AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do you still love me?” Rhys’s voice was so small. I might be able to lie about some things but I could never lie about that.
“More than anything. I don’t even . . . sometimes I think if I l-let myself feel how much I love you I’ll actually d-die.”
Rhys shut his eyes, tears spilling down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry too,” he said.
“What? No. Why?”
“You know what I thought, that day you called me from Sid’s funeral, so upset?”
“That you couldn’t believe how you’d gotten stuck with such a fucking mess?”
“No,” Rhys snapped and gave me a sharp look. “I thought: You failed again.”
“What?”
“I’d failed again, just like I did with Caleb. I was so oblivious and trusting that I didn’t notice the person I loved most was in trouble.” Rhys raked a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t believe it had happened again because after Caleb I swore to myself that I’d never be that . . . useless.”
“No, no, it wasn’t your fault,” I said. That was ridiculous.
“Of course it was, Matt. When I looked back on it, I thought of a hundred things I should have realized meant you weren’t okay. A hundred ways that you were acting like you did when we first met, before you trusted me. But I was on tour, and I was playing big shot, and I was busy, and I wasn’t fucking paying attention.”
He slammed his fist into his thigh and shook his head.
“I let you down cuz I didn’t notice. Just like I did Caleb. Man, do you know how much he was using before I noticed it was a fucking problem? I watched it all happen, and it took fucking months before I put it together. He was my best friend. My lover. We made music together. And he was in deep shit, and I didn’t even notice. Do you know what total shit that made me feel like? How fucking stupid it made me feel? That if I’d just paid better attention, I could have stopped it before it ever got bad.”
I had no idea he felt that way.
“He probably worked really hard to keep it from you,” I said.
Rhys’s expression was shrewd. “Yeah. He did.”
“He wanted you to think he was fine.”
Rhys nodded.
Oh. Secrets. I hung my head and we stood in silence.
“I should have come home,” he said softly.
“I told you I was fine. I needed you to believe me.”
“No,” he said. “You wanted me to believe you because it was easier. You needed me to do the right thing. I think . . . I think deep down I knew that you weren’t okay and I chose to believe you anyway. Because it was easier for me not to cancel the shows. Because I was afraid to make you feel like I didn’t trust you.”
He shook his head and took my hand.
“I’m so sorry, Matty. Can you forgive me?”
I gaped at him. “There’s really nothing to forgive.”
“There is!” His tears had given way to a look of guilt and regret. “You needed me, and I let you down.”
“I didn’t tell you.”
He grabbed me, looking desperate.
“But now you will tell me,” he demanded. “Right? Because you promised. Because, because—” His voice broke, turning his demands to begging “Because you’re my husband and you belong to me. Right? We belong to each other.”
The words tore through me like slow, dark bullets and I started to shake.
“Tell me, Matty. Tell me it’s true. You belong to me. I belong to you. Please, tell me. Tell me you’re mine.” He was begging me, the pain in his voice so raw and so open that turning away from him was impossible.
He was crying. I was crying. We were begging and demanding and promising and crying.
“I’m yours. I-I-I belong to you.” My voice was just breath. “Rhys, please, I want it to be true more than anything.”
“Yes,” he said, pulling me tight against his heaving chest. “You are mine, and that means that I’ll always take care of you. And I’m yours. That means you’ll always have me.” His voice was fierce, even through his tears, like he thought he could make it true through sheer force of will.
I nodded and squeezed him harder.
“You’re not leaving. You’re not going anywhere. You don’t know how marriage works? This is how it works. We fight, we have problems, we figure it out. We don’t give up. We don’t run away.”
I looked down. He ran his finger over my cheek and touched my mouth. He touched my eyebrow and my chin. He pressed his wet cheek against mine and spoke into my ear.
“And I want to get one thing straight right now.”
Then I was looking into electric-blue eyes snapping with emotion.
“You don’t ruin my life. You make my life a hundred times better than it would be without you. I know sometimes you can only see the bad stuff. But you have to believe me. You. Don’t. Ruin. My. Life. Got it?”
