Chapter 39
There was a moment of stunned silence in which Tabitha pressed closer, her gaze soft and full of sympathy.
And he was a selfish, greedy bastard because he was glad. Glad and so fucking grateful, because she had every right to back away from him. Not because of what he was going to tell her about his parents’ accident.
But because of what he’d kept from her all those years ago.
“Why do you think that?” she asked gently.
“They were coming home from one of my basketball games when the accident happened.”
“Were you in the car with them?”
He shook his head. When he and Tabitha had been together, all he’d told her was that his parents had died in a car wreck when he was in high school, but he hadn’t told her the full story.
He’d never told anyone the full story.
“I was on the bus with the team. It was a playoff game in a town two hours from here. The trip there wasn’t bad, but it started snowing heavily during the game, and by the time it was over, the roads were slick…”
His fingers began to tingle, and he rubbed them up and down the length of his thighs, focusing on the feel of the stiff denim beneath his skin. Leaning his head back against the couch, he shut his eyes. Inhaled for the count of four. Held it for four. Exhaled for the count of four. Held it for four.
It helped.
But not as much as the feel of Tabitha’s fingers, cool against the back of his hand.
“What do you need?”
Opening his eyes, he met her gaze. “This,” he murmured, turning his hand to link his fingers with hers. “Just this.”
“I think I can do better than that.”
Then, as if she knew exactly how badly he needed to hold her, she untangled her fingers from his and climbed onto his lap. Tucking the side of her head against his chest, she snuggled into him. “Better?”
Wrapping his arms around her waist, he exhaled. Kissed the top of her damp hair and nodded. “The roads were slick,” he said again. “Too slick for how fast the semi was going. It crossed the center line going around a curve. Dad tried to swerve, but there wasn’t much he could do. The semi hit their truck almost head-on. The bus had left about fifteen minutes after them…”Inhaling sharply, Tabitha stiffened and lifted her head, her eyes wide with realization. And horror. “Oh, Miles…”
He hugged her closer. “We got there shortly after the first responders.”
He remembered every moment like it was yesterday. The vibration of the bus. The muted sound of the engine. The flurry of white illuminated by a passing vehicle’s headlights.
“I was sitting in the back. We’d lost the game, and I was pissed. I sat by myself with my headphones on and pretended to be asleep so no one would talk to me.”
He’d been a fucking brat. A pissy, sore loser.
“I remember the tires of the bus sliding as we stopped, and I opened my eyes. Saw the flashing red and blue lights and then shut them again. I turned away,” he admitted gruffly. “All the guys got up and pressed their faces against the windows across from me…” He blew out a breath. “At first, they were all talking, exclaiming over how bad the accident was, and then, one of them must have recognized that the truck belonged to my dad because their exclamations turned to murmurs. Then to silence.”
It was that sudden quiet that had gotten to him. That had told him something was very, very wrong.
“The moment I saw my dad’s truck, I went ballistic. Coach and Mr. Hennesy, the driver, wouldn’t let me get off the bus, so I went to the back and opened the emergency exit.” He’d slipped and slid his way across the street in his sneakers. “Two cops working traffic had stopped me before I reached the truck.”
They’d had to tackle him and pin him to the wet, snowy ground, but they’d stopped him.
Even then, he’d kept fighting. Trying to get to his mom and dad.
“Once they realized my parents were in the truck,” he went on, “they let me stay, but kept me as far from the scene as possible.”
One of the cops had stayed with him, probably to make sure he didn’t interfere with the First Responders. But he’d also tried to comfort him. Had asked his mother’s name so the EMTs would know it. Had told him, again and again, that they were all doing all they could to save his mom and dad. To have faith.
To have hope.
But even though he’d wanted to believe him, Miles had known faith wasn’t going to do his parents any good.
And it was far too late for hope.
“It felt like I’d walked into a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. Dad died on impact.” He could still see his father’s body, so still, so lifeless, lying on the side of the road. “Mom was trapped in the truck and was still alive when they finally freed her, but her injuries were too severe, and she died on the way to the hospital. I had to tell Urban,” he continued, voice hoarse with grief, throat aching with it as he remembered making that phone call to his older brother. “We didn’t have anyone else. Both sets of our grandparents were gone, and other than an uncle in Arizona we’d only met a few times, we had no other family.”
Tabitha sniffed and Miles’s stomach dropped. He’d been so wrapped up in his memories, it took him a moment to realize Tabitha was crying. Big, heart-wrenching, silent tears that streamed down her face.
“Hey, hey,” he murmured, doing his best to wipe the tears away with his trembling hands, but they just kept coming. “Please don’t cry. Not because of me.”
She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, stilling his hands against her face. “I’m not crying because of you. I’m crying for you. For your family and what they lost. For your parents being taken away from you all, and each other, too soon. But mostly, I’m crying for the child you were. For the boy who witnessed something so horrific. And I’m crying for the man you are now. The man who still lives with that pain. Who blames that child for something out of his… out of anyone’s… control.”
He tipped his forehead against hers. Shut his eyes and just breathed her in. He didn’t know what the hell he’d done to deserve this second chance with her, but he wasn’t going to question it.
