Genevieve #2
The one thing I’d been able to count on these past few months was Isaiah. He was my new constant, even with his hot-and-cold behavior. He might be sullen and somber, but he was always there. His friendship was the most important relationship in my life.
After last night, I could kiss it all goodbye. But conversation couldn’t be avoided. And before we talked about the sex, we had to address everything that had come before.
“Do you really want to call this quits?” I asked, watching my spoon swirl in the tan liquid in my cup.
“Yes.”
Don’t cry. I wasn’t going to cry. Yet. I’d wait until I was in the safety of the bathroom at the office.
At first, I’d been so focused on leaving Clifton Forge, I hadn’t noticed how it had crept up on me. But it was home. This apartment was my sanctuary. I loved my job and wasn’t ready to give it up yet. Coffee dates with Bryce and Sunday breakfasts with Draven had filled a gaping hole in my heart.
And at the center of it all was Isaiah.
“Why?” I whispered. Was he miserable here?
“For your own sake.”
I took in those tormented eyes and my heart squeezed. Had sex made it worse? “I don’t understand. Why do you see yourself as such a monster?”
“Because I am.”
“You’re not. Do you think I would have stayed when I didn’t have to if I thought you were a terrible human being?”
I’d stayed because there was so much good in him, even if he didn’t see it himself.
“Isaiah, I stayed. For you.”
“You shouldn’t have.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I killed Shannon.”
“But it was an accident.” Right? They called them accidents for a reason, because no person was at fault.
“You only got a piece of the story from Mom.”
“Then tell me the whole story. Please?” I begged.
Isaiah stood and rubbed the back of his neck as he paced the open space in front of the couch. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Either you tell me, or I’m left guessing. I’ve been guessing for months. Do you really think the truth is worse than anything I’ve imagined?”
He went to the couch, collapsing onto the edge. “Shannon was my best friend. I met her after she showed up on Kaine’s doorstep one morning and told him she was pregnant.”
I jerked, the coffee sloshing over the rim of my mug. “Kaine?”
He nodded. “They met in a bar. Hooked up. Went their separate ways. She came back when she found out she was pregnant.”
“Oh.” It hadn’t been Isaiah’s baby.
“She moved in with Kaine but they weren’t together. But Kaine wouldn’t have had it any other way. He didn’t want to miss anything with the pregnancy. They dated for a while. He even asked Shannon to marry him, but they didn’t love one another, not like that. She turned him down.”
My heart was in my throat as he spoke. His voice was laced with so much pain and regret, it made breathing difficult.
“They didn’t work as a couple, but as roommates, things were pretty good.
The excitement for the baby just drowned out everything else.
Mom was over the moon. I was looking forward to becoming an uncle.
And Shannon, she would have been a good mother.
The best. No matter where she went, she had a pregnancy book in her purse.
I think she’d nearly memorized the thing by the time she, uh . . . died.”
“How?”
“I killed her.”
He kept saying that, but it made no sense. He wasn’t a murderer. He was a protector. A good man with a broken heart.
“How?” I needed details so I could prove him wrong.
“She was there all the time. At Kaine’s. And he was my brother. My best friend. So I hung out at his place a lot too.”
“You fell in love with her?”
He stared blankly across the apartment. “She smiled all the time. And she loved me. She chose me, not Kaine. Not many people did that.”
“Did Kaine know?”
Isaiah shook his head. “No. We didn’t want to tell him until it was the right time. He was so focused on the baby, building a bassinet and helping narrow down names, we didn’t want to take that from him. It was his baby, not mine.”
I put a hand over my aching heart. How hard had that been for him? To see his brother’s child growing inside the woman he loved?
“When she was about eight months’ pregnant, she told me she wanted to move out. That she wanted us to find a place to settle together. I was still nervous about telling Kaine, but Shannon had such faith that we’d make it work. ‘Our beautiful unusual family.’ That’s what she called us.”
His eyes were glassy. A tear slid down his cheek and he wiped it away. “I didn’t want to just move in together. I wanted to marry her so I asked her to dinner one night. Got down on one knee and proposed. The restaurant cheered. Shannon cried.”
My heart thundered. My throat burned at the mental picture.
I bet he’d laughed. I bet he’d smiled. It was strange to think of him happy and in love, something I hadn’t seen with my own eyes, but I could imagine it as clearly as I saw him hunched on the couch.
He wasn’t that man anymore.
Shannon’s version of Isaiah had died with her.
“I had three beers to celebrate when I should have stopped at two. I wasn’t hammered but I shouldn’t have had that last beer.
On the drive home, I was teasing her about how I’d have to get her ring resized after the baby because her knuckles were so fat.
They weren’t. We were laughing. I had one hand on the wheel and I leaned over because I wanted to kiss her.
We didn’t get to kiss much because we were too worried Kaine would find out. ”
I closed my eyes, bracing for the rest. I didn’t need him to continue. The rest was easy to assume with near certainty. But Isaiah kept talking, the story no longer for me, but for himself.
Had he told anyone since the accident? A cellmate in prison? Or had he held it inside all this time?
“I blew through a stop sign going forty in a twenty-five and got T-boned by a truck going thirty. That’s what the police report said.
All I know was it felt like we got hit by a train.
I got knocked around. The truck pushed us clear through the intersection.
When I got my bearings back, Shannon was . . .”
Gone.
She’d died. And the baby too.
A tear fell down my cheek, landing on the floor by my foot.
It all made sense now. Why he was so relieved to see Kaine happy. Why he didn’t drink. Why he acted so tense and miserable when he was in the car with me.
This accident had altered the path of his life.
I set my coffee aside and went to the couch. Isaiah kept his gaze forward, even as I placed my hand on his thigh. “It was an accident.”
“No, I killed them.”
“No, it was an accident,” I repeated. “I know the difference. You killed the man in the cabin.”
He turned to me, the sorrow disappearing in confusion. “Huh?”
“You strangled him to death. You killed him.”
He blinked. “Yeah. So?”
“So? Did you love him? That man?”
“No.”
“Do you feel guilty for killing him?”
His jaw ticked. “No.”
“If you need to claim a murder, claim that murder. But don’t put Shannon’s life on your hands. It was an accident. And from what I can tell, the only person who blames you is yourself.”
He studied my face, his expression blank. He’d gone too many years thinking he’d killed Shannon. That he’d killed Kaine’s baby. He’d spent too many days and nights blaming himself. I probably wasn’t the first person to try and convince him it was an accident.
I wasn’t the first person who’d fail.
Until Isaiah decided to give himself a reprieve, he’d never be free to move on from Shannon’s death.
“Thank you for telling me.”
He faced forward, nodding his head. “Now you see.”
“See what?”
“Why you have to go. Because I don’t deserve to have you here. Not after what I did. And I’ve got nothing to give you.”
Wrong again. He had love to give. It might not show on the surface, but it was there, peeking out when he looked at his brother. Or hugged his mom. Or played with his nephews. Isaiah was shoving me out the door because he was terrified of the connection between us.
“I’m not leaving. I made that decision months ago and I’m not changing my mind now.”
His shoulders fell. “Genevieve, please.”
“No. Knowing the whole story doesn’t change anything. Just like last night, us being together, doesn’t change anything.”
Another lie.
Last night, he’d let down his guard.
Last night, I’d fallen asleep in his arms.
And last night, I’d stopped pretending I wasn’t in love with my husband.