by Karen Cimms
I pressed my hand to my mouth. “Oh god.”
“I got a response, all right. I guess I never thought that would make you sign the divorce papers.”
I wanted to scream at him and pummel his chest with my fists. “If you never expected me to sign them, why did you file for divorce?”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I was hurting.”
This was unbelievable. Even with all of the outside interference, how the hell had we gotten so off course?
“When I recovered a couple days later, I convinced myself I had to move on. I cleaned myself up and called Callie. I thought we were finished, Rain, and I knew I couldn’t be alone. I would either drink myself to death or find another way to end it.” He buried his face in his hands.
Unwilling to see him keep beating himself up, I pushed my chair back, knelt in front of him, and wrapped my arms around him. We stayed like that for a while. When he seemed calmer, I led him into the living room where we could sit side by side on the couch rather than across the expanse of the kitchen table, which had begun to feel like a great distance. I carried the wine with me, knowing I’d need it.
“What did you mean, ‘when I recovered a couple days later’?” I asked.
He ran his hand through his hair, causing the shorter, spiky layers to stand up.
“I started drinking after we split up. A lot—never when I had the kids. But after you signed those papers, I went on a bender for two or three days. Whenever I’d start coming around, I’d start drinking again until the pain was gone. Eventually, though, I had to face the truth.” He shrugged.
“That’s why I couldn’t talk to you or look at you. If I had, I’d have wanted you more than I already did. You were always with me. Always tucked inside my heart. There wasn’t room for anyone else. Not Callie, not anyone. Then when she started talking about having kids . . .” He shook his head. “I was too fucking weak to end it, even though everything was moving too fast and I wasn’t happy. I started seeing a therapist after the accident. I know that guy ran the stop sign, but if my mind hadn’t been on you, maybe I could have reacted quicker, avoided the accident altogether. At the hospital, I knew it was you holding my hand, but I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want to wake up and be reminded that it was over.”
The tears that had been burning the backs of my eyes spilled over and ran unchecked down my cheeks.
“It’s only been a couple weeks, but the therapist helped me realize that the jealousy was tied to Jennifer and Gary. I always figured that was part of it, but I thought if I knew that, I could deal with it. It doesn’t excuse how I’ve behaved, but at least I understand why I acted the way I did. She also helped me realize, almost too late, that there was no way I could go through with that wedding. It was wrong for me, and it was wrong for Callie. I’ll always feel terrible for hurting Callie.”
For as much as I disliked Callie, I couldn’t blame her for trying to snag Chase. “Of course she couldn’t help but love you. But if she made things move faster than they should have, you can’t take all the blame.”
“Doesn’t really matter at this point, does it?”
“It does if you’re going to keep beating yourself up about it. We had a terrible, stupid fight and both of us overreacted, and we’re both too stubborn to admit when we’re wrong, although it seems you’re learning. I guess it’s time for me to learn, too.”
“It was my fault. I let people convince me of things about you that weren’t true.”
“Maybe,” I said quietly. “I think it’s my turn now.” I poured more Scotch into his glass, and some into mine as well.
“Nah, I’m good,” he said, refusing the extra alcohol.
I pushed the glass closer. “Keep it handy. You might need it.”
Chapter Sixty
I wove my fingers between Chase’s rough, hardworking hands and squeezed, letting the familiar pulse of electricity give me strength.
“When you first asked me to marry you, I wanted to say yes. I began falling in love with you the first time you took me to Cape May. Even before then, there was something about you. I felt it whenever we touched. I thought about you more than I should have. I’d get excited when you’d come into Blondie’s—just the way you’d look at me, like I was something special. You didn’t leer at me or picture me naked like the other guys.” I smiled up at him. “Although you probably did.”
The edges of his lips curled upward. “I should kick my own ass, because I definitely did.”
“That night you brought me home, after Suzanne came into the bar, I was crazy about you, but I stubbornly hung on to Preston. I’d given up almost three years of my life waiting for him. I guess I wanted to see how it would all play out. But you were the one I was thinking about most of the time. I would dream about you and I’d wake up smiling.
“When I learned Preston got engaged, I think everyone expected it to be the worst day of my life. But it wasn’t. What hurt was the thought that I’d blown it with you. That’s what I was thinking about when you showed up at my door. That’s why I was crying. Those weren’t tears of sadness, Chase. They were the exact opposite.”
I wanted to climb inside his head, listen to what he was thinking, understand how he was processing what I was telling him, and know if he was believing me.
“You said your family thought the only reason I married you was I didn’t want to have another child without a father. Is that what you thought? That I was using you?”
“No. No, I didn’t. But after hearing it for so long, the seeds just took root. That and believing all I’d really done was conveniently pick up the pieces Preston had left behind. And knowing he was still in contact with you—”
I grabbed the throw pillow beside me and drew it into my lap, squeezing so hard I was surprised the stuffing didn’t shoot out. “I had no contact with Preston the entire time we were married. None! I can’t believe you would think that.”
