Page 77 of Her Unending Horizon

It didn’t matter if we ever filled the nursery. It didn’t matter if the world had other plans. This cut through the noise in my head. If we could just stay in bed forever, I knew I would be all right.

It was as if Chloe could read my mind, because she stiffened in my arms.

“Rest, baby,” I murmured, brushing my thumb across her shoulder.

“How do you feel?” she asked tentatively.

“Better. Better than I have in months. That was beautiful. You’re beautiful. It shut down the demons… for awhile.”

“But now?”

I sighed. “I feel them coming back.” I looked down at her. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand how much I feel like I failed you. Failed our children.”

Her eyes widened, then darkened.

“Are you for real?” She yanked out of my arms. “I need to go.”

I blinked. “Why?”

“I just need to,” she said quickly, already standing.

My brain scrambled to catch up. I pushed up onto an elbow, ribs protesting. “Chloe, what’s wrong?”

She stood abruptly, grabbing her clothes from the chair and jerking them on with fast, fumbling hands.

“This doesn’t solve anything,” she said, voice thick with tears. “I’ll love you to my dying day. Your name will be the last word I utter. But this?” She gestured at the bed. At us. “It was beautiful, but it was a fantasy. You’re still going to fight, aren’t you?”

I froze.

Because I had to fight. I had to figure out what Maurice was doing. I had to keep Tyler from getting crushed by a system built to chew him up. I had to dig until I could take something real to Nash.

But none of that made it sound any better in my head than it did in hers.

She saw it—saw the answer on my face before I could say anything.

“There,” she said, pointing at me. “Right there. I see it. This accomplished nothing. You’re still wallowing so deep you can’t even see daylight. So stuck that even this—this precious hour—meant nothing to you.”

Something hot and ugly surged in my chest. The words ripped out before I could stop them.

“Are you telling me this was nothing more than a transaction?” I demanded. “Fuck Zarek and make him better?”

She froze. Absolutely still.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” she whispered. “Tell me you don’t believe that.”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. Not a denial. Not an explanation. Just…nothing.

“Right,” she whispered. “I’m out of here.”

She grabbed her bag, her keys, and walked out. The front door slammed hard enough to rattle the picture frames.

I sank back onto the mattress, rubbed a hand down my face, and winced as my bruises complained.

“Well,” I muttered into the empty room. “That settles it. I’m the dumbest fuck alive.”

Chapter Seventeen

I stared up at my ceiling fan and questioned all my life’s choices.