by Claire Raye
She pulls back, her eyes searching my face again. “What else?” she whispers, her voice shaking.
I take another deep breath, hoping and praying to a god I don’t believe in that she doesn’t freak out when she hears this. That she doesn’t think that what we have is real or important or mean the fucking world to me.
“We were coming home from a party,” I start, my heart pounding in my chest. “That’s why I was drunk. We were at an engagement party, our engagement party.”
Mila lets out a noise and I see my hand reach up and cup her jaw, my fingers curling to the back of her neck as though I can somehow hold her here with me, as though my touch can possibly convince her to stay.
“Rachel wasn’t my girlfriend,” I say. “She was my fiancée.”
Chapter Eleven
Mila
Well, that was a bombshell I wasn’t expecting, but what it makes me realize is that Adam has been through a hell of a lot, not only in the last couple of days, but in the last year, too. It explains so much and he needs me right now.
There is not a moment where I give another thought to the fact that he was engaged, that he was going to be someone’s dad, that he was in love with another woman. That’s not what he needs, my own insecurities and worries are not part of this conversation, nor should they ever be.
He isn’t sharing this to make it a competition or to make me feel less adequate in our relationship. He’s been holding this in for so long, filled with guilt and shame and regret, so much to process, but he has done none of that.
He ran from his grief, never staying long enough to get attached to anything. He broke the rules with me and now we’re finding ourselves here. I won’t be an additional source of stress to him. I have my own baggage, my own bullshit that doesn’t need to be part of this conversation right now. This is about him.
I want to take away all of his pain, but I can’t find the words that will do that, no one could. Healing from something like this doesn’t happen overnight and it definitely doesn’t happen when you’ve hidden from everyone, including yourself. I should know.
I hold him closer, letting him know that what he just told me isn’t going to make me run, but the words don’t come, and I can feel Adam’s labored breathing against my body. His chest rising and falling rapidly, his heart racing, pulsing hard between us.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, pressing my lips to where his heart is beating, feeling the hard fast rhythm against my lips. I ache for him, my heart broken, knowing he lost so much.
I just lie here holding him, trying to take away his pain. I wouldn’t dare say everything happens for a reason or that he was meant to find me. It’s bullshit and we both know it. It’s shit people say to rationalize that life is shitty. Well, sometimes life is just shitty, and there’s no rhyme or reason to why things happen. It doesn’t make us stronger or help develop a thick skin. It destroys and with time we heal, but we never forget.
I don’t want Adam to ever forget what he lost. Rachel and their baby were a part of him, a part that was ripped away. Not only did he lose them, he lost himself too.
“I had to leave. I couldn’t stay and maybe that was wrong,” he says now, his words quiet, cycling through far too many emotions to process.
I don’t know if he’s talking about leaving Australia or leaving me at the hospital, but it really doesn’t matter. We all deal with trauma in our own way.
“I deleted all my social media,” he now says, swallowing hard. “And just disappeared. I had to for self-preservation. I know people meant well, but I couldn’t look at another post of Rachel and me that people were tagging me in. I get that they meant well, but fuck, it was like a punch in the gut every fucking time I saw it.”
His words are louder now, his body stiffening in my arms and if I had to guess, I’m the first person he’s ever been this open with about what happened.
The silence falls around us and I know not to say anything, nothing I say will ease what he’s dealing with. All I can do is be here, hold him and show him how much I love him, no matter what.
I’ll be here if all he wants is for me to sit next to him and hold his hand. If he wants to cry on my shoulder or be angry, I’ll be here.
“How can I help?” I now ask, trying to find a way to show him I support him wholeheartedly. “What do you need from me?”
“Nothing,” he says. “I just need you.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
With the emotions running high and my body wrecked from the accident, we fall asleep. Adam is still wrapped in my arms, my cast and boot a clunky mess wedged between us, and as horrible as things have been, just being here with him makes me feel better than I have for the last few days.
Adam stirs in my arms, the scratchiness of the Velcro on my boot rubbing against his leg and he smirks a little. His smile makes my heart race, a strange feeling burying itself in my chest, fluttering quickly. His smile is perfection and just seeing it after everything makes me think he’s going to be okay.
“Good morning,” I murmur, my voice low and raspy. “I love you.” I kiss the tip of his nose, his eyes closing as I move to kiss his lips now. “How are you feeling today?”
“I should be asking you that question. You’re the one who’s all beaten up,” he says, brushing my hair back and returning my kiss.
“The worst wounds are the ones you can’t see,” I tell him, our mouths nearly touching again.
“Does everyone think I’m crazy?” he now asks, and it takes everything in me not to burst out laughing at his question. Not to be insensitive, but he can’t be serious.
The giggle escapes and he pulls back from me a little, looking down at me, his forehead creased and his eyes narrowed.
“In this group? You really think we’re out here judging people on how crazy they are?” I shake my head, resting a hand on his cheek. “No one thinks you’re crazy. If anything, they’re all asking what they can do to help.”
