Chapter 14 #2
“Because I couldn’t stand being in that house,” he admitted, his thumb brushing away a tear I hadn’t realized had escaped.
“There were reminders of him everywhere—his backpack still lying on the bench in the mudroom where he left it, the hamper of dirty clothes in the laundry room. And you—Jesus, Kels, you were like a ghost. There, but not there. Going through the motions on fucking autopilot.”
As much as I tried to convince myself things had gotten better since the divorce, a part of me still felt like a ghost, haunting an empty house that once held happy memories but was now nothing but a tomb for the family and marriage I’d lost.
“I thought if I gave you space, you’d come back to me.” Teddy pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand and exhaled slowly before forcing himself to continue. “Thought maybe you needed time to grieve without me hovering. But the space just kept growing until I couldn’t reach you anymore.”
“I couldn’t—” The admission caught in my chest, fighting against years of carefully constructed walls. “I couldn’t let you see me fall apart.”
“Why? You think I couldn’t handle it?” Teddy’s voice came out strangled. “Jesus Christ, Kelsey. You think I was that weak? That selfish?”
I wanted to pull away, to retreat into myself where it was safe, where the ugly truth couldn’t hurt anyone but me. But his body caged me against the door, and there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
“Say something,” he demanded when the silence stretched too long. “Anything.”
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“Can’t what?” He released my jaw to drag a hand through his hair, the movement sharp with frustration. “Can’t talk to me? Can’t be honest for once in your life?”
My head shook. A tiny movement, barely perceptible, but it was all I could manage. “I can’t tell you what you want to hear.”
“Don’t want you to tell me what I want to hear,” he snapped.
“I just want the truth. However bad it is, just… tell me you hate me. Tell me you’ve moved on.
Tell me what we’ve been doing these past few days means nothing.
Whatever it is, Kels, just say it. We’ve already lost everything once. What’s left to lose?”
Everything, I wanted to scream. Because we’d found something in this blizzard. Something fragile and tentative, but real. And I was about to destroy it with the truth I’d been carrying like a stone in my chest since the night our son died.
“You want the truth?” I asked, hearing the hysteria bleeding into my voice. “Fine. You’re right. I pulled away. I shut you out. But it wasn’t because I blamed you.”
“Then why—”
“Because I blamed myself!” The admission ripped from my throat, raw and ugly. “Because I was the one who was supposed to be watching him that night. I was the one who should have checked on him. Should have known something was wrong.”
Teddy’s face went pale. “Kels—”
“No, you wanted honesty, and you’re gonna get it.” I was shaking now as if my body was revolting against my sudden decision to be transparent.
“I spent years being hypervigilant. Checking his meds, monitoring his moods, terrified that if I looked away for even a second—” A sob built in my throat, and I slapped my palm over my mouth, physically trying to hold back the confession.
But it was too late. The truth I’d buried so deep was clawing its way out, demanding to be heard.
“I was so tired. So fucking tired of checking on him every hour. Of hiding the knives. Of counting his pills—”
“Stop.” His hands came up to frame my face, thumbs brushing away tears I hadn’t realized were falling. “Baby, stop.”
But I couldn’t.
“I can’t stop,” I croaked, sobbing so hard my ribs ached.
“I keep seeing it, over and over. He was so upset about that girl he had a crush on turning him down at the dance, and I remember telling him it was her loss. The way he looked at me before he went upstairs. It was like he knew. Like he knew I couldn’t save him.
Couldn’t fix what was broken inside him.
“I was his mother. I should have wanted to keep fighting for him forever. It was my job. But when it ended, when the doctor came out and told us there was nothing more they could do, all I felt was—”
My legs gave out, and I would have hit the floor if Teddy hadn’t caught me, his strong arms banding around me as I broke myself wide open.
“The only thing I felt was relief,” I sobbed.
“Relief that I wouldn’t have to live like that anymore.
Relief that I could finally go to bed without being afraid to wake up.
That maybe, finally, you and the girls could have more of me than just the exhausted scraps left over after managing his illness.
That maybe we could be normal again, not constantly walking on eggshells, terrified of saying the wrong thing or missing a warning sign—”
Tears streamed down my face, hot and shameful, but the words kept coming in breathless rushes.
“And I hated myself for it,” I gasped against his chest. “Hated myself so much that I couldn’t imagine you ever wanting me again if you knew the truth. Because what kind of mother feels relieved when her child dies? How could you love someone like that?”
I pulled back, still unable to meet his eyes. “So I made it easy for you. I ended our marriage before you could. Before you could look at me and see what I really was. Before you could realize you’d married a monster.”
My voice broke completely, shoulders curling inward like I could make myself small enough to disappear. Like I could fold in on myself until the shame couldn’t find me anymore.
“Jesus, Kels,” Teddy said softly, and I waited for him to pull away in disgust, to confirm every horrible thing I believed about myself.
But instead, he just held me tighter, his big hands spanning my back, his body trembling as hard as mine.
“You think you’re a monster?” he rasped, dropping his cheek to rest against the top of my head.
“I pleaded with God to take me that night. But even in the middle of doing CPR and begging Levi to breathe… some part of me already knew it was too late. We’d lost him long before that night, maybe years before.
