I glanced around the room, my gaze surveying the furniture within my line of sight. “What else have you done?” I asked, desperate to see every piece she’d ever created.
She turned and headed down a hallway beyond the living room. I followed, unsure of where we were going, but not really caring. As long as I remained with her, walking further into her house instead of out the front door, I didn’t care if she took me to the bathroom.
But she didn’t take me to a bathroom. She opened the door to a bedroom, peeked inside, slowly closed it back, and then went to a room across the hall. She flipped on the lamp beside the bed, offering the room a soft glow, and then quietly closed the door behind me. There wasn’t much to the room other than a bed with high, painted and glossed posts, and a tall dresser that matched. Aubrey sat on the edge of the bed while I studied the designs, moving farther in to the room, exploring each of the pieces of furniture with my fingertips.
“Is this the guest room?”
When I didn’t hear an answer, I turned back to her, catching her peering up at the ceiling with her hands twisted in her lap. It took me back six years, watching her search for the answers in the air around her.
“What am I missing, Bree?” I asked slowly, almost afraid of the answer.
“This is my room,” she whispered, and lowered her head.
My eyes frantically searched the room, wondering why she’d led me to the room she shared with her husband. But then it hit me. This was not a master suite. There was no bathroom attached, and even more glaringly obvious, there were no signs of any male living there. I stilled, slowly bringing my gaze back to her bed. I knew I had to tread carefully, not wanting to come across as accusatory. “Your husband must be a small guy if you both fit on this bed together.”
She spun the band on her finger before pulling it off and holding it up between us. “I wear this for work, hoping it’ll ward off some of the creeps that go there. I had it made after Ayla was born. Her name is inscribed on the inside.”
“Why…” I had to shake my head and take in a deep breath in order to calm myself down enough to ask her the first question that popped into my mind. “Why did you let me believe that you were married?”
Her hands fell to the mattress as she shrugged, dropping her gaze from mine. “I don’t know. I’ve grown so much without you, Axel. I’ve become a very different person. And I thought that if I pushed you away, kept you out of my life, it would be better for me. I can’t go back to being the defenseless girl you fell in love with. I’ve come too far to go back to being that person. And I don’t know how to be any other way around you. Look at tonight. Look at how defeated I am.”
“That’s because your father was hospitalized after an idiot ran a red light and smashed into him. That has nothing to do with me. For one second, imagine how you would be had I not shown up at the hospital. Had I not been there for you.” I couldn’t take how she refused to meet my eyes, so I moved around the bed, sat on the edge, and faced her.
“I know. Okay? I get it.” Finally, her fierce attitude began to show itself. “But it doesn’t change things. I have a life—a very good life. And from what you’ve said, yours has been shit. I don’t need that in my life, Axel. I have Ayla to think about. It’s not just about me anymore. It’s no longer about what we used to have. It’s about what I have now…and I won’t risk that for anything. For anyone.”
Something in her tone led me to believe this was her closure. This was her way of letting me go. And if that was the case, I wouldn’t leave without complete closure. Without absolute clarity. “What about Ayla’s father. Where is he?”
“He’s never been there.”
“What?” I asked, wide-eyed. “Never? Not even when she was a baby and you were in school? What about financially? Does he at least pay child support?” I had no right to ask those questions, but I hated the thought of Bree doing everything on her own.
“Do you remember how I told you I was sick and had to go to the hospital…right before my mom died? Well, that’s when I learned that I was pregnant. My dad took me away. I was four hours away from her father. I didn’t want a fight or problems, so I did what I had to do. I had the support of my new family, and that’s all that I needed.”
“So he doesn’t even know about her?”
She licked her lips and sighed. “No. And I don’t regret that decision.”
“Who is he?” I knew once I had a name there would be no stopping me from finding him and making him start contributing financially to her.
“Just someone from school. I was in a place where I needed him. I needed to feel secure and safe. And he gave me that. He gave me exactly what I needed.”
I felt sick, knowing that my leaving had pushed her into the arms—the bed—of another male. I broke her heart and left her to seek the comfort of someone else, when it should’ve been me. I should’ve been the one taking care of her, fathering her children when the time was right for both of us. Not some douchebag that went about his life without the knowledge of his own kid.
“Stop, Axel. I can see your brain working. Don’t worry about me. You have no reason to feel sorry for anything. In a way, you leaving saved me. With you, I had no reason to fight back, no reason to grow a backbone and become strong enough to stand on my own two feet. I had you. You were my defender. But without you, I had to learn to do it on my own. Had you stayed in my life, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to leave my mom’s. I wouldn’t have wanted to go to my dad’s and be four hours away from you. I won’t lie, the road I took to get me here has been bumpy and sometimes unpaved, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t give up or back down. And I did it all without leaning on anyone—well, I occasionally leaned on my family, but that’s what they’re there for.” The way she spoke told me that she meant every word.
I relaxed on the mattress as my shoulders slumped forward, feeling defeated. All I’d ever wanted to do was protect her. Be there for her when she needed me…when she needed anyone. But hearing her now, I realized I would’ve never been able to do any of those things. I’d held her back. I’d ruined her. And the only reason she survived was because I had turned my back on her. Abandoning her is what saved her. The realization hit me hard and made me feel weaker than ever before.
“What about you? How did you end up here?” she asked with concern and curiosity in her tone.
I didn’t want to tell her my whole sordid past, but I had to. She needed to know the road I’d taken to get me to where I was. After all, she’d told me hers. “Well, after the whole fallout with the school, I packed everything up, put it all in storage, and stayed with my parents for a little while. I ended up telling them everything, and even though they were disappointed in me, they said they trusted me, and if I’d fallen in love with a student, it couldn’t have been careless. And they trusted me enough to know I wouldn’t have put you in harm’s way. But even with their support, I began to drown in my own grief. I thought you threw me under the bus, so on top of losing my job, moving back in with my parents, and essentially starting all over again, I had to do so with a broken heart.
“They finally kicked me out after two months of me doing nothing but moping around the house. They said they needed to be firm with me, otherwise I’d drift away into nothingness. I moved one town over, got a job that my dad helped me get doing landscaping, and spent my weekends at the bars. Weekends