Again, that look. “He sent you flowers, Rain.”
I was off the sofa, ready to tear my hair out. “I told you where those flowers came from. I picked them up in the parking lot.”
He shook his head. “No. The day Zac was born. Preston sent you red roses and a card congratulating you and saying that he couldn’t wait to meet your new son.”
I was speechless. This was too hard. How could I defend myself against things that had never happened? In fact, didn’t want to defend myself, period.
“There were no roses. No card. I don’t know who told you that, but they lied.”
“There were no roses because I took them from your room before you saw them and threw them away with the card.”
I don’t know how long we stared at each other. Was I supposed to be angry with him for opening a card for flowers delivered to me, or angry because he never told me and instead let fester a gesture that meant nothing?
“I’m not sure what to say to that. If you’d had any faith in me, you would’ve seen me throw those flowers out myself. I hid nothing from you. Instead, you created a scenario in your head—and even worse, you thought I was using you. You really thought I agreed to marry you to give Zac a father?”
He pressed a hand to the back of his neck and squeezed. “I don’t know. I didn’t. Then I did.” While I only felt as if I might throw up, he looked as if he truly would.
I tried to control my voice as I spoke, but it wasn’t easy. “I never told you this, because there were already so many problems between you and your family because of me, but the real reason I didn’t say yes to marrying you was that I’d overheard your mother the first time I met her and all the things she’d said about me. I was hoping I’d be able to change her mind, and maybe Dylan’s. I knew Lorraine would always hate me, but I really thought I could convince your mother to like me, even if she’d never love me.
“After Christmas, when we told her I was pregnant and you left the room, she insisted that you and Jennifer would get back together and that I was nothing but a slut
standing in your way. You thought we were getting along. What was really happening was that I loved you too much to tell you otherwise and too much to let you go like she asked. If I hadn’t heard her that night at your apartment, I might’ve said yes the first time. And if not then—because face it, it was too damn early for us to get married, even though I loved you like crazy—then I definitely would’ve said yes the second time.”
He dug the palms of his hands into the hollow of his eyes and rubbed. “I wanted her to love you too. But it didn’t change how I felt about you.”
There was nothing at all funny, but a nearly silent laugh escaped. “Didn’t it? Didn’t you start criticizing the way I dressed and the way I acted? Didn’t you just say you believed I only married you because I wanted a father for my son? Can you tell me right now that you don’t believe I’ve slept with dozens of men over the years? Whether those stories came from Lorraine and Dylan or Dennis and Fish, do you believe them?”
He waved a hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what happened before we met. I don’t care if you slept with half of Millstone. It doesn’t matter because I love you, and I just want to move forward. Even if Preston was here that day.” His hands clenched into fists. “It hurts. God, it hurts, but I want to forgive you.”
As I stared at the face I loved so well—the intense blue eyes with the green and gold flecks, the chiseled nose, the strong jaw, the plump bottom lip—a door in my head creaked closed. I didn’t know how to stop it or if I even wanted to stop it. I would love Chase until the day I died, but I was losing hope that we could be fixed.
“It’s certainly good to know that you’re willing to forgive me for things I haven’t done. That’s mighty big of you.”
He looked as if I’d just slapped him.
I raised my eyebrows. “What about things that happened after we split up? Can you forgive me for those too?”
A muscle danced along his jaw. “If I have to, I will.” He moved closer and placed his hands atop my thighs, waiting.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
“You broke my heart, Chase. You accused me of something I didn’t do, that I would never have done. Maybe I didn’t fall in love with you as quickly as you fell in love with me, but it happened long before it was over with Preston. And since you left, I’ve continued to love you. Like you, I had to force myself to move on, especially after you made it clear that your relationship with Callie was serious.”
He pulled back, releasing my hands and nodding, his jaw tight.
“That weekend you took the kids camping? If you remember, I was all dressed to go out when you got here—”
His gaze held me captive. “I remember.”
“I didn’t have a date. I wanted to make you jealous. I left the house and drove around. Then I came home and got stinking drunk. Instead of moving forward, I was taking giant steps backward.”
His jaw was so tight I thought his teeth would crack.
I wrapped my arms around the pillow on my lap, using it like a security blanket. “This is going to hurt. It hurts me every day, but I hope you’ll listen to everything I have to say, all of it. Before you freak out, you were involved with someone else right up until a week ago. So keep that in mind.”
He gave a single curt nod.
“Do you remember that weekend I ended up in the hospital?”
Another nod.
Enough beating around the bush.
“Like I said, the night you left to go camping, I got dressed up, drove around, came home, and got drunk. Really drunk. I remember calling Diane and her getting pissy because it was around midnight or something. At some point, I got on Facebook.”
My hands were tearing at each other like two alley cats. Chase captured one and pulled it into his lap. I pictured him dropping it as I continued my story.
