Chapter 8 #2
“I’ve already told you, I don’t care what the lawyer said, Lucas!
You don’t have the luxury of rewriting history to make it more suitable to your needs!
” she yells into the phone, and I can see the way her body is trembling from here.
I pause where I’m at, leaning forward against the kitchen island, not wanting to intrude.
“You cheated on me! Multiple times! Not the other way around. You don’t get to play the fucking victim, and don’t think that I’m going to roll over and let you make me the villain just because it’s easier for you and you’re worried about your damn reputation.
You should’ve thought about that before you tore our lives apart.
” Her voice cracks on the last word, but she doesn’t back down.
I knew whatever had happened between them had been bad…
but he cheated on her? Took her for granted?
The very girl who has haunted my dreams for years.
And he threw it all away. For what? A fleeting moment?
A cheap thrill? The thought makes my blood boil.
What a fucking idiot. She still hasn’t noticed me despite her now pacing in front of the door.
If she looked in my direction, she would know I’ve been eavesdropping and it’ll probably piss her off more.
But I can’t bring myself to leave. “Do not talk about my family, Lucas. You lost the right to bring them into anything the second you—” Whatever is happening on the other end of the line has caused her to stop mid-sentence.
The hand that’s been in her hair drops to her side and she finally notices me standing there, watching her.
“I have to go,” she snaps into the phone and hangs up, throwing it onto the couch.
“I’m assuming you heard most of that?” she asks me shakily as she intakes a deep breath, before letting it go.
I shrug. “It was kind of hard not to, I thought someone had broken in at first.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. I just…he’s…never mind.” Her shoulders sag and she runs a hand down her face before looking at me fully.
“You okay?” It probably wasn’t the right question to ask, but I didn’t know what else to say.
She narrows her eyes at me. “You’re right, that was a stupid question. You want to talk about it, or should I pretend I didn’t hear anything?”
“What would you do if someone tried to rewrite your past just to make themself look like the good guy?”
I sit up from where I’m leaning over the counter and pull the gun from my waistband, setting it on the counter, and her eyes widen briefly before understanding crosses her face. “I guess it depends. Do I get to hit him, or is that off the table?”
She laughs and although it’s soft and the smile that accompanied it vanishes just as quickly, it was there.
“Unfortunately, hitting him is off the table. For now, anyway. He’s trying to make it seem like I’m the reason everything fell apart between us.
Telling people that I neglected him and was too cold and too distant toward him.
Which I’m not going to deny, but it isn’t for the reason most people assume. ”
I frown. “But he’s the one who cheated?”
She nods. “He’s twisting it, saying it was because of me—like I forced him to fall into bed with someone else. I don’t know where he gets off on trying to justify his infidelity, but apparently he thinks it does.”
I’ve met Lucas in passing, back when Miles was still alive, and I never trusted him back then, either. But Thea was happy and so I never interfered. “That’s bullshit.”
“And to make matters worse, he and I both know the real reason behind it. He…he blamed me for the loss of our daughter, but he won’t admit that to anyone else because he would like for everyone to believe that I was so lost in my grief that I gave up on our marriage instead.
He likes to pretend that he played the doting and supportive husband, but he never fucking was.
As soon as Hallie was born, sleeping, he left me in that hospital room by myself and went to a bar to drown himself in booze and another woman. ”
I freeze, the weight of her words sinking in. Thea had a daughter? She was pregnant? “What?” I ask, unable to get anything else out.
She nods slowly, her lips quivering as though she’s trying to prevent herself from falling apart. “He told me that if I’d been less stressed, didn’t push my body so much, if I’d just taken better care of myself, whatever reason really that you can think of, that our baby would still be here.”
I take a step toward her then, my fists clenching in anger and sorrow. “That’s not just manipulative. That’s cruel.”
Her laugh is bitter and hollow when she responds.
“Yeah, well, Lucas has never exactly been kind when things don’t go his way.
We had our fair share of problems, but I never thought he was capable of any of this.
He knows how much that loss destroyed me.
Of course I was cold and distant, I felt like I was dying inside all while my husband was completely absent, coming home way too late and smelling like liquor and cigarettes instead of being there with me.
I had to grieve alone, while he went out and fucked his way through the base.
The only reason I even found out was because he stopped caring about where he left his phone.
He didn’t even try to deny it when I found the evidence.
I didn’t think things could hurt any more than they already did, but he’s been weaponizing what we went through to make me look like the bad guy. To punish me.”
My teeth grind against each other as I try to keep my own emotions in check. “You know that’s not your fault, right? You didn’t do anything wrong. Nobody could have ever predicted something like that happening.”
She looks up at me then, where I’ve closed the distance between us.
The unshed tears in her eyes cause my throat to tighten.
“Do I? Because no matter how much I try to tell myself that, there’s this tiny voice in the back of my head that wonders if he’s right, if I did fail Hallie. My body did, that much is evident.”
I reach out to touch her, resting my palm against her cheek.
I half expect her to pull away, but she leans into it instead.
“Thea, he’s doing this to hurt you, to shift the blame because he’s a fucking coward.
You loved that baby. You did everything you could.
This isn’t on you in the slightest and I know deep down that you know that, too.
” I may not have been there for that period of her life, but I know it just as well because I know the kind of soul she has.
She shakes her head, a tear slipping down her cheek, and I catch it with my thumb.
“I just don’t understand how someone can be so vile.
And I can’t help but wonder if she had survived if we would be in this position to begin with.
” I don’t want to tell her that they likely would be.
The fact he immediately ran to another woman meant he had been for some time already and he was using what happened as an out, but I keep my mouth shut.
She doesn’t need to hear that right now.
“What can I do to help?” I ask, extending yet another olive branch, hoping she will take it this time.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to help myself, let alone let you in…” The words are so quiet I almost don’t catch them.
“You don’t have to know, I just want to be here. Nothing’s changed.”
She pulls away from my hand, staring at me for a long moment before she responds. “Okay. Just don’t make me regret it.”