“Do they know?”
“Know about Rachel and why you left Australia?” I question, wondering if he thinks I immediately started texting Ruby and Charlie as soon as he told me what happened. What kind of insensitive person would do that? Certainly not me, someone who holds her secrets far too close. “What you told me is yours to tell, not mine. I would never share it with anyone. If you want to keep it a secret the rest of your life, then I’m in.”
He still hasn’t asked me about what he heard at the hospital, and like him, I’m not certain I want to share it with him. I have no idea if his opinion of me will change when he hears my version of the events, but it’s out there now, floating around between us, the question and the answer sitting on the tips of our tongues.
“I should’ve told you before, before we ever started anything together,” he admits, and while I get what he’s saying, I don’t think either of us ever thought we’d get to this point. I know I was not open to being in a relationship.
I viewed Adam as someone to flirt with, as a fuck boy and someone to have a good time with and I assumed he saw me as the reckless party girl with a trashy reputation. While all of that may have been true, being together has certainly changed that.
“I don’t think you can say that,” I defend. “You had no idea where this would lead and if telling me was even worth it. What if we hooked up and never talked to each other again? It would’ve seemed stupid to share your life with me.”
“If we’re being honest here, Mila, I knew exactly where this was heading. You were the first girl I was attracted to after everything that happened, and it scared the shit out of me.”
I want to tell him he is the first guy I trusted after everything that happened to me, but my lips stay sealed. I have no idea why. He knows what happened, he heard me say it in the hospital, but something about it still feels too raw.
“You should be scared. I’m a hell of a lot of work and a royal pain in the ass if you ask Ruby,” I tease, trying to keep t
he mood light, but I know we aren’t there yet.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re a hell of a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for. You pulled me out of the darkest time in my life. You made me remember what falling in love feels like,” Adam says, making my cheeks flush, his words warming me.
“You did the same for me. Although…” I pause, wondering if I should even admit this out loud. “I’ve never been in love until I met you. I had no idea it would feel like this. Like someone’s ripping my heart out and sucking every bit of air from my lungs, but I never want it to stop.”
Adam laughs at my explanation, but that’s seriously what it feels like and when I thought I lost him, I was certain I would never be able to pick myself back up and continue living. Without him I would be a shell of a person, just going through the motions.
“Try falling in love twice,” he says, his nose wiggling into my hair, making me giggle. “Does it worry you that there was someone before you?” His words come out with such honesty and sincerity, as if he’s still worried about me, rather than himself.
“No. You’d still be with Rachel if she hadn’t died.” I make it a point to use her name, to show him I don’t have a problem with it. He needs to hear it and be reminded that his life started when he met her, but his life doesn’t have to end just because their life together did. She will always be a part of him.
“But then there would be no us,” he replies.
“Yes, but we never would’ve met each other, and our lives would’ve taken different paths. I don’t look at meeting you as me being in second place. You aren’t trying to replace her with me.”
“You’re making this way too easy,” he now says.
“You being here with me makes everything easier,” I respond, smiling up at him, and right now, as we lie here in my bed together, I want to tell him everything that happened in Tahoe. “Do you want to know my story?”
“Only if you want to share it,” he says. “What you did is something that is deeply personal and a decision you made that I will never pretend to know anything about. If you choose to tell me, I’ll listen, but if you don’t want to, I won’t look at you any differently.”
“You’re making this way too easy,” I say, repeating his words back to him.
“Sometimes all we need is someone to just listen.”
“Did you steal that line from Ruby?” I joke, my lips curling up in an annoyed sneer. “Sounds like something she would say.”
“She’s quite the calming force, isn’t she?” Adam says, grinning as he adds, “And you’re quite the force of nature.”
“Adam,” I shout, smacking his chest. “Never mind me saying you make this easy. You’re equally as big of a pain in the ass.”
“But you make me feel alive so I’m all here for it,” he admits, leaning down and kissing me. “Whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m here to listen.”
I don’t know how to respond, wishing the words would come, but they stay stuck in my throat, longing to be said, but struggling to find the right way to say them. I know what I’ll tell him won’t paint me in the best light. It will make me look reckless and irresponsible, even when my actions were really none of those things. It’s just the way society views it all. And while I think Adam won’t view it that way, I’m still scared.
“Thank you,” I whisper, falling more in love with him with every word he says. “I wasn’t sleeping around, and I wasn’t being unsafe,” I say, realizing I’ve been so careful every time Adam and I have had sex, that he has to be wondering what my deal is.
“Even if you were, we all make mistakes. It’s what we learn from them that changes us,” he states with far too much diplomacy.
“Or the people we find because of it,” I add, feeling lighter with each word that passes between us.
Chapter Twelve
Adam
It’s been a week since the accident and a week since I walked out on her. I’d like to say time has helped, but that would be a load of shit. And while I do feel a little bit lighter for having told her my story, my reasons for running that night, I still feel guilty for my actions and what I put her through. I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to forgive myself for what I did, and it kills me that I’m never going to be able to take it back either.
