“But you did.” I meet his gaze. “You loved Marnie.”
He nods. “I did. Losing her fucked me up, Brett.”
“I imagine. No one ever figured out what happened to her. But Sebastian and River told Alex and me that she was pregnant when she disappeared.”
Jake shakes his head. “Fuck. So much you don’t know yet.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
He stares out into the blue ocean. “I owe you that much, but let’s wait until after the wedding. I don’t want to fuck it up for Alex.”
I’m not sure waiting is a good idea. Does Jake really want to lay more on Alex when he should be on his honeymoon?
But I stay quiet about it.
The silence between us stretches, thick with everything we never were. Part of me wants to let it go, to leave it buried with the years we lost. But another part, the part that stayed up night after night wondering what if, won’t let me.
Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe it’s cruel. But I need the truth, even if it stings. Even if it’s too late to do anything about it.
“I don’t regret loving you,” I say. “But I have to know. If I’d said something back then, would it have made a difference?”
EPISODE 220
DON’T FEAR THE REAPER
Heather
Ten Years Earlier…
He falls asleep like he always does—after two fingers of whiskey and a disgusting belch.
I wait.
I sit on the edge of my bed, staring at the hallway, listening to the sound of his breathing drift into something heavy and slow. I know the rhythm. I’ve memorized it over the years. In through his nose, out through his mouth. The soft hitch when he turns on his side. The low grunt when he settles.
That’s when I move.
My bare feet make no sound on the floor. I’ve practiced this a hundred times in my head—where to step, how to hold my breath, what creaks in the floorboards to avoid. I pass the photographs on the wall. Pictures of me as a kid, smiling like an idiot.
I grip the handle of the fire poker by the hearth. It’s cold. Heavy.
Deadly if wielded correctly.
The bedroom door is ajar.
It always is. He doesn’t fear me. He thinks he controls me.
He can think again.
I push the door open. Just a little.
He’s sprawled on his back, mouth open, the blanket tangled around his legs.
Asleep, he passes for human.
Vulnerable.
Nothing like the bastard who whispered twisted lullabies in the dark and told me to smile for the neighbors.
