee cup. She was absolutely motionless, her dull eyes cast outside, always observing. Always just watching.
“Do you want to go out today?” I asked her that same question every damn day. Every damn day, I hoped she would say finally say yes.
But today, her answer was the same as always. “No.” Her soft voice calmed my aching heart, despite the lack of emotion in it. She sounded… dead.
“Come on. Just a walk down the street,” I urged her. I needed her to get out of the house and do something. “Stretch those beautiful, long legs that I love.” I moved from the kitchen counter to stand in front of her. She glanced at me, her green eyes dark and soulless. My baby girl was slowly but surely losing herself in her misery.
“I don’t want to,” she whispered so quietly, I barely heard her. My heart clenched in my chest.
“Baby, just five minutes,” I pleaded. “It’s such a beautiful day out.” She turned to look at me fully, her red locks of hair bouncing with the movement.
“Leave me alone, Ryan, and go back to work. I don’t need you to watch over me like a child,” she snapped, her eyes slitting, her lips pulling back into a sneer. I stared at her thin face, her skin stretched tightly over her hollow cheekbones. I barely recognized her anymore, and it broke a piece of my soul.
“Not until you start taking care of yourself. Not until you start eating three meals a day. Then, I’ll think about it.” I didn’t want to sound like her father, so I sat beside her, taking her hands into mine. “I love you, Amber. I don’t want to lose you.”
“There’s no saving me, Ryan.” Her words cut me like a fucking knife. I wasn’t giving up on her. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—let her continue to destroy herself.
“Don’t say that.” My voice was rough and thick with sadness. Hurt. The thought of losing her damn near caved my chest in.
“Just stop it, Ryan!” She yanked her hands from mine. My stomach dropped. “Stop trying to bring back the spitfire that you love. She died when our child died ,” she snapped at me, but I refused to believe it. I knew she was still in there somewhere because if she were truly gone, Amber wouldn’t have the fire in her soul that she did right then as she yelled at me.
“No, Amber, you stop. I love you, and I will fight for you—for us—until my last, dying breath.” I grabbed her cold hands again and squeezed them before bringing them to my lips, kissing her knuckles, wishing I could breathe warmth into her chilled body.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she mumbled, squeezing her eyes shut and turning her body away from mine.
Breathing was becoming difficult. “Do what, Ames?” I pulled her back to me, fearing the worst. She couldn’t mean what I thought she meant, can she?
“Us, Ryan. I can’t do us anymore.” She swallowed thickly. “I want a divorce.”
I fell back against the chair I’d been sitting on, not believing my ears. I didn’t understand where this was coming from, didn’t understand what changed in the last few months for her to want this. I couldn’t look at her as I tried to wrap my mind around her request. Letting go of her icy hands, I stood. She reached for me, but I didn’t even know why she bothered. This was what she wanted, right? A divorce—to be separated? To watch me walk out of her life?
To no longer be able to touch me?
I swallowed thickly. For me to no longer be able to touch her?
Why was she reaching for me, then?
“Ryan, please, wait,” she begged, but her voice fell on deaf ears as I walked out the house and into the garage, slamming the door on my way out. This wasn’t happening. I fought way too hard for her—for us—to just give up. We had survived six years of being apart while I was in the military, and through all of the dark, troubling times, she had stuck with me. We had stuck together.
She wasn’t the only one grieving, and she wasn’t getting out of this marriage so easily. I loved her more than life itself, and I wouldn’t just let her go, no matter how much she begged and pleaded and yelled.
I just had to figure out how the fuck to make her stay.
I stayed in the garage until nightfall, just listening to her move around the house, the soft clinking of dishes at dinner time, and then the shower an hour later. I slipped into the house when I was sure she had gone to bed, my fingers clutching onto the letter I’d clung to in my moments of desperation, in the moments where missing her was almost too much to bear.
It was a letter I had read more than a hundred times while I was stationed overseas. It was the letter that she had sent me right before I came home.
I spent my entire afternoon sifting through boxes of letters from the last six years, all her love poured out onto paper, and for what? To end everything we had together like this?
She had pulled me back from my own darkness, had never given up on me because of her love for me, and I would be damned if I allowed her own darkness to swallow her whole and rip her from me. She was my woman, and I wasn’t someone she could just push away—not after everything that we had been through up to that point. She was my spitfire, and it was time to remind her of that—time to remind her of who the hell she was, too.
I sat at the kitchen counter, moonlight illuminating the small space as I sipped on yet another cup of coffee and munched on a piece of toast. I stared at a picture of us on our wedding day on my phone. We had waited so long for that day, waited so long to finally be together. Fuck, I wasn’t letting her just leave me. I couldn’t live without her.