I’d do anything to be able to go back to that night and change things.
“Are you awake?” Mila asks, her voice sleepy.
I roll onto my side so I’m facing her and see she still has her eyes closed as though she’s only half awake. She could so easily slip right back to sleep. Leaning closer I press a soft kiss to her forehead and her mouth curves into a smile. “Yeah, but you should keep sleeping,” I whisper.
She shuffles against me, her hand slipping onto my hip and sliding up to my chest. Everywhere she touches feels like tiny jolts of electricity and I’d love to be able to pull her closer and roll her beneath me.
“Adam,” she murmurs, as her hand now moves lower, down my chest and stomach until she’s teasing the waistband of my boxers. I groan, reaching down to still her hand because there’s not a chance in hell we can go there. Mila pouts and it’s so adorable, I can’t help but chuckle, especially when she cracks an eye open to look at me.
“What?” I ask her.
“Why are you stopping me,” she says, her hand wriggling beneath mine until she gets her fingers free, sliding the tips just inside my boxers.
“Baby,” I groan, reluctantly pulling her hand out and lifting it to my lips.
“What?” Mila says, moving closer.
“We can’t,” I tell her, biting her knuckles. “You know we can’t.”
She pouts again, even though she knows I’m right. It’s only been a week and there’s no way we can do that, no matter how much we might want to. She’s still battered and bruised, the purple marks down the right side of her body, slowly turning a blackish-yellow as the bruising starts to break down. It’s painful to look at, every time I help her shower, but I force myself to take them in, partly to make sure she’s getting better and partly to remind myself of what I did.
I don’t have the same physical scars as a reminder like the ones I got the night I lost Rachel. But in many ways, that’s worse, because it’s Mila who will carry the scars of what happened, a permanent reminder of that night and all the ways I fucked up.
“There’s nothing wrong with my left hand,” she says with a smile, bringing me back to the present as she attempts to once again slip it inside my boxers.
Chuckling, I slide my hand gently around her waist and pull her against me. “Behave,” I warn, my mouth against hers.
Mila groans, pinching my stomach as she mumbles, “You’re no fun.”
I lean closer, my mouth at her ear. “I promise I’ll make it up to you,” I whisper, my voice laced with want. “But for now, stay put while I go and make you some coffee.” I press a quick kiss to her lips before rolling away, needing to get some space between us before I give in to Mila’s attempts.
I fought my feelings for this girl for so long that when we both finally gave in, it was impossible to keep our hands off each other. Now, knowing I have her and being unable to touch her in all the ways I want to, it’s torturous.
I reach down for some sweatpants, pulling them on as I stand from the bed. Glancing back over my shoulder, I see Mila watching me, a small smile on her face.
“What?” I ask, smiling back at her.
“I love you,” she whispers, reaching over to brush a hand down my thigh.
This is something she’s done ever since I came back and admitted everything to her. She tells me she loves me, every single morning, every single night. And despite everything I’ve done, the way she says it, the way she looks at me when she does, it’s impossible not to believe her.
It’s impossible to ignore the way my heart flips every time I hear it too. The hope that washes over me, that we will get through this, that
things will get better.
Smiling, I lean over to kiss her. “I love you too.”
Mila has been amazingly understanding of everything really, far more than I deserve. Never once blaming me for what I did or questioning me since I’ve come back.
She also seems totally cool with the fact that before her, I was engaged and going to be a dad, something I still struggle to believe is real.
I always knew finding out about my past would change things, it’s impossible for it not to, but I never expected she’d be so okay with it all. It worries me in a way, because deep down, I know a part of me is wondering what she isn’t telling me.
Charlie is already up when I walk into the kitchen, sitting at the bench with a cup of coffee in front of her.
“Morning,” she says, looking up at me with a smile. “How is she?”
“Hey,” I reply, squeezing her shoulder as I walk over to the coffee machine. “She’s good. How are you?”
Charlie shrugs. “Wishing it was summer break already. I have a test this morning and class until two, but then I’ll be back.”
I grab two mugs and pour some coffee into both of them. Charlie and I have fallen into a routine over the last week, the two of us meeting each morning to discuss what our day looks like so we can plan our schedules to make sure someone is always here with Mila. She’s gotten better at using her crutches, but I don’t like leaving her alone, knowing all it would take is one little slip and she could really hurt herself.
“Cool, I gotta start back at work tonight, but not till three. Should be home midnight-ish.”
Charlie nods in reply. “I don’t have anything going on tonight, so it’s all good.”
“You sure it’s okay if I go back to work?” I ask, knowing I don’t really have a choice anyway. While I have a fair bit of money saved up, I don’t want to just blow through it because I don’t have an income. Plus, I feel bad for Caleb, given I basically walked out on him with no notice too and he’s been covering all my shifts since, in addition to doing his own work. I’m sure Ruby wants to kill me at this point.