Chapter 30
Author Note:
This is the heavy part guys I warned that it was coming so prepare yourselves because from here on out it's going to be a bumpy ride. Comment your thoughts after reading this one I would love to hear from you all.
The drive home felt heavier this time.
Not tense.
Not hostile.
Just raw.
Like too many truths had been spoken tonight for either of them to fully recover from yet.
Aria unlocked the front door quietly and stepped inside first, kicking off her shoes near the entryway before heading toward the kitchen.
Behind her, she heard Chase set his bag down near the hallway.
Neither of them spoke right away.
The silence between them had changed lately.
It no longer felt uncertain.
Now it felt loaded.
Like every conversation carried the possibility of breaking something open neither of them could put back together afterward.
Aria opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water, twisting the cap off before taking a long drink.
Her hands were shaking slightly.
She hated that.
She hated how emotional she felt lately.
Like every nerve in her body had been sanded raw.
Behind her, Chase leaned lightly against the kitchen doorway.
"I need to tell you something."
She looked over at him carefully.
"What?"
His eyes softened slightly.
"I'm grateful."
That caught her off guard.
"For what?"
"For how calm you've been."
The words hit strangely.
Calm.
Aria almost laughed.
Instead she stared at him for a long second before setting the bottle down harder than she meant to.
"You think I'm calm?"
Chase frowned slightly, immediately sensing the shift.
"You haven't screamed at me once," he admitted quietly. "Honestly, I don't know how. I have been waiting for it. I know I deserve it."
There was genuine confusion in his voice.
Real disbelief.
"As much as I've put you through... as much as this entire situation has hurt you..."
His throat tightened.
"I don't understand how you've managed to forgive me."
That did it.
Something inside her snapped so suddenly she physically stepped backward from it.
Forgive him?
Forgive him?
A sharp laugh ripped from her throat before she could stop it.
And Chase immediately realized he had said the wrong thing.
Very wrong.
Aria turned away from him quickly, dragging both hands through her hair.
"You think this is forgiveness?" she whispered.
Her voice shook violently.
When she turned back around, her eyes were already filling.
"Oh my God, Chase..."
The pain in her face hit him immediately.
"This isn't forgiveness," she said, her voice rising slightly. "This is me trying not to completely lose my damn mind."
Chase straightened immediately, concern flashing across his face.
"Aria..."
"No," she snapped, wiping away a tear as it raced down her cheek.
"No, because everybody keeps acting like I'm handling this so well, and I'm not."
Her chest rose sharply.
"I'm barely keeping myself together."
That stunned him into silence.
Because this was the first time she had truly cracked open in front of him.
Really cracked.
"You know what everybody keeps forgetting?" she asked shakily.
"That while you were gone..."
Her voice broke instantly.
"They buried you."
The words hit him in the chest like a gunshot.
Chase went still.
Completely and utterly still.
Aria laughed again, but there was nothing sane in the sound.
"They held a funeral for you, Chase."
Tears spilled down her cheeks now, fast and uncontrollable.
"They folded a damn flag and handed it to me while I stood there trying to tell everybody you were still alive."
Her breathing became uneven.
"I kept saying it. Over and over again. Begging them to listen. I told them I knew you weren't dead."
Her hand pressed hard against her chest.
"But nobody listened because there was no body and no proof and eventually the government decided enough time had passed."
She looked at him with devastation carved into every inch of her face.
"And just like that..."
Her voice shattered as she snapped her fingers to emphasise her point.
"You legally stopped being my husband."
The room felt too small suddenly.
Too heavy.
Chase's face had gone pale.
"Aria..."
"No," she whispered fiercely. "You asked me how I stayed calm? This is how."
She turned to face him and motioned between him and herself.
"Because I learned a long time ago that none of this was ever in my control."
He was about to speak but she cut him off with a glare.
"They declared you dead. They erased our marriage with paperwork and signatures while I was still sleeping on your side of the bed."
Her shoulders shook violently now.
"And then you came back alive married to somebody else."
The words tore out of her.
"Do you understand what that does to a person?"
Chase looked wrecked.
Utterly wrecked.
But Aria was too far gone now to stop.
"I wanted to hate her," she admitted suddenly. "I did and still do a little... in that small petty part of my very human heart."
The confession came ugly and broken.
"I wanted to call her every horrible thing I could think of."
Her face twisted with shame immediately afterward.
"I wanted her medical license ripped away."
Another sob caught in her throat.
"Because here, in America, crossing that line with a patient..."
She shook her head violently.
