Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
I need to kiss him. I need to feel his lips on mine.
Hard and without anything holding me back, I dance my tongue with his and slide my hands into his hair, and I swallow down every single one of his greedy, desperate groans.
“I love you,” he whispers against my lips. “I love you so fucking much, Josie.”
I love you too, but it’s not enough.
When things become too intense, too passionate, and every cell inside my body wants to crawl inside him, I know I have to end this. I have to finally let go.
I pull away from his embrace, tears already in my eyes. Both of our breaths are panting and erratic, and I keep my eyes locked on the ground as I try to pull myself together. My heart never stops pounding furiously in my chest, like the damn thing is angry, so damn angry, for what I’m about to do.
But I do it anyway.
“I love you, Clay. I’ve always loved you,” I say and force myself to meet his gaze. Force myself to stare into his beautiful eyes one last time. “But I’m sorry. I’ll always be sorry. This is just how it has to be.”
65
Clay
Saturday, July 9th
Josie sobs into my shoulder, and I hold my wife against me, embracing her as tightly as I can. Her body feels weak in my arms, her cries filled with the kind of grief I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
My head swims with all of the things she finally told me. She had a miscarriage. She was carrying our baby, and because of the unfortunate accident we were in that one Thanksgiving night, our baby didn’t survive.
And if that wasn’t awful enough, she had a complication that required surgery and she can’t have kids.
All this time, all these years, I’ve never understood why she wanted a divorce. Never understood why she walked away. I’ve spent so much time trying to understand it all but never could because she chose to carry the truth on her shoulders. She chose to suffer in silence.
Maybe I should be mad at her for all of this. For not telling me about our baby. For not telling me about her surgery. For not telling me the truth. But I could never be mad at her for this. I know Josie better than I know myself. She might come across as a hard-ass, but her heart is the purest of anyone I’ve ever known. She will put everyone’s needs above her own, and she’ll do it even if it means she’s sacrificing herself.
And that’s what she did. She sacrificed herself for me.
This is how it has to be. Her words roll around inside my mind.
Fuck no. This isn’t how it has to be.
“None of it was your fault,” I tell her again and lean back to meet her eyes. Her beautiful face is a mess of tears, and it takes a gentle lift of her chin with my fingertips to make her seal her gaze with mine. “Losing Grandma Rose wasn’t your fault. The accident wasn’t your fault. And the death of our baby wasn’t your fault,” I whisper and gently press my lips to hers. “None of it was your fault, Josie. None of it.”
“I’m so sorry, Clay.” More tears flow past her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Clay.”
“I’m sorry too,” I say and kiss as many of her tears away as I can. “I’m sorry for our wedding night when you wanted to call Grandma Rose and tell her the good news, and I stopped you. It will always be one of my biggest regrets.” My voice shakes as I let my own guilt free. “I’m sorry for all the moments I was being a pushy bastard. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I was just wanting to move on from all our tragedy, from all our loss, while you were still hurting. I’m sorry I was too lost in my own shit to see that you were suffering. I’m sorry I was so fucking clueless that I had no idea you had surgery. I’m sorry for that night when you handed me divorce papers and I walked away. But most of all, I’m sorry that you’ve been carrying all of this alone for so much time. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to support you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to comfort you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to hold your hand.”
“You didn’t know,” she says through a hiccupping sob. “You didn’t know.”
“Yeah, but I should’ve seen it, Josie. I should’ve seen you in those moments and known that your world was not okay. I shouldn’t have been so fucking focused on making our world brighter to not give you the time and space to grieve. Give you the time to find the strength to tell me what you were silently carrying by yourself.”