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“Good morning,” I said. My voice was still husky from sleep.
Kat stood still and rubbed one hand up and down her other arm nervously. She looked so scared, and I wanted to kick my own ass for making her feel that way.
“Are you cold?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Hang on.” I hurried out of the room to grab a blanket off the back of the couch, brought it back, and wrapped it around her shoulders.
She gave me a small smile. “Thanks.”
I handed her a mug, and she filled it with coffee. I did the same, then I gently grabbed her hand. She gasped and looked down. I wrapped my hand around hers and jerked my head toward the front room.
Thankfully, she allowed me to lead her. When she was living here, she spent nearly every morning on my front porch with a cup of coffee, watching the sunrise. I wanted her to experience that again. I opened the door, sat in the swing on the edge of my porch, and pulled her down beside me. She shivered and wrapped the blanket tighter around her.
It was a frosty morning, especially without the sun, and I almost regretted bringing her out here. But when Kat gasped as the first light of the sun shone through the trees and illuminated the dark town, it was totally worth it.
She sighed and snuggled into my side as she sipped her coffee. Shiloh was at our feet, and we gently swayed in the swing while the sun’s warmth spread through the town and over us. It felt familiar. Like the way Kat’s warmth seeped into me, making me come alive.
We were quiet for a long while, and when the sun was high, I cleared my throat, breaking the moment.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kat said, sitting up and moving away from me. I quickly pulled her back to me.
“I wanted to talk.”
“Okay.”
“Kat, I’m so sorry for the things I said to you. For making you think that our relationship meant nothing to me. Thatyoumeant nothing to me. That was so far from the truth.”
She inhaled sharply.
“I pushed you away because I was afraid and because I had never dealt with my past. And it kept coming back to haunt me, no matter how hard I tried to stop it. Burying it wasn’t working, and the closer I got to you, the worse it became. I had been telling myself I didn’t deserve happiness or love for so long, and the deeper my feelings grew for you, the angrier and more anxious I became. I wanted to keep you, but I didn’t feel worthy.”
She looked up at me. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”
“I didn’t want to talk to anyone.” I took a deep breath. “For seven years, I lived my life with extreme guilt and pain. I thought I was okay, but it ate away at me deep inside. Growing close to you—opening up and allowing you in—sent a surge of those emotions to the surface.”
I lifted her chin with my finger and thumb so I could look into her eyes. She needed to know the truth of what I’d kept buried for so long. The reason why I acted the way I did.
“Seven years ago, on Christmas Eve, I was leaving our family’s house. The weather was bad, and the roads were icy. It was dark, and I took back roads. I shouldn’t have left the house, but I wanted to get home. I was excited about Christmas morning, and I wanted to wake up in my apartment.”
I took a deep breath.
“A deer ran out in front of me, and I braked hard, but the ice on the road sent the car into a tailspin. I lost control and ran head-on into a pine tree. A low branch crashed through the window and impaled my girlfriend, killing her on the spot. But I didn’t know that because I hit my head and was unconscious. They told me later in the hospital that she was gone.”
Kat gasped and sat up. She framed my face with her hands, and tears welled in my eyes.
“Oh, Sid, I’m so sorry.” She wiped away the falling tears with her thumbs.
“Her name was Lisa. I refused to think or speak about her for seven years. I carried around the guilt of her death and refused to think about it. Instead of honoring her and what we had, I buried it.”
I rested my forehead against Kat’s and closed my eyes.
“I’ve been talking with a therapist and working through the past. One thing I realized was that I stopped living after the accident and was only existing. Any time someone got close, I pushed them away. But I don’t want to live that way anymore.”
“No one should,” she whispered.
I nodded.