He wasn’t going to waste it.
“The nightmares I had when we were together… they were about that night. Or at least, variations of that night. Sometimes I’d be seventeen again, sometimes I’d be seven, sometimes an adult. The only thing that’s the same is that I always try to save them. Sometimes I’m in the middle of the road, screaming and waving my arms to warn them. Sometimes I’m in the truck, begging them to slow down. To pay closer attention. To pull over for just a minute. But no matter what I do, no matter what I say, no matter how the dream begins, the only thing that never changes is how the dream ends. I never save them. Not even once.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “that you go through that. I know what it’s like to be unwillingly dragged back into one’s past. To relive it.” With a slight wince, she lowered her gaze as she let go of his wrists to clasp her hands in her lap. “I got yanked firmly back into mine the night we spent together. It was nothing you did,” she assured him quickly when he stiffened.
He could feel the blood drain from his face. “Are you sure? Because if I did something to trig—”
“You didn’t,” she told him firmly. “It wasn’t anything like that.”
He eased back, studied her face. “What happened that night?”
“More like what happened that morning. It had been a long time since I’d woken up in a bed that wasn’t my own, a long time since I’d woken up and I wasn’t alone. And for a moment, I couldn’t get my bearings. It was like being a kid all over again, waking up in a hotel room or an apartment my mom had brought me to. And then later, all the different foster homes I was placed in. It’s just so disorienting. Not knowing where you were or what was going to happen to you. So frightening not knowing who you could trust. Terrifying not having any control over your life.” She swallowed thickly. “Or your own body. Who touched you. What they did to you.”
Stomach turning as he imagined what she’d lived through, what she’d survived, he tipped his head against hers once again. He kept silent because there was nothing he could say that would make it better for her. Nothing he could do.
Except be there for her like she’d just been there for him.
Wrapping one arm around his neck, Tabitha laid the side of her head against his shoulder, settled her other hand on his chest. “It was always such a sense of helplessness. Add in the guilt I felt for lying to you about passing through Mount Laurel, and I panicked. And then I ran into Verity.”
“Which is like running as fast as you can into a brick wall.”
Tabitha snorted out a half laugh. “She was lovely. At first.”
Now it was Miles’s turn to snort, and he felt Tabitha smile against his neck.
She began tracing small circles on his chest with the tip of her forefinger. “She was lovely and immensely pleased to catch me sneaking out of your house.”
“No doubt.”
“Right up until I jumped to conclusions. The absolute wrong conclusions. She had every right to defend you. Not only because she loves you, but because she was right. No one who knows you would ever believe you could lure a teenage girl to your house for any reason. And I didn’t believe it. Not really.” She lifted her head, her eyes full of regret. Shame. “But I still thought it. I thought it and I accused you of it because I’ve had too many clients who’ve been used and abused by people who held power over them. I thought it because I’ve been hurt too many times by the people in my life who were supposed to take care of me. And protect me.”
“I know,” he whispered raggedly. Pressed a kiss to her temple. “It’s okay.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I haven’t even apologized yet.”
“You don’t have to.”
Yeah, he’d been pissed that morning—thanks to his pride and ego—but even then, he’d suspected there was something more going on.
“Miles,” she said softly. “I’m truly sorry for what happened that morning. I was scared.”
He nodded. “Of your memories.”
“Of my feelings. Seeing you at the bar really was a shock. I told myself I wasn’t in Mount Laurel for you. I’d convinced myself that what we had was in the past and I was content to let it stay there. But then I saw you and everything I’d felt for you came rushing back. I followed you home because I thought I could handle it. The memories. The regrets. Your anger. I thought being with you one last time would be worth the risk of whatever feelings rose to the surface.”
“But it turned out what I couldn’t handle was the tiny sliver of hope that lodged itself here” —she tapped her chest, directly over her heart. “Hope that we might be able to start something new. But hoping for things to be different had never worked for me before. I’d always end up heartbroken and disappointed, so I knew I couldn’t trust it.”
She blew out a careful breath. “I snuck out of your bed because I wanted to stay and tell you the truth about why I was there. I wanted to admit why I left all those years ago. And I wanted to ask you to give me, to give us, a second chance. I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for sneaking out and accusing you of inappropriate behavior. I’m sorry for lying to you about why I was in town, and for all the things I kept from you when we were together. And while I still think my leaving was for the best for both of us, I’m so, so sorry about the way I did it. And how much it hurt you.”
“And I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to say that,” she continued. ”I told myself I didn’t owe you an apology. I was so certain walking away from you had been the only way for me to change and grow and become the woman I wanted to be. But now I can’t help but think I was wrong. That I could have stayed with you, that I could have changed and grown with you. And I’m sorry I didn’t give us the chance to help each other heal and become our best selves. Together.”
There it was. The apology he’d been waiting for. The one he’d longed for. The one he was so certain would bring him vindication.
But after everything he’d learned about Tabitha these past few weeks and getting to know the woman she’d become, after coming to a few not so pretty insights into his own behavior, he realized that now that he had her apology, he no longer wanted it.
He didn’t need it.
All he needed was her.