"She would've lost everything."
Her hands trembled at her sides.
"And do you know what they told me?"
Chase couldn't even speak.
"They told me none of it mattered. Sitting in that room surrounded by military lawyers I was told I had no legal ground to fight from."
Her voice hollowed out completely.
"That legally, your marriage to me ended when they declared you dead."
Another tear slid down her cheek.
"And Emily was legally you spouse."
That silence afterward was suffocating.
Because there was no fixing those words.
No comforting them away.
Aria wiped furiously at her face, but more tears came immediately.
"So I stood there feeling like some insane woman screaming that my husband belonged to me while the law basically looked me in the face and said..."
Her voice cracked violently.
"Not anymore."
Chase physically flinched.
And somehow that made her cry harder.
"I know none of this is your fault," she whispered desperately.
"That's what makes it so horrible for us both."
Her chest rose sharply again.
"Because I saw what happened to you in pictures. I heard the things you remember. I see what the lasting damage has done to you, and I know no human being walks away from that untouched."
She looked at him fully now.
Broken wide open.
"I know why you forgot me."
The agony in her voice nearly brought him to his knees.
"I understand it logically."
A heartbeat.
"But emotionally?"
Her lips trembled violently.
"I don't know how to survive the fact that you did."
That silence afterward hurt worse than screaming ever could.
"You loved someone else," she whispered.
Fresh tears spilled instantly.
"You touched someone else. You held someone else. You built a whole life while I stayed loyal to a gravestone because I couldn't let you go."
Chase closed his eyes tightly like the words physically hurt.
Good.
She needed him to hear them.
Needed somebody besides herself to finally carry this weight.
"And the sickest part?" she choked out. "Part of me hates myself for even being angry."
Her face crumpled completely.
"Because how can I blame you for surviving?"
Aria covered her mouth with her hand as sobs tore through her chest now.
"I try so hard to be understanding," she cried. "I try so hard to be the good person in all of this."
She looked at him helplessly.
"But I'm angry, Chase."
There it was.
Finally.
The truth.
Pure and ugly and human.
"I'm angry that I wasn't enough to stay in your mind as irrational as that may sound."
The second the words left her mouth, Chase looked like she had stabbed him directly through the heart.
And Aria immediately broke her tears coming full force her sobs breaking free.
Because she knew that wasn't fair.
God, she knew it wasn't fair.
But her very real pain wasn't fair either.
"You were everything," Chase whispered hoarsely.
Aria shook her head violently through tears.
"No, because if I was everything..."
Her voice shattered completely.
"You would've remembered me."
Chase stared at her like the ground beneath him had disappeared.
"No," he said again, stronger this time, desperate. "No, Aria, that is not what this means."
But she was already shaking her head.
Already falling apart.
Because this was not just anger anymore.
This was grief finally clawing its way out after years of being buried alive inside her.
"You don't understand," she cried.
Her hands pressed against her chest like she physically could not hold the pain inside herself anymore.
"I have spent weeks wondering how I was so easily forgotten."
The confession hit him like a blow.
"I thought maybe I wasn't enough," she whispered brokenly. "Maybe I wasn't pretty enough. Maybe I didn't matter enough. Maybe if I had loved you harder somehow..."
"Stop," Chase said immediately.
His voice cracked violently.
"Aria, stop."
But she couldn't.
Not now.
Not after holding this inside for so long.
"You know what it's like," she whispered, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face, "to go to sleep every night praying somebody you love is alive somewhere while the whole world tells you that they are gone?"
Her voice trembled harder with every word.
"To wake up every morning hoping today will finally be the day somebody knocks on your door and says that the person you love is alive?"
Her breathing became uneven.
"And then slowly..."
She laughed through a sob.
"Slowly everybody around you starts moving on."
That silence in the room hurt.
Because he could picture it now.
Her alone in their house.
People stopping by less and less.
The sympathy fading.
The world continuing while she stayed frozen.
"My friends stopped bringing you up," she admitted softly.
"That's when I knew they thought you were really gone."
A tear slid off her jaw.
"At first everybody checked on me constantly. Everybody wanted to make sure I was eating and sleeping and surviving."
Her face twisted painfully.
"And then one day..."
A pause.
"They stopped asking."
The loneliness in those words gutted him.
"They started treating me like a widow instead of a wife."
Chase physically had to grip the edge of the counter beside him.
Because he could not breathe around the image forming in his mind.
"I kept your side of the closet exactly the same," she whispered.
Her voice softened now.
More broken than angry.