The lights suddenly flickered on, and there she was, standing in the hallway, her red hair in a knot on the top of her head, dressed in a light pink pajama set with matching slippers. Her arms were crossed over her breasts, enhancing them and pushing them together. She always had a way of making me want her, even when I should be wanting anything but.
“You coming to bed anytime soon?” Her eyes bounced between me and the paper next to me on the tabletop.
“No.” My voice was gruff. I didn’t want to look at her, even if I couldn’t bring myself to look away. Her words were still floating through my mind. She didn’t want me anymore. She didn’t want us .
I couldn’t lie next to her in bed and pretend that we were okay, that my heart hadn’t been shattered this afternoon. I had seen my fair share in the Army, had lost my best friends, my brothers, but nothing hurt as much as hearing her utter the word divorce .
Not after six years of waiting, of writing letters in the dead of night and rereading the ones she had sent over and over before bed.
I finally ripped my eyes from her and took another sip of coffee. It didn’t settle well in my stomach.
“I can’t…” She trailed off, hesitant.
“You can’t what, Amber?” I looked at her again, taking in the sadness and fear glimmering in her pretty green eyes. Eyes I’d dreamed of nights on end. Eyes that had kept me alive when all I’d wanted to do was give up.
“Sleep… I can’t sleep without you, Ryan!” she finally shouted, and a lone tear slid down her flushed cheek while her green eyes flashed vibrantly with pain and vulnerability.
I looked from her back to my cup of coffee and took a sip of the lukewarm liquid, wishing I had a beer in my hand instead.
“I can’t do this with you, Amber.” My voice sounded as tired as I felt. “I can’t figure out how to help you because all you do is push me away. You won’t even give me a chance. You won’t even put forth ten percent.”
I leaned away from the counter, letting go of my coffee cup to cross my own arms over my chest in a lame attempt to shield my heart from her shattered expression, but I was ready to crumble to the ground at her feet when a loud sob shook her small frame.
She unwrapped her arms and clutched at her chest, looking at me, those pretty eyes swimming with so many emotions and desperation. And tears. The goddamn tears . “I can’t make it stop,” she whispered, tears rushing down both of her cheeks as she inched closer to me. I fought every instinct to wrap her up in my arms and do anything in my power to console her. I’d done that too many times. Now… now she needed tough love. I’d been soft with her way too long.
Just that morning, she had wanted a divorce. She wanted to end us, and I couldn’t forget those words no matter how hard I tried.
“Make what stop, Amber?” She stopped in front of me, her body trembling, that bottom lip quivering, and those beautiful eyes begged me to hold her.
I couldn’t fucking move.
“My heart aches, Ryan. It hurts to be alive,” she cried, letting her head fall against my chest. I quickly moved my arms around her and pulled her into me, losing the battle against myself. I had to hold her, to console this beautiful woman, to remind her that I was her fucking husband through sickness and health. I was hers until the day that I died. She may not have wanted to uphold her vows, but I would forever uphold mine.
“Let it out, baby. Let it all out.” I buried my face in her hair, tightening my arms around her. “I’m here. I’ll always be here for you.”
She raised her shaking fists to my chest and pounded, her cries bouncing off the kitchen walls. I took every hit, letting her get it out of her system. It was the most emotion I’d gotten from her in months. “This isn’t working anymore!” she screamed, her voice muffled, pain coming off of her little body in waves.
I stared over her head at my cold coffee on the counter, feeling her wet tears soak through my shirt. Her small fists continue to pound against my chest, and my arms, like a deadweight, pulled her into me, absorbing her pain and making it mine.
Eventually, her hands fell to her sides, and she whimpered, her body going slack against mine.
“I love you,” I whispered into her hair, my lips brushing against her hairline. She shook her head and cried some more.
“How could you?” she croaked, her voice raw.
“You’re my person, Amber… always have been. You were the reason I fought every day to make this world a better place for you. You’ve always been my reason. Since the moment we fucking met, spitfire.”
“No. Please no,” she pleaded, her face still pressed firmly to my chest.
We sank to our knees on the cold tile floor, and I held her to me, pulling her face up from my chest to look into her swollen, green eyes. I cupped her damp cheeks, swiping away at the tears still rolling down her face as I looked into my favorite, mossy-green eyes.
“I can’t take it back, Ryan,” she cried, eyes glazing over in pain, a new wave of tears rushing down her flushed cheeks. She hiccupped and sucked in a short breath of air, then another. Her heart was beating crazily against mine… too fast to be healthy.
She was going to have a panic attack if I didn’t calm her down.
“Take what back, baby?” I held her face, brushing my fingers against her cheeks. My nose brushed against hers.
She hesitated between short, uneven breaths and whimpers. “What I said to you—those terrible words.” She closed her eyes, and her long lashes tickled my cheek.
