Page 149 of True Blue

I wince as my stomach rolls violently. “I—” my voice breaks clean in half.

“Speak up,” she barks.

I sit up straighter.

And my dick gets harder too.

“You said you would defend me against your family, and I said⁠—”

The words choke me, like they’re refusing to come out, and I push through it. I said them so fucking easily that night.

“I said, ‘And it’s easy to say, but you don’t exactly have a family to test that theory.’”

Indie’s mouth trembles. “So you do remember them.”

“They’re seared into my brain, Indie,” I tell her honestly, swallowing hard. “They’re seared into my soul. I’ll never forget or forgive myself for them. They are my greatest regret.”

Her eyes shimmer. “So, why?”

“Because I felt like a cornered dog. You were calling me out on my bullshit, on things I didn’t want to face. So I snapped.” I grimace, hating how it sounds like an excuse, and shake my head. “You were right, Indie. I wanted to come here with you. I wanted to move to New Jersey with you, but… I was scared.”

Her lip curls in irritation, and she tightens the arms across her chest.

“And I would have understood that if you raised concerns about leaving Chicago to me,” she says, her voice hard. “I would have understood cold feet; I would have talked about it with you. We could have found a compromise—that’s all I wanted—I could have rejected Bluewater⁠—”

“I didn’t want that!” I exclaim instantly, shaking my head. “That was your dream⁠—”

“YOU WERE MY DREAM!” she explodes, fists now clenched at her side.

The vein in her forehead from the force of her shouting, the heartbreak in her eyes, the tension in her temples, and the tears pooling in them feel like a million knives stabbing me over and over.

“Baby…” I whisper, my body moving faster than my brain as I reach out to comfort her, because she’s standing in front of me, in pain, and it’s tearing me apart.

“You were my dream, Teddy!” she continues, running her hands through her damp hair and pressing her palms—hard—against her temples. Her words are delivered through gritted teeth, full of hurt. “God, you were my dream man. You cared for me, you understood—you—y-you fucking got me, in a way no one else ever did before, or even tried to. I felt like the luckiest woman in the world because I was with you. I…”

She trails off, her chest heaving with the force of her breaths.

“I wanted to marry you. I had it all planned in my head—how it would look, how it would feel. I wanted forever with you,” she finishes, her voice a broken murmur.

Tears pour steadily down my cheeks, salt in my mouth from them, and I force myself to keep my eyes on Indie.

I wish I could reach inside her chest and take it back—the pain I put there—and carry it myself. Because I deserve it, not her.

She’s never done anything but love me, and I… wasn’t strong enough to love her the same. I wasn’t strong enough to choose her, defend her when it mattered.

“Do you have any idea what it felt like to hear that?” Indie sniffs, her face collapsing for a brief moment. “You think I didn’t already know I don’t have a family—that they didn’t want me more than a fucking bottle! You think I already didn’t measure my importance to them. I made peace with that, I really did, because I thought you were my family!”

“I was, Indie!” I sit up straighter in my chair. “You were the family that mattered to me. You, Nana, Steph, and Dani. My family. Not them—not my mother, not Lily,” I spit their names out like poison.

“I need you to understand that you mattered to me more than anyone on this earth. I didn’t show it, I fucking know that, but it doesn’t negate how I feel. I love you so much, it’s like the most natural thing I’ve ever done. It’s just a fact about me now.”

Indie shakes her head like she doesn’t believe me, and my body clenches in desperation.

“No one else will ever compare to you,” I gasp, my voice scraping its way from my throat. “I want forever with you, too.”

It doesn’t escape my notice that Indie is talking in the past tense, and I’m talking in the present.

“Not enough,” she shrugs, her voice only a whisper.