"I washed your clothes and sprayed them with your cologne because I was scared they'd stop smelling like you."
His chest caved inward.
"I slept on your side of the bed every night because I missed your body."
A sob escaped her.
"And everybody thought I was crazy."
She looked at him helplessly.
"But I knew."
That destroyed him.
Completely.
"I knew you were alive."
Her voice broke harder.
"I felt it."
Chase's own eyes burned now.
His throat tight and raw.
Because no torture he remembered...
No violence.
No pain.
Nothing hurt like hearing what surviving him had done to her.
"And then you came home," she whispered.
A small, shattered laugh escaped her.
"But not to me."
God.
The words nearly dropped him to his knees.
"I spent years begging the universe not to take you from me..."
Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.
"And when I finally got you back..."
She looked directly into his eyes.
"You belonged to somebody else."
The devastation in her voice split him open.
"I hated her," Aria admitted immediately afterward.
The confession came ugly and ashamed.
"For a little while, I hated her so much I could barely breathe."
Her hands shook violently now.
"I hated the fact that she got to touch you when I couldn't."
Another sob broke free.
"I hated the fact that she got the years with you that were supposed to be mine."
Chase closed his eyes briefly as if the words physically hurt.
Because they did.
"I hated hearing her call you her husband."
Her voice shattered.
"Because I was still yours."
The room went silent again except for her crying.
"And then I got to know her," Aria whispered.
The anger in her face softened into something sadder.
"She loved you too."
A tear slid down her cheek.
"And that made me feel even worse because she wasn't evil. Her actions were reprehensible yes, but she was a likable woman."
Her voice broke.
"She was however, still the same woman who married a lost man, with out knowing I existed."
A pause.
"She loved a broken man and help him survive."
Chase swallowed hard against the emotion climbing into his throat.
"And I resent her for it, but I won't be the villain, I won't let her actions vilify me in the situation by making me become a monster in my own eyes. "
That honesty wrecked him.
Aria dragged a trembling hand across her face.
"I don't know how to do this," she admitted.
That was the most honest thing she'd said yet.
"I don't know how to look at you and not see every version of what I lost."
Her chest shook violently again.
"The boy who climbed through my window beaten and bruised but ready to protect me with his life if necessary."
A sob.
"The man who kissed me goodnight before bed every night with an I love you whispered in my ear as I fell off to sleep with my head on your chest."
Another tear fell.
"The husband I was forced to bury."
Chase looked at her wrecked face as she bleed out before him.
His hand covered his mouth as tears finally spilled down his own face.
Because she had buried him.
"I would have waited forever," Aria whispered.
Her voice was barely audible now.
"That's the worst part."
Chase's eyes squeezed shut tightly.
"I know," he choked out.
"No," she cried softly. "You don't."
She looked at him with complete devastation.
"I would have spent the rest of my life alone if it meant staying yours."
The room collapsed inward around him.
Because he believed her.
Every word.
Every broken piece of it.
Chase finally moved.
Not carefully.
Not cautiously.
He crossed the room in two quick steps and dropped to his knees in front of her.
Not touching her yet.
Because he didn't know if he had the right.
His face wrecked with grief.
"I am so sorry," he said hoarsely.
The words sounded too small immediately.
Worthless compared to what she carried.
But they were all he had.
"I am so damn sorry."
Aria broke harder at that.
Because this was the first time she had truly let him see it.
All of it.
Not the composed version.
Not the understanding version.
Not the patient version.
The real version.
The woman who loved him so much she had buried herself beside him when the world declared him dead.
Chase looked up at her with tears streaming down his own face now.
"If I could rip apart my own mind and force it to remember you sooner, I would."
His voice shook violently.
"If I could go back and suffer every second of what happened to me again just to spare you this..."
He swallowed hard.
"I would."
Aria covered her mouth as another sob escaped her.
And Chase realized then...
This woman had been grieving him for years.
Not quietly.
Not beautifully.
But brutally.
Every single day.
And somehow...
She still opened the door when he came home with another.
Chase stayed on his knees in front of her.
He didn't care how it looked.
Didn't care how badly his pride shattered beneath the weight of this moment.
Because none of it compared to what she had carried alone.
Aria stood there crying in front of him, years of grief pouring out of her body all at once, and Chase felt something inside himself collapse completely.
This woman had loved him through death.
And he had forgot her.
The thought was unbearable.
Absolutely unbearable.
His hands shook as he looked up at her, tears still sliding down his face unchecked now.
Not hidden.
Not restrained.
