Chapter Ten #3
“Without warning, she cut me off. Completely. Didn’t want to see me anymore. And since she was a few hours down the highway, that really meant not seeing her. I’d had to make an effort to work her into my life. Cutting her out of it was actually a lot easier.”
“Sure,” Maddy said, obviously not convinced.
“I got a phone call one night. Late. From the hospital. They told me to come down because Elizabeth was asking for me. They said it wasn’t good.”
“Oh, Sam,” Maddy said, her tone tinged with sympathy.
He brush right past that. Continued on. “I white-knuckled it down there. Went as fast as I could. I didn’t tell anyone I was going. When I got there, they wouldn’t let me in. Because I wasn’t family.”
“But she wanted them to call you.”
“It didn’t matter.” It was difficult for him to talk about that day.
In fact, he never had. He could see it all playing out in his mind as he spoke the words.
Could see the image of her father walking out of the double doors, looking harried, older than Sam had ever seen him look during any of their business dealings.
“I never got to see her,” Sam said. “She died a few minutes after I got there.”
“Sam, I’m so sorry...”
“No, don’t misunderstand me. This isn’t a story about me being angry because I lost a woman that I loved.
I didn’t love her. That’s the worst part.
” He swallowed hard, trying to diffuse the pressure in his throat crushing down, making it hard to breathe.
“I mean, maybe I could have. But that’s not the same.
You know who loved her? Her family. Her family loved her.
I have never seen a man look so destroyed as I did that day.
Looking at her father, who clearly wondered why in hell I was sitting down there in the emergency room.
Why I had been called to come down. He didn’t have to wonder long.
Not when they told him exactly how his daughter died.
” Sam took a deep breath. “Elizabeth died of internal bleeding. Complications from an ectopic pregnancy.”
Maddy’s face paled, her lips looking waxen. “Did you...? You didn’t know she was pregnant.”
“No. Neither did anyone in her family. But I know it was mine. I know it was mine, and she didn’t want me to know.
And that was probably why she didn’t tell me, why she broke things off with me.
Nobody knew because she was ashamed. Because it was my baby.
Because it was a man that she knew she couldn’t have a future with.
Nobody knew, so when she felt tired and lay down for a nap because she was bleeding and feeling discomfort, no one was there. ”
Silence settled around them, the house creaking beneath the weight of it.
“Did you ever find out why...why she called you then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she wanted me there to blame me. Maybe she just needed me. I’ll never know. She was gone before I ever got to see her.”
“That must have been...” Maddy let that sentence trail off. “That’s horrible.”
“It’s nothing but horrible. It’s everything horrible.
I know why she got pregnant, Maddy. It’s because.
..I was so careless with her. I had sex with her once without a condom.
And I thought that it would be fine. Hell, I figured if something did happen, I’d be willing to marry her.
All of that happened because I didn’t think.
Because I lost control. I don’t deserve. ..”
“You can’t blame yourself for a death that was some kind of freak medical event.”
“Tell me you wouldn’t blame yourself, Maddy.
Tell me you wouldn’t.” He sat up, and Maddy sat up too.
Then he gripped her shoulders, holding her steady, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“You, who blame yourself for the affair with your dressage teacher even though you were an underage girl. You could tell me you don’t.
You could tell me that you were just hurt by the way everybody treated you, but I know it’s more than that.
You blame yourself. So don’t you dare look at me with those wide blue eyes and tell me that I have no business blaming myself. ”
She blinked. “I...I don’t blame myself. I don’t.
I mean, I’m not proud of what I did, but I’m not going to take all of the blame.
Not for something I couldn’t control. He lied to me.
I was dumb, yes. I was naive. But dammit, Sam, my father should have had my back.
My friends should have had my back. And my teacher should never have taken advantage of me. ”
He moved away from her then, pushing himself into a standing position and forking his fingers through his hair.
She wasn’t blaming him. It was supposed to push her away.
She certainly wasn’t supposed to look at him with sympathy.
She was supposed to be appalled. Appalled that he had taken the chances he had with Elizabeth’s body. Appalled at his lack of control.
