AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My body froze, and I lifted my head to look at him.
It was the first time he’d touched me in months. Until I felt it, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed it.
We stared at one another for a few moments, and I wondered if he was feeling similarly.
Whether he was or wasn’t, I’d never know, and the moment was short-lived, because in one of the gentlest voices I’d ever heard, he said, “I’ll get it for you.”
Sweet.
God, I hadn’t seen this sweet side of him in at least a year. Maybe more.
I couldn’t cry.
I couldn’t cry now.
My throat felt like it had a boulder lodged in it, so all I could manage to do was nod and rasp, “Thank you.”
I loosened my hold on the suitcase, allowing him to take the weight of it, and descended the stairs ahead of him.
I attempted to pull myself together over the next few minutes, but it wasn’t easy. It was hitting me now that this was it, and for some reason, I couldn’t manage all that I was feeling.
By the time I made it to the car and got inside, I was panicked.
In an attempt at self-preservation, I kept my eyes focused out the passenger’s side window, but when Johnny hadn’t made any effort to back the car out of the driveway and get on the road, I had no choice but to look in his direction.
His eyes were on mine, and even though he was attempting to hide it, I could see the pained expression lingering.
“One week left,” he said, his voice gentle.
Nodding slowly, I confirmed on a whisper, “One week left.”
Johnny allowed his gaze to linger on my face for several moments in the silence that stretched between us. Then he asked, “Are you ready?”
For what?I thought.
Did he want to know if I was ready to leave for the wedding week with our friends, or did he want to know if I was ready for this week to be over, so I could finally proceed with the divorce from him?
Deciding it might be best to avoid the topic of our impending divorce, I answered, “I think everything is in the suitcase. I have my dress and shoes for the wedding, and those are the most important, so if I’m forgetting anything, I’ll just have to buy it while I’m there.”
He nodded at me. “Okay.”
When he still made no attempt to move, I asked, “Is there something else?”
His shoulders relaxed a bit, and his features softened. “I know this is the beginning of the end for us, Kiera, but I don’t want it to be ugly. I want you to know that before we leave here and arrive there. I don’t want this to be any more difficult than it already is for either one of us, so I guess I just want to know if there’s anything I can do to help you get through this week.”
Where had he been?
Where had this man been for more than a year now?
Maybe it was the fact that I’d been hiding how I’d truly felt for months or the fact that I hadn’t been able to talk to anyone about what was happening in my life, but it was at that moment that all of the emotions I’d been feeling started bubbling to the surface.
My Johnny was still in there. The sweet guy who did anything and everything for me. The guy who treated me like gold and made me believe I was the most important thing in the world to him.
Why had he kept him hidden away from me? Why did he even leave at all?
Another wave of disappointment and devastation crashed into me. The answers to those questions didn’t matter any longer. Johnny and I were over, and just as he’d said, there was only one week left.
I could have sat here, shouting at him, demanding answers and wanting to get to the bottom of it.