Real.
Raw.
"I don't know how to fix this," he admitted brokenly.
His voice cracked so hard the words barely made it out.
"I don't know how to make up for years of you hurting like this."
Aria's chest shook violently as she cried, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to physically hold herself together.
And Chase hated himself for being the reason she had ever had to hurt this deeply.
"You deserved better than this," he whispered. "Better than me."
The words ripped out of him.
"You deserved to have your husband come home to you."
His throat tightened harder.
"You deserved to be angry at me for stupid things. Dirty dishes. Missed dates. Dumb arguments."
A broken laugh escaped him through tears.
"Not this."
His hand came up shakily, covering his mouth for a second as emotion overwhelmed him again.
Because this wasn't fair.
None of it.
Not to her.
Not to him.
Not to any of them.
But especially not to Aria.
"I failed you," he whispered.
Aria immediately shook her head through tears.
"No..."
"Yes."
The word cracked sharply through the room.
Firm.
Certain.
"Yes, I did."
His breathing became uneven.
"I promised you I'd come home."
A tear slid down his jaw.
"And instead they handed you a folded flag."
The image destroyed him.
He physically doubled over for a second, one hand gripping his chest as if it hurt to breathe.
"God..."
His voice broke apart completely.
"Jesus Christ, Aria..."
He was totally wrecked.
Destroyed.
Because now he understood.
She had not simply missed him.
She had mourned him.
Buried herself with him.
Defended his existence while everyone else slowly erased him.
And still...
She opened the door when he came back.
"You loved me better than I deserved," he whispered.
Aria cried harder at that.
Because he meant it.
Every word.
His eyes lifted back to hers, red and glassy and desperate.
"And I swear to you..."
His voice trembled violently.
"I did not leave you willingly."
That one hit her straight through the chest.
"If there had been any part of me left capable of finding you..."
He shook his head hard, crying openly now.
"I would have crawled back to you."
At this confession Chase could barely hold himself upright anymore.
"I hate that I forgot," he admitted. "The only defense I have here is that I forgot me too.
His voice sounded shattered.
"Every day I wake up and remember something new about you, it feels like grieving all over again because I realize how much of you was stolen from me."
A shaky breath escaped him.
"Not just memories."
He looked up at her.
"You."
Chase slowly reached forward then, hesitating halfway like he wasn't sure if he deserved to touch her anymore.
"Can I..."
His voice cracked.
"Can I hold your hand?"
The question nearly broke Aria all over again.
Because this was Chase.
Her Chase.
The man who used to pull her into his lap without thinking now asking permission to touch her hand like he was afraid she'd refuse him.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she slowly nodded.
Chase let out a shaky breath of relief before carefully taking her hand in both of his.
And the second he touched her.
He broke.
Completely.
His head bowed forward against her knuckles as a sob escaped him.
"I'm sorry," he cried quietly against her skin. "I'm so sorry."
Aria's knees nearly gave out at the sound.
Because Chase had always been strong.
Steady.
The kind of man who carried pain silently so nobody else had to.
Seeing him unravel like this felt almost unbearable.
"I should've been there," he whispered brokenly.
"For all of it."
His grip tightened around her hand carefully, desperately.
"The nights you cried yourself to sleep."
Another tear fell onto her skin.
"The years you waited."
His shoulders shook hard now.
"And instead you were alone."
Aria's face crumpled completely.
"No," she cried softly. "No, don't do that to yourself."
But Chase looked up at her with devastation carved into every inch of his face.
"How can I not?"
His voice cracked violently.
"How can I hear what surviving me did to you and not hate myself for it?"
That question shattered something inside her.
Because she didn't want him carrying this either.
That was the horrible part.
Neither of them wanted the other to hurt.
And they were both drowning anyway.
Chase pressed her hand tighter against his forehead for a second, breathing unevenly as tears continued falling freely.
Aria cried quietly for another moment, her forehead resting against his as both of them struggled to steady their breathing.
Then slowly...
She pulled back just enough to look at him.
Really look at him.
At the broken man kneeling in front of her.
At the tears on his face.
At the guilt eating him alive.
And somehow...
A tiny smile broke through her tears.
Not because anything was okay.
Not because the pain disappeared.
But because this...
This right here...
Was exactly why she had forced herself to stay composed for so long.
Her trembling hand brushed against his cheek gently.
"This," she whispered softly. "This is why I have to be so strong."
Chase's brows pulled together slightly, still breathing unevenly.
"What do you mean?"
Aria let out a shaky breath.
