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“I’m sorry,” she answered. “I’m sorry I told you to leave. I was scared.”
“I know.” Boy, did he. He was terrified, right at this moment, but he took that as a sign of what he should do, instead of what he shouldn’t. “My wife,” he started, and just starting the story hurt. “She got sick. And I thought that was a solution. A way for us to stop arguing and avoiding each other. I thought we’d battle cancer together and we’d get closer and everything would be great. Honestly, I even told myself it would be good for us. How fucked up is that?”
Tessa petted his shoulder and didn’t say a word.
“I started coming home early. I insisted on accompanying her to chemo and radiation. I researched wigs and healthy diets and supplements that might help. I thought I was being the perfect husband. And she thought I was more dedicated to the illness than I’d ever been to her.”
He heard Tessa swallow hard.
“In my mind, we finally had a great marriage. I was finally a good husband. I didn’t realize that wasn’t what she was feeling at all. She was facing death, and she was realizing that even if she only had a few months to live, she didn’t want to spend those months with me.”
He felt her sharp gasp. Her fingers curled into his arm, and even though it hurt, he didn’t stop her. “She said that?” Tessa whispered.
“Not in those words. But that was what she meant. We were only a few weeks from her final scans. A few weeks from finding out if she was in remission, but the prognosis didn’t matter to her. She’d realized that she didn’t love me anymore. Said that, at first, she was thankful that I stuck by her side. But as I became more and more invested in her illness, it just showed her that cancer was the only thing keeping us together. We’d been too young and hadn’t really known each other when we got married. She wanted something more for herself than a life spent living out a mistake.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I was in a daze afterward. Walking around like a zombie. Maybe that was what got me stabbed in the first place. But then… Then I almost died, and I saw what she saw. I saw my life laid out in clear choices, but the thing was, I was alone…. I laid in that bed and I felt my life closing up and all I wanted was her.”
He felt the hot seep of Tessa’s tears through his shirt, but his eyes were dry as bone.
“So I know how terrifying it is to be left, Tessa. To feel like that alone could kill you just with the pain of it. You don’t ever have to hide that from me.”
“How could she do that to you?” Tessa cried.
He’d wondered the same thing back then. But now he could see it. “Well, she was right, wasn’t she? That was her truth, and she had as much of a right to it as I had to mine. Because we weren’t happy together. At some point I would’ve met someone else or she would’ve walked out or one of us would’ve cheated. We weren’t happy, so she wanted to move on and be happy, and I wanted her to come back and be happy. But neither of us was wrong.”
She lifted her head and kissed him, her lips tasting of tears. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.
“I’ve never told anyone that, because I’d rather people think I left my sick wife than to have them know the truth. That she’d torn me open and left me there without a backward glance.”
Nodding, she curved her hand along his jawline. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I want to be honest this time.”
She gave him a shaky smile. “This time?”
“Yeah. This time. Do you think you can forgive me? About Simone?”
“Everything else you told me was true? You really don’t have those kinds of feelings for her?”
“I really don’t. Cross my heart.”
“And…you’re sure you want to try this?”
His laugh was slightly pained. “Yeah. I want to try pretty damn badly. Apparently falling slowly is a scientific impossibility. Falling means that you’re not in control, doesn’t it? I should’ve considered that.”
Tessa put her knees on either side of his legs and straddled him, reminding Luke that he’d never had any defense against her. “Excuse me,” she said before pulling up the hem of her shirt to mop off her wet face. “Sorry,” she said, her voice muffled by the fabric.
“No problem,” Luke answered, watching the mus cles of her stomach shift as she moved. Telling her the truth had lifted a pall from his soul. He felt new and weightless. He felt good. And touching her stomach seemed like the best idea in the world. He laid his palm to her naked waist just as she dropped the shirt.
“Oh.” She sighed. “I thought we were having a serious talk.”
“We were.” He slid his hand to her back and snuck his other hand beneath her shirt, as well.
Tessa closed her eyes. Her body stretched, arching into his hands. “You have no idea how good that feels,” she whispered.
“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.” But he didn’t take it further. He didn’t try to und