And when they told us he was gone, I felt it, too, Kels. ”
He rocked us both as he talked, steady and slow, like he was trying to put me to sleep. Like he had with our kids when they were babies.
His chest hitched. “There was this sick sense of relief that it was finally over. Wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life terrified every time my phone rang, wondering if this was it.
Wouldn’t have to watch him suffer anymore, battling demons none of us could see or understand.
It was like I’d been holding my breath for thirteen goddamn years, and I could finally breathe again. ”
I stared at him, unable to process what he’d just said.
The words didn’t make sense. Couldn’t make sense.
Because Teddy was supposed to be the good parent.
The one who’d never given up hope, who’d fought for Levi when I’d wanted to run.
The one who deserved to keep his memories pure and untainted by the ugliness that lived inside me.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “You don’t get to—you can’t just say that to make me feel better.”
“I’m not,” he said, his voice breaking. I looked up to find his face wet with tears. “You think I’d lie about this? That I’d make up something so fucked up just to—”
“But you tried to save him,” I said desperately, needing him to take it back. Needing to be the only villain in this story. “You were trying to save him. You knew exactly what to do, no hesitation. You—”
“Every compression felt like my body just doing what it was trained to do,” he interjected, jaw clenching so tight I could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin, “but my brain had already accepted what was coming. I kept thinking—fuck, I kept thinking that at least he wasn’t hurting anymore.”
He dragged in a shuddering breath, his hands tightening on my back like he was afraid I’d pull away.
“Felt like a fucking monster, too,” he continued, the words coming faster now, like he couldn’t hold them back any longer.
“Every time I looked at you, all I could see was my failure. And I convinced myself you blamed me for not doing more to bring him back. Thought you’d finally seen what kind of man I really was, and that’s why you couldn’t stand to let me touch you anymore. ”
All this time, I’d thought I was the only one drowning in shame. The only one who’d felt that terrible, shameful sense of relief. But he’d been carrying the same burden, believing the same lies about himself.
“I didn’t know,” I whispered, reaching up to trace the lines time and grief had etched into his skin. “I never knew you blamed yourself.”
“Because I couldn’t tell you.” He exhaled a soft laugh.
“Couldn’t let you see what kind of man I really was.
Thought if you knew the truth, you’d leave.
So I just—I let you go instead. Signed those divorce papers like it didn’t rip me to fucking shreds, because at least that way, I got to pretend it was my choice. ”
We stood together in the darkness, clinging to each other like survivors of a shipwreck. Outside, the wind had finally died down, leaving behind an eerie stillness that made the cabin feel even more isolated. Cut off from the rest of the world.
Maybe that was what we’d needed all along. To be forced into the same space with nowhere to run, no distractions to hide behind. Just the two of us and all the ugly truths we’d been avoiding.
“We’re so damn stubborn,” I finally said, half-laughing, half-sobbing against his chest. “If we’d just talked about it…”
“I know.” Teddy exhaled a long sigh, one hand coming up to cradle the back of my head. “But we didn’t know how. Least, I sure as hell didn’t. Every time I tried to bring him up, you’d get this look on your face like I was hurting you just by saying his name.”
“Because it did—it does…” I trailed off, trying to figure out how to put it into words.
“It’s like when someone asks how many kids I have, and I immediately say three.
Then, I remember, and it’s like losing him all over again.
But not talking about him was worse. Just like the ornaments, he was part of our story.
Good or bad, he was ours,” I finished, hiccupping on another sob.
It felt inadequate, but there would never be enough words to convey the enormity of losing a child.
“He’ll always be our boy. Never gonna forget him,” Teddy said fiercely. “Not for one goddamn second. But we were so busy trying to protect each other that we just—”
“Broke,” I finished. “We broke, Teddy. Shattered into so many pieces, I didn’t think we’d ever find our way back.”
His hand moved to the back of my neck, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin there. “You think we can? Find our way back?”
The question hung between us, heavy with possibility and fear in equal measure. I wanted to say yes. Wanted to believe that this—whatever this was—could be more than just a temporary truce born of proximity and nostalgia.
But that felt too much like hope, and I’d learned not to trust hope.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. Because we hadn’t broken all at once. Between fertility treatments, raising three kids, Levi’s issues, and the shit that went down with the club, it just felt like we could never find our footing.
“We were always off-balance, and by the time we noticed the cracks, we were so tired, Teddy. So worn down. I didn’t know how to fix it then, and I don’t know where to begin to undo it all now.”
Teddy hummed in agreement. “Me neither. But maybe we don’t have to fix it all at once. Maybe we just take it one day at a time. One conversation at a time.”
I nodded against his chest, bone-deep exhaustion crashing over me like a wave.
He must have felt it because he guided me back to the bed, pulling me down beside him.
We didn’t bother getting under the covers.
Just curled around each other, my face buried in his neck, his arms wrapped around me so tightly I could barely breathe.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, turning his head to press his lips to my hair. “I’m right here, baby. Not going anywhere.”
Something in me that had been wound impossibly tight for years finally loosened, and I relaxed against him, letting the exhaustion pull me under into something that felt almost like peace.