“We’ll figure it out,” I promised her. I would never give up on her. “Deep breaths, baby.” Her body was shaking as she fought to keep the little bit of control that she still had.
“I didn’t mean it,” she wailed, her lips trembling against mine as I brushed my lips against hers.
My heart shattered at her broken cries. Why hadn’t I gotten her help sooner? She needed a doctor, not just someone to make sure she ate food every day.
How did we get here?
The question repeated in my mind a hundred times as I soaked in her pain, her emotions… fuck, her everything .
“I hurt you,” she whispered on a short, barely controlled breath.
“I’m okay, spitfire.” I wasn’t, but she was finally talking to me. Finally opening up. I didn’t want to hinder that. “Take a deep breath, baby. Inhale with me.” She shook her head but did as I asked, her breathing and heart rate calming slightly.
“My chest hurts. It burns with every breath. I just want the pain to stop. I want to wake up and be happy that I’m alive, but most days, I wish that I was dead. I wish that I had died with our child, so that I could be with her.”
Her admission tore me in two, and suddenly, I was fighting against everything. I fought the thought of her dying, to keep that image out of my head. I fought the idea of never holding her again, of never running my fingers through her hair or seeing her smile ever again.
“Don’t say that.” My words came out harsher than I intended, but the fear that crawled into the pit of my stomach was enough to set me into a white-hot rage. “I don’t want to live without you, Amber. Don’t you ever dare fucking make me.”
She didn’t move. Sucking in a long, slow breath, she shook against me like a leaf. “I can’t keep this from you anymore. You have to know. You have to understand that I’m already dying inside. Every day, my mind grows a little darker.”
“I’ll get you help. We can go to therapy together. I’m not letting you go, Amber. I’m never going to let you go,” I told her, meaning every word from the deepest depths of my soul.
“I don’t want to be here, Ryan! You have to let me go!” She was giving me so much whiplash. She pulled away from me, and I looked into her eyes, unsure of the woman I thought I knew.
“I’m never going to let you go,” I repeated. I moved my hands, sliding them down her thin arms, feeling goosebumps beneath my fingertips. “Get that through your thick ass head. You’re my wife, and I love you. That little girl was mine, too,” I reminded her. “We both lost her, and the thought of losing you too cripples me, Amber. It fucking cripples me .”
I paused, taking a steadying breath to give myself confidence to get through this next bit. My eyes took in the broken woman on the floor in front of me. I wished like hell I could give her some of my strength.
“Give me a chance to fix us,” I begged her. “You can’t keep me in the dark and expect me to just know what you’re thinking and feeling. I’m a man, baby. I need to be told this shit,” I teased, trying my damnest to bring a smile to those lips. There was a hint of a smile on her pink lips and a warmth in her eyes that was lacking before.
There she was. It was just a flicker, but she was still in there.
“There’s so much darkness in me, Ryan, and I know you already have your own. I don’t want to burden you with mine, too.” She sniffled.
I shook my head. “Tell me everything that is going on in that pretty head of yours. Do you understand me?” She slowly nodded. “Don’t keep anything from me anymore. I can handle it. Amber, please, I can’t lose you. I’ve lost too many people I love. Don’t let this darkness consume you. Share it with me,” I pleaded.
“Everything?” she whispered, fear flashing in her expression, like she was afraid to tell me what was going on in her head. And honestly, I was afraid to know, too, but I couldn’t let her continue to suffer in silence anymore.
“Everything, baby.”
She sniffled. “I’m sorry for suggesting a divorce. I love you,” she sobbed. “I’m just so lost and so heartbroken.” She threw her arms around my neck and clung to me. Her lips brushed my neck and then my ear with gentle kisses that sent a wave of lust through my body. I tamped it down, just holding her. Just trying to give her what she needed.
“I love you, and I wasn’t going to let you go—not without a fight,” I told her. “I even found a letter you wrote me, the last one you sent before I came home. I was going to give it to you, force you to read it so you could remember all the reasons we fought so hard to be together.”
She rested her head on my shoulder and sighed. “I don’t even remember what I wrote,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
I tightened my arms around her. “You wrote about how strong our love is. How you told me that your heart belongs to me and only me. As if I would ever let you go after everything we’ve been through.”
“My heart does belong to you.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t know why I even said anything about a divorce. I wish I could take it back.” She swallowed thickly. “Can you forgive me?” Her lips were a whisper against my neck, teasing me in the best way.
I turned my head, dropping a kiss to her cheek. “Already forgiven, spitfire. I love you too much to ever let you go or stay mad at you for too long. You know that.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She nuzzled closer to me, and I tightened my arms around her in turn. I was probably squeezing her too much, but she didn’t seem to mind. “Will you come to bed with me now?” she softly asked.
I stroked a hand down her spine. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” I promised.