Chapter 21 #3
The scenery passes behind him as we pass the town limits and hit the higher speeds. He’s slow to accelerate and quick to take his foot off the gas, all smooth transitions and diligent attention. He’s no longer sneaking glances. His eyes are on every blind corner and curve of the road.
“The lower ridge, please.” I didn’t consider all of the memories of the upper ridges when I asked him to take us out here. I was only thinking about getting away from everything and trapping myself into the conversation I do not want to have, but need to have.
The next ten minutes pass in more taut silence. A dirt road, a few turns and curves, and we’re sitting at one of the many lookouts only locals know about. Trevor puts the SUV in park and pauses with his hands remaining on the keys and the wheel.
I pull the envelope out and hand it to him, but open the door and hop out the moment it leaves my fingers.
A soft breeze hits me, lifting my hair from my shoulders before wrapping around my legs and flirting with my skirt.
Amusement fills me briefly at the idea of suddenly having a wardrobe malfunction in a place like this, but it’s quickly suffocated by what’s happening to me right now.
I take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turn to Trevor.
His eyes are wide as saucers as he looks, and then looks again at the images in his hand. His eyebrows sit high on his forehead, and a small O forms on his lips. His eyes flash to mine with a complicated mix of emotions, but a smile takes over his tired face.
I don’t smile back.
Trevor hustles out of the truck and rushes to my side, image carefully held in his hand—not being twisted up, crushed, or crumpled, but cradled with care. He reaches for me, and I flinch away. A small sound escapes him. I’m too busy looking at the pictures of my babies.
“T-twins, Paige?” His stutter. The high emotions.
Our shared past. I close my eyes to the memories, not trying to envision the other version of my husband—one from a different time.
I nod my head once. My teeth grind in my effort to stay on course.
“Is everything—are you okay? Are you safe?” The echo of the question from the exam room and from only minutes ago digs into my ribs, causing a deeper ache.
“No, Trevor. I’m not. Not lately.” His eyes burn into me, but I take the moment to look out onto our home.
The place I grew roots and built a home, a family.
The mountains are old and smoothed out in greens and browns.
Hills, forests, and fields are all covered in the soft green of the Appalachian Mountains.
I can see for ages from here, even though it’s one of the lower spots.
Even now I’m making choices to protect our memories.
“Sweetheart?” I close my eyes at his words, cutting off the gentle beauty, and focus on the inside. It’s not smooth here. It’s jagged, sharp, cutting, painful. I am not okay. I am not safe. This is not safe.
“Trevor, I don’t feel safe with you anymore.
Seeing you hurts. My chest aches with the pain of knowing what you did and what you let happen.
” Don’t cry. Bury it down. “I cannot breathe around you without smelling her. I cannot look at you without seeing her hands all over you. I cannot bear when you look at me, wondering if you’re imagining—” I hiccup a sob.
“You’re imagining it’s her you’re with.”
A gasp falls from him, saturated in pain, but I keep going. I need to say it all now. It feels like I’m ripping my heart out of my chest and laying it uselessly on the ground between us.
“This was happening for weeks, right under my nose. Here I was, planning a way to tell you I’m pregnant, excited for our next step together as a family, tolerating your parents, your job, because it’s part of the package of having you in my life.”
“Paige—”
“That party was humiliating. That dinner? Devastating. It also makes me wonder, if you were that blatant in your family’s home, how bad were you at work? At those lunches?”
“No. Never—”
I finally turn to him, clenching my fist and bringing it to my chest, beating it there. “How could you do this to us? How could you do this to me? I lived you. I breathed you. You were my everything, and I wasn’t important enough for you to set some boundaries.”
My fist glides down until I cradle my stomach where two lives are growing.
Seeking to protect or to gain comfort, I’m not sure, and that only hardens my resolve.
“I don’t want to see you. I need to take care of myself and these babies and do what’s best for us.
” I gesture to all of me, fluttering a hand around my belly.
“Don’t make me breakfast. Don’t come for dinner.
Be there for our son, but don’t be there for me. I don’t want you to.”
“Jacob—”
“You will be the one to break his heart. You get to explain to him what you have done and what you are going to do.”
“Are you—is this—” He swallows, looking at me with clear, vibrant agony in his red-rimmed eyes. “Are you leaving me, Paige?” He croaks out the question, carefully formed yet barely discernible through the emotion clogging his voice.
“I don’t know yet.” His shoulders ease at my words, but drop completely when I finish. “But you are leaving us.”