“I posted something about how hurt and lonely I was. I don’t remember exactly what it said. It was stupid. To this day, I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I felt so unlovable that I was feeling sorry for myself. But to be honest, I think I was just drunk. I didn’t know it at the time, but it seemed all my posts were public, which meant anyone could see them. Including Preston.”
Chase kept holding my hand, but the thumb that had been tracing circles over the sensitive skin between my thumb and finger had stilled.
“He showed up the next night at Blondie’s. Said he’d seen my post online and that he’d heard about us. He hung out for a while, and he told me that he and Suzanne had been having problems and that he’d made a mistake.”
When I glanced up, Chase was staring blindly into the glass on the coffee table.
“He invited me to go out to breakfast with him, so I did. I shouldn’t have, but you had the kids and were introducing them to Callie, and to be honest, I was feeling pretty shitty.”
I didn’t want to go on. This was humiliating. I felt just like the slut everyone had always accused me of being.
“So you slept with him,” he sputtered.
It wasn’t a question. It was an indictment.
I lifted my eyes to meet his.
“No,” I said firmly, “but he said he needed to talk to me, so I let him come back to the house. He—”
“Jesus, Rain.” He dropped my hand and stood. “Why him? Wasn’t there already a conga line of men waiting for a shot at you? Did you want to hurt me that badly?”
“You were camping with another woman!” I shouted. “A woman you had told me hours earlier might become our children’s stepmother. A woman you’d been with for months. Months, Chase!”
I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.
He openly scoffed at me. “But Preston? Really?”
“But Callie?” I shot back. “Do you know how much Callie Stankevich hates me? She’s hated me since I stole her boyfriend in tenth grade. That’s why Lorraine hates me too. Did you know that? Did you? Izzy’s biological father was Callie’s boyfriend. Are you dumb enough to believe that Callie didn’t get some enjoyment from stealing my husband?”
“She didn’t steal me.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “You’re right. You went willingly. Even though you claim you were in love with me, you began a relationship and almost married Callie Stankevich, my nemesis.”
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Nemesis?”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not the point. Lorraine set you up with her to get back at me. I’m not saying Callie didn’t fall in love with you. I’m sure she did. Why wouldn’t she?” I had to stop to catch a breath through my tears. “I’m sorry, Chase. Allowing Preston back into my life was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. If I could undo—”
Before I could finish, he was up and at me, kicking the coffee table out of his way.
“Are you fucking kidding me? So all this time I was driving myself crazy, thinking that you were seeing him behind my back, you really were?”
“No!” I shouted back, more from fear than anger. “I wasn’t seeing him behind your back. It was just that one night when you were in the woods with our children and your future fucking bride. God, Chase, you were with another woman for almost ten months and within hours of marrying her. How can you be so angry?”
If Chase had been angry the first time we split up, it was nothing compared to what I was seeing now. “You went right back to the man who hurt you, the one you swore you no longer loved. Jesus, Rain. The first chance you had, you went running back to him.”
It wasn’t fair. He’d divorced me. I’d been free to do what or who I pleased—not to mention that I hadn’t actually gone running anywhere to anyone.
“The first chance I had? You left me in November. This happened eight months later. I had plenty of chances and did nothing. Nothing, Chase!”
“Well, you picked a winner when you finally decided to stick the knife in.”
“You jerk!” I shouted. “You not only stuck the knife in me, you twisted it!”
We had been reduced to scre
aming and name-calling.
“Do what you want.” He grabbed his jacket. “Fuck whoever you want. Call them all over and have a party. Better yet, rent a hall so you can pack them all in.”
“Don’t you dare walk out on me again!” I lunged for him.
“I’m not. I’m just taking the dog for a walk. I need to think.”
I stopped short. “You don’t have a dog.”
The calm look on his face belied his heaving chest.
“Then maybe I’ll get one,” he said, slamming the door on the way out.
Chapter Sixty-One
Chase didn’t come back, not that night and not the next day. I wondered if this would be it. We were both stubborn, but one of us would have to give, and since it seemed I was the only one who knew the whole truth, it would have to be me. Even if he pigheadedly decided that he couldn’t live with what I’d done, I still had to tell him what Preston was doing.
I called Irena and told her I couldn’t work that night. When I got home, I ripped out several sheets of paper from one of Izzy’s notebooks, then wrote out the names of every man I’d ever slept with. On the last page, I wrote the following:
Dear Chase,
If you’ve made it this far, I hope by now you finally believe me.
I’ve made mistakes in my life, big ones, but perhaps not as many as you think.
The best thing I ever did was fall in love with you.
Love, Rain
Izzy slid in at the kitchen table to finish her homework, and Zac curled up in front of the television. They’d been quiet the last couple of days. Zac had asked once about Chase. I’d been honest and told him I didn’t know.
“Iz, could you keep an eye on your brother? I’m going to run out for a few minutes. Don’t answer the door, and if anyone calls—”
“Let the machine pick up. I know.”