Page 54 of Promise

Like whether he knew how truly sorry I was for my part in our separation.

Like if he still loved me.

16

[Dart]

Ihated to leave her.

I’d hoped to give her a few minutes to herself, but then, selfishly interrupted her bath. Without planning to, I intruded upon that precious time, and then she sent me out with my friends. I should have stuck around, but maybe it was best to give us more space. I’d already revealed too much.

I didn’t want to hide behind a screen, suggesting that we’d talk on the phone better than we might talk in person, but I did believe that not looking at each other might have helped. Without the sadness in her eyes and the pain I was certain she’d see in mine, maybe we’d be a little more open with each other. Tell each other things we couldn’t face. If we faced the other, I worried we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, voice our concerns.

Then again, what did I know? I’d walked away after begging her to come with me and her telling me no. I got the message. It only took me six months of rejected phone calls and unanswered text messages to finally get the hint.

However, rather than sign those divorce papers I was served, I doused them in gasoline and struck a match.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the news about Mirabelle.

Adoption. It’d been something I wanted us to do. While I could harbor hurt that we hadn’t gone that route together, I’m just too stinking happy that Trinity is accepting that option now.

She will have Mirabelle in a few short months.

And I try not to think about where that leaves me.

Part of their life? Or not?

Either way, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to support Trinity and Mirabelle in any way Trin will let me.

As for what I really want, I want to be the dad Mirabelle doesn’t currently have.

I forgive Trin for lying to me, or rather playing that game, making me think she’d slept with someone else. I hadn’t really given her the chance to explain herself or Mirabelle when I first crashed here, and the fault falls on me. I’d been too shocked by a baby in her arms and the despair of being kicked out to be rational. To stay calm.

I’m also so fucking relieved she hasn’t been with someone else, which eases the ability to forgive her for allowing me to think otherwise.

No one else has touched her sacred parts. No one else has climbed into her heart.

She is still mine in some manner.

The relief almost makes me giddy.

After cleaning up the wine mess, I pour her another glass and leave it on her nightstand next to her reading tablet. I stamp a sticky note to the top like I used to do when we’d go more than a day without seeing each other due to her shifts at the hospital and my construction schedule.

Just a simple heart. No extra words needed.

A sign that I loved her. That I’d miss her. That I’d be thinking about her.

All things I did when I was gone for three years.

A few nights later, I find Trinity set up on the pink velvet couch with the television on. It’s positioned at ninety degrees to the set when we originally had a couch that faced the fireplace with the set above it. The new arrangement looks formal, but Trin also didn’t watch television as much as I did.

Still, she’s settled in tonight. Mirabelle has started sleeping longer stretches in the night, and although it’s still early, Trin will get a few hours reprieve before a feeding close to midnight.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

She already has the screen pulled up to a historical romance prepped for her to click start.

“Sure. Okay.” She clicks the remote back to the guide screen.