It was the object lesson. The one that proved that he wasn’t good enough for a woman like her. That he wasn’t good enough for anyone.
“You don’t blame yourself at all?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s kind of a loaded question.
I could have made another decision. And because of that, I guess I share blame.
But I’m not going to sit around feeling endless guilt.
I’m hurt. I’m wounded. But that’s not the same thing.
Like I told you, the sex was the least of it.
If it was all guilt, I would have found somebody a long time ago.
I would have dealt with it. But it’s more than that.
I think it’s more than that with you. Because you’re not an idiot.
You know full well that it isn’t like you’re the first man to have unprotected sex with a woman.
You know full well you weren’t in control of where an embryo implanted inside a woman.
You couldn’t have taken her to the hospital, because you didn’t know she was pregnant.
You didn’t know she needed you. She sent you away.
She made some choices here, and I don’t really think it’s her fault either, because how could she have known? But still. It isn’t your fault.”
He drew back, anger roaring through him. “I’m the one...”
“You’re very dedicated to this. But that doesn’t make it true.”
“Her father thought it was my fault,” he said. “That matters. I had to look at a man who was going to have to bury his daughter because of me.”
“Maybe he felt that way,” Maddy said. “I can understand that. People want to blame. I know. Because I’ve been put in that position.
Where I was the one that people wanted to blame.
Because I wasn’t as well liked. Because I wasn’t as important.
I know that David’s wife certainly wanted to blame me, because she wanted to make her marriage work, and if she blamed David, how would she do that?
And without blame, your anger is aimless. ”
Those words hit hard, settled somewhere down deep inside him. And he knew that no matter what, no matter that he didn’t want to think about them, no matter that he didn’t want to believe them, they were going to stay with him. Truth had a funny way of doing that.
“I’m not looking for absolution, Maddy.” He shook his head. “I was never looking for it.”
“What are you looking for, then?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. I’m not looking for anything. I’m not looking for you to forgive me. I’m not looking to forgive myself.”
“No,” she said, “you’re just looking to keep punishing yourself. To hold everything inside and keep it buried down deep. I don’t think it’s the rest of the world you’re hiding yourself from. I think you’re hiding from yourself.”
“You think that you are qualified to talk about my issues? You. The woman who didn’t have a lover for ten years because she’s so mired in the past?”
“Do you think that’s going to hurt my feelings?
I know I’m messed up. I’m well aware. In fact, I would argue that it takes somebody as profoundly screwed up as I am to look at another person and see it.
Maybe other people would look at you and see a man who is strong.
A man who has it all laid out. A man who has iron control.
But I see you for what you are. You’re completely and totally bound up inside.
And you’re ready to crack apart. You can’t go on like this. ”
“Watch me,” he said.
“How long has it been?” she asked, her tone soft.
“Five years,” he ground out.
“Well, it’s only half the time I’ve been punishing myself, but it’s pretty good. Where do you see it ending, Sam?”
“Well, you were part of it for me too.”
He gritted his teeth, regretting introducing that revelation into the conversation.
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t been with a woman in five years. So I guess you could say you are part of me dealing with some of my issues.”
Maddy looked like she’d been slapped. She did not, in any way, look complimented. “What does that mean? What does that mean?” She repeated the phrase twice, sounding more horrified, more frantic each time.
“It had to end at some point. The celibacy, I mean. And when you offered yourself, I wasn’t in a position to say no.”
“After all of your righteous indignation—the accusation that I was using you for sexual healing—it turns out you were using me for the same thing?” she asked.
“Why does that upset you so much?”
“Because...because you’re still so completely wrapped up in it. Because you obviously don’t have any intention to really be healed.”
Unease settled in his chest. “What’s me being healed to you, Maddy? What does that mean? I changed something, didn’t I? Same as you.”
“But...” Her tone became frantic. “I just... You aren’t planning on letting it change you.”
“What change are you talking about?” he pressed.
“I don’t know,” she said, her throat sounding constricted.
“Like hell, Madison. Don’t give me that. If you’ve changed the rules in your head, that’s hardly my fault.”