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Divorce be damned. I’m hers. That’s the sad truth.
Her forehead crinkles with gravity. Her swollen lips open and close. There’s something heavy on her heart, and I know that whatever she wants to say right now is going to snatch my soul. But instead of speaking her mind, she looks away.
I lower my face to catch her gaze. “Talk to me, Princess.” I don’t want this moment to slip away. Whatever she’s feeling in this sliver of rawness, I want to hear it. “Tell me what you were about to say.”
“I…I was about to say…” Her eyes dart around like she’s looking for something to fill the dead air hovering between us.
A diversion. Something to appease me.
When her lips finally part again, there’s a counterfeit mirth sitting in the pretty blue pools of her eyes. “I think we gave the moose and the creepy squirrels quite the show.”
My gaze shifts to that damn boreal forest shower curtain before returning to her. Brushing her matted hair from her eyes, I force my own little chuckle. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
She swallows, lowering her face just enough that her hair falls over her eyes. She goes silent again.
But I’m tired of the superficial conversation and the empty jokes. I’m tired of wading around on the surface when there’s so much unresolved emotion sunken in the deep.
“I hate when you do that…” I say quietly. I bring my knuckles to her chin, forcing her attention back to my face.
“Do what?” she questions.
“Hide from me.” I brace her cheeks then let my big palms smooth over her hair, completely whisking that golden curtain back from her face, exposing every one of her emotions to me.
Is it wrong for me to corner her with this conversation right now? Probably. I mean, I’ve practically got her backed against a wall in this tiny bathroom and she has nowhere to run. But I’m realizing that this may be the only way to get her to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
Her lips fold into her mouth, then she says. “I’m not hiding. I’m standing right here.”
“Not really,” I say simply.
“Davis…” she mutters, flaring her nostrils at me.
“Let’s be honest, Allie. I’ve never had all of you. There were always pieces of yourself that you held back. You shut me out when I tried to understand what was going on inside your head. Don’t get me wrong—I knew you loved me. But sometimes, you left me wondering if I knew you at all.”
She flinches visibly. Momentarily, she closes her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“I know that,” I assure her.
She goes on. “But at the same time, I didn’t want to constantly bleed my problems all over you. Sometimes I…I just worried that I was too much.”
“Too much?”
“I worried that I was too much hurt, too much hassle. That my family was too much. That the drama was too much. That my pain was too much.” When she opens her eyes again, they’re filled with tears. It kills me.
“Christ. I wanted to be there for you, Alana. You made that impossible.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this…” She won’t look at me as her fingers play with the chain around my neck. “We should have moved on by now.”
“But how the hell am I supposed to move on when I never got closure? I feel like I nevertrulyunderstood why our relationship fell apart.” I roughly shove my fingers through my hair. I feel like I’m going crazy. “I kept beating myself up, wondering where I went wrong.”
“I’m sorry, Davis. None of it was your fault.” She joins our hands, linking her fingers with mine. “You didn’t fall short as a husband. You were amazing to me.” I can see that she’s struggling to explain. “I was just always scared that…”
When her words trail off, I search her eyes, trying to piece it all together, trying to understand. “…That I wouldn’t accept you for who you are,” I try to finish for her. I have no idea if I’m right.
But then she nods, pressing her cheek to my chest.
I stroke her hair. “Jesus, Alana.”
A burning anger rises in my bones. I hate all the people who let her down and failed to show her that she’s something to be cherished. I want to singlehandedly right every wrong that’s happened in her life.
