AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My hand came up and I pressed three fingers to my lips as I fought back the tears. Her image blurred in front of me as I nodded. “I know. I’d do anything to take away the pain I’ve caused him— to take it all back. We haven’t talked about the why or how everything happened like it did. Maybe he doesn’t want to know.”
She nodded slowly, one eyebrow lifting cynically. “He doesn’t. He wants to focus on Remi right now, but I think eventually he’ll want to talk about it. It will get easier.” Her words were gentle and her expression concerned.
I was dying to ask what he said as tears started to tumble from my eyes and roll, one by one, down my cheeks. “I want so much to tell him everything, but I understand why he doesn’t want to hear it, and I deserve that, Kat.”
She reached across the table to take my hand and squeezed it. “He’s mad at everyone right now. He’s grieving a huge loss and suffering the uncertainty of the future. He’s scared he’ll lose Remi without having time with her.”
I bowed my head and cried, squeezing her hand back as my shoulders shook. I was scared of the exact same thing. If he hated me for the rest of my life it was deserved, but just the thought of it ripped me to shreds. “I kn—ow.” The phrase ripped from me as I cried. “I de—serve it, if he ha—hates me,” I sobbed.
“Teagan, give him time to get used to things. He just has a lot to come to terms with.”
“I know, but I have all this regret, and the need to explain to him is just kill—illing me, Kat. I can’t stand having him thinking such hor—rible things about me. If I can tell him, muh—maybe it won’t hurt him as muh—uch.”
She scooted one chair closer and gathered me into a hug. “Oh, Teagan. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s such a muh—mess!” I clung to her for a good minute as I cried it out. If the cleaning people gawked or wondered what was going on, I didn’t notice. “Everyone is suffering unspeakably because of me.”
“Take a deep breath. One day at a time. That’s all any of us can do.”
I sniffed and did as she asked, trying to calm down. “You should hate me, too.”
“No.” She shook her head sympathetically. “I may not understand your reasons, but I don’t think you had malice in your heart.”
“It so hard, Kat. It’s been so hard… all this time, I’ve missed him.” Both of her hands were still holding me and started to rub my back in small, soft circles. It was similar to how I comforted Remi when she was upset or hurt.
An unasked question hung between us for a beat. I could feel it in the air. She wanted to know how Jensen played into the equation. What were my feelings for him? How could I be so screwed up over Chase and have stayed with Jensen all these years? I was about to tell her that Jensen and I were going to divorce before Remi got sick, but she spoke before I could get it out.
“Let’s just tidy up for Remi, get her home for a few days, and let Chase get his results and make arrangements to take a leave of absence from Arsenal. We can go from there, okay? I’m sure he’ll want as much time with her as he can get.” She hesitated and took a deep breath, glancing around. “Uh, it will have to be here, so will Jensen be okay with it?” She’d figured out a way to get Jensen’s name into the conversation so she could at least gauge my reaction.
I lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “He’ll have to be. What choice is there?”
“Exactly.”
“Jensen knows how I feel about Chase, and that it hasn’t changed. He’s given up a lot to help me raise Remi when I needed someone,” I stopped when she started to protest.
“Chase would ha—”
I put up a hand and nodded. “I know he would have, and I know what a mess this is. I’ve prayed a thousand times that someday they would both forgive me, but I can’t worry about it until after Remi is better.”
I was an only child and my relationship with my father was distant at best, so I was happy Kat was here. Remi’s sickness had distanced me from the few friends I had because there was little time left to socialize. Remi, my precarious marriage to Jensen, and my undying love for Chase were all I had to hold on to. I could lose everyone who mattered; every piece of my world could crumble, and I was barely holding it together…. I’d be lying to Kat and to myself if I said I wasn’t going through hell over every piece of it. There was no way to separate Remi from Chase in my heart or mind, now, but I silently vowed to put up a good front. I was already fragile enough.
“You’re right. Come on,” Kat encouraged brightly, patting my shoulder. “We need to get busy so you can bring Remi home, right?”
I lifted my head and brought my tearful gaze to her face, grateful for her strength. “Thank you for being here.”
Kat stopped; her face concerned as she considered her next words. “I should have come sooner.” Regret flashed across her expressive features. “It’s just that I knew I’d fall in love with Remi and I wouldn’t have been able to keep it from Chase.”
I nodded sadly, feeling the intensity of her conflict. I’d felt it every day for the past five years. “I understand, Kat. I shouldn’t have asked you to lie for me.”
“It’s just hard to understand how you could do it. You used to love him so much.”
My eyes, still teary, started to burn again as it became almost impossible to speak over the emotion in my throat. “I still do. I can’t even articulate how screwed up I was. I was scared for Chase… and for me.”
Something burned inside me as the desire to tell her about the woman on the phone gnawed at me. The woman, who was the deciding factor in my decision to stay in South Carolina, shook my faith and I let my father bully me, and then I let Jensen take responsibility. That phone call influenced me even more than Chase’s career, because of the blinding pain that blurred my ability to think straight.
Before that, he was more important than anything… my love for him made me willing to sacrifice my relationship with my father and my nursing degree, and run off to London to be with him… if only it weren’t for that fucking phone call that broke my heart. I could tell her, but what would it change? What good would it do? I had so much pain to deal with in the present, digging up the past was just as intolerable in the moment, and Chase had already suffered enough. I didn’t want to make it seem like I was trying to justify my actions or hoist the blame in his direction.
“Were you afraid he’d ask you to get an abortion?”
