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She stares at me as if she doesn’t know how to answer me. Tears well in her eyes, and for a second, I feel bad. And then I remember she was in the wrong. Not me.
“Chase, it was a long time ago—”
“Bullshit,” I cut in. “It was barely two years ago. Josh was sure that I’d been cheating on you. That was his justification for doing what he did. He got that from somewhere, so I just need to know what you told him.”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” she says quietly. “He assumed. And you didn’t correct him? Isn’t that just as bad?”
She doesn’t answer. Her eyes dart around me.
“Look, can we not do this on my front doorstep?” she asks. Her lip trembles.
I nod stiffly and stalk past her into the living room, but I don't sit down. Sitting down would suggest I’m willing to make peace and compromise, and I have no intention of doing any of that. Not until she gives me the answers I need.
“I loved you. I was devoted to you and you left me for him?”
“Devoted?” she says with a laugh. “You were devoted to your job. You didn't care about me or appreciate me.”
“That's not true,” I growl. “Why do you think I worked so goddamned hard at my job? I wanted to give you security—”
“I didn't want security,” she screams. “I wanted you. I wanted you to put me first. But you couldn't give me that. You couldn't let yourself be open enough to let me into your heart.”
I stare at her, letting her words sink in. She’s turning this all around on me? I shake my head.
“Where is Josh,” I ask. I already know he’s not here, but I want to know if she knows where he is.
She shrugs helplessly. “I don't know. I told him the truth,” she says quietly.
My eyes widen. “What? When?”
“On our wedding night,” she says quietly. She sits down. I sit opposite her, still in shock. I can't believe she actually told him.
“How did he take it?” I ask.
She laughs. “Not well. He looked at me the same way you’re looking at me.”
“I have to go,” I mutter.
I stand up while she looks at me, her expression begging me to say something, but I have nothing. So, I just turn around and walk out the door and back over to my car.
I sit behind the wheel, feeling tense and angry. My head is full of a hundred different thoughts. If Josh knows, then why did he go to see Alana? To fix my mess and tell her the truth? I frown, clutching the wheel tightly. He had no right doing that. His interference was only going to make this a thousand times worse.
I start driving, and before I know it, I've ended up at Lincoln Memorial Garden. I park my car in the street, and just sit there for a while, reflecting on the last time I was here.
It’s been a long time. I think I was seventeen and only here because Josh had begged me to bring him. I struggled with visiting them here, and he respected that. He never pressured me to leave the car or ask me why I couldn’t go and talk to them. I was so angry at them for so long and talking to them as though they were still alive felt silly. It didn’t change anything. It didn’t fix the way I felt inside, so why bother?
After Josh turned sixteen, he stopped asking me to come. It became so much easier to not visit when he didn’t rely on me for it. And now, before I know it, nearly fifteen years has passed. Fifteen years. It feels surreal to think it was that long ago. What kind of son doesn’t visit his parents’ graves for over fifteen years?
Apparently, me.
I’m not sure why today is so different, but I get out of my car and walk through the gardens, over to where their ashes are scattered. I stand there, staring at the tree where their plaque sits, deep in thought.
Something Casey had said really stuck with me. Was she right? Did I not let her in? Was I incapable of loving anyone, in case they ended it? Did I keep people at a distance so I wouldn't end up getting hurt again?
I take a deep breath and walk a few meters over, so that I'm ironically enough of a distance away when I sit down. I stare at the ground, my stomach churning, because I don't know what to do. Where to go from here. I know I need to try and talk to Alana again, but the thought of doing that, especially now that she knows the truth, is hard. She’ll have so many questions, like why did I let Josh believe all this time that I cheated on Casey? The hard thing is I can't even answer that question. I can tell that I didn't want him to get hurt all I like, but I know that it's more than that.