"Because moments like this come," she admitted quietly. "And we're not prepared for them."
Her thumb brushed beneath his eye, wiping away another tear.
"If I let myself stay angry all the time... if I let resentment consume me... then when moments like this happen, we lose control of the facts."
That made him still.
Because she was right.
Aria swallowed hard before continuing.
"The facts matter, Chase."
Her voice steadied slowly now.
"The fact is, you lost your memory because horrible things were done to you."
His jaw tightened immediately.
She saw it.
Saw the flash of pain cross his face as those memories resurfaced.
But she kept going anyway.
"The fact is, you came home confused and traumatized. You had forgotten me yes... but you had lost Chase as well."
A pause.
"The fact is, while you were gone, Will built another life."
That one still hurt to say.
She felt it cut through her chest all over again.
"But it happened," she whispered. "Whether I like it or not."
Chase lowered his eyes briefly, guilt flashing hard across his face again.
"And the fact is," she continued carefully, "Emily may genuinely be a good person..."
Her voice tightened there.
"But she crossed a professional line."
Chase looked back up at her immediately.
Aria exhaled slowly.
"I do feel sorry for her," she admitted honestly. "I truly do."
A beat.
"She loved you."
Aria refused to take that away from Emily, no matter how complicated everything truly was.
"But marrying a patient who had no memory of who he was..."
Her brows pinched together painfully.
"That never should've happened without knowing for sure whether you had a life somewhere else."
A pause.
"What if you'd had children?"
The question settled heavily between them.
"What if there had been kids somewhere missing their father while she was building a life with you?"
Chase physically flinched at that.
Because he had clearly never let his mind go there before.
Aria softened slightly immediately afterward.
"I know she didn't do it maliciously," she added quietly. "I know she loved you. I know she probably convinced herself you had no one."
A tear slid down her cheek.
"But it was still wrong."
The honesty in her voice was brutal.
Chase swallowed hard.
"She's now suffering because you willingly walked away from her," Aria whispered. "And I suffered because I didn't know if you were dead or alive."
That silence afterward was loaded.
Because both kinds of grief were horrible in different ways.
Aria laughed softly then, but there was sadness buried deep inside it.
"And the ugliest part?"
Her eyes lowered briefly.
"A little piece of me feels satisfied."
Chase's expression broke immediately.
Aria shook her head quickly, tears filling her eyes again.
"And I hate that about myself."
Her voice cracked.
"I hate that some small broken part of me feels relieved that she finally understands what it feels like to lose you."
The confession hung between them.
"But me feeling good about that changes nothing," she whispered.
"It doesn't fix you. It doesn't fix me. It doesn't undo any of this mess."
A shaky breath left her.
"All it does is prove that I'm hurting too."
Chase stared at her like he was seeing the full depth of her strength for the first time.
Not because she was unaffected.
But because she was.
And still choosing reason anyway.
Still choosing truth.
Even while bleeding.
Aria gently took his face in both hands then.
"You forgot because of trauma," she whispered firmly.
"Not because you didn't love me enough."
Fresh tears filled his eyes immediately.
"And trauma," she continued softly, "is the real enemy here."
Not Emily.
Not her.
Not him.
The trauma.
The torture.
The damage done to his mind.
"That's what you need to face."
Her thumbs brushed softly along his cheeks.
"And that's what you need help for."
Chase's breathing slowed slightly as he listened.
"I called a friend of mine tonight," she admitted.
"She runs a trauma rehabilitation program. PTSD, memory fragmentation, military trauma, identity reconstruction."
A pause.
"And tomorrow, you start therapy."
The words were gentle.
But firm.
Certain.
Not optional.
Chase blinked at her for a moment, emotionally exhausted and still kneeling in front of her.
Then quietly...
"Okay."
No argument.
No hesitation.
Just trust.
That nearly made her cry all over again.
"If we ever have any chance at this again," Aria whispered, "I think we both need therapy."
Chase looked at her carefully.
"You too?"
A sad little smile crossed her face.
"You think burying my husband and getting him back married to someone else didn't damage me?"
That hit him hard.
Of course it had.
God.
Of course it had.
Aria leaned forward then, resting her forehead gently against his again.
"You need to face your demons before you can face your future," she whispered softly.
"And honestly..."
Her voice trembled slightly.
"So do I."
For a long moment neither of them moved.
Both grieving.
Both trying to find out what comes next.
And somewhere in the middle of all the heartbreak.
For the first time since he came home...
It finally felt like they were fighting the same battle instead of each other.