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“That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you, too, Bluebird. I just kind of hoped it would be with me,” I admit.
“If there are alternate universes, maybe we are, Reed. I’d like to think so, anyway.”
“I’ll miss you, Callie Street,” I tell her, and for the first time in a very long time, I don’t remind myself that her name is Lane now. There’s no need. It wouldn’t matter what her name was.
She still wouldn’t be mine…
CHAPTER 8
Callie
ONE MONTH LATER
“Where were you?” Mitch barks as I walk through the front door. He’s sprawled out on the couch with a beer in his hand. The place is a mess. He’s been working overtime at Joe’s, although he doesn’t bother to put in extra money to cover the bills.
I’m starting to feel like a fool. I talk a good game telling Reed and Katie both that I was going to fight for my marriage. I’m starting to wonder what I’m fighting for. I wanted the Mitch that I had when we first got together. He would hold me and tell me he loved me and how special I was. He would tell me how he would fight the world to make me happy. Back then, he even had a romantic side. He’d show up at my work with flowers, have takeout waiting for me when I got home, rub my feet… When I was pregnant, he would talk to our baby every night, sometimes falling asleep with his head on my stomach.
He wasn’t perfect, but he made me feel loved and special. It sounds stupid, but I needed that. Every man in my life had rejected me in some way. Mitch was the first that didn’t. I always seemed to be his entire focus. That kind of attention goes to the head of a teenage girl—especially when the boy they love is having a child with someone else.
Maybe the reasons Mitch and I got together sucked, but we were happy until I lost Ryan. Mitch blames me. I blame myself. As I look at him right now, I must admit that maybe Katie and Reed have a point. Maybe fighting for a marriage is impossible when you’re standing alone. Everything falling apart might be my fault but living like this, when both of us are clearly miserable, can’t be the answer either.
“I told you I had a therapy session after work, Mitch.”
“Therapy,” he mocks. “Like that’s doing you a fuck of a lot of good. Therapy isn’t going to teach you how to be a better wife, Callie. It sure as fuck isn’t teaching you how to have dinner ready when your man gets home from work.”
“Maybe you forgot, Mitch, but I work, too.”
“I don’t forget. You won’t let me. How can I forget that your work comes before everything, Callie!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I put my hands on my hips. I can’t take much more. I’m so tired.
“Exactly what I said,” he growls. “Your job is so fucking important to you that you put it before our child!”
My body jerks backward from the harshness of his words. He doesn’t say anything that I haven’t thought a million times over, but hearing it right now is the last straw.
“I’m done,” I whisper. My heart unable to stand anymore.
“What?” he growls.
“I said I’m done! I’ve been waiting for the man I agreed to marry to magically reappear, but it’s getting clearer and clearer that it’s not going to happen. You’re never going to forgive me for losing our child, and I’m never going to forgive myself.”
“You wanted rid of our child! You wanted to be free to go to my brother!” Mitch yells, standing up, anger radiating from him.
I step back. With Mitch, caution overrides even anger. “You’re wrong,” I tell him. I close my eyes, my entire body trembling. The words sound like they’re being torn out of my heart—because they are. I open them slowly. Mitch is standing in front of me, his face blurry because of the tears falling from my eyes that I wasn’t even aware of.
“Right. Sure I am,” he says, his hands reaching out and grabbing my forearms too roughly. His fingers bite into my skin with bruising force. “Deny it, Callie. Lie to me some more how you wouldn’t pick my brother over me. Tell me how he’s not the man you think of every single time I crawl between your legs!”
“God, Mitch. Don’t you think if I was the type of woman to turn my back on the promises we made before God I would have done that? I’m here because I choose to be. I’m standing in front of you because I want to be—because I want the man back who used to hold me, talk to our child every night, and tell me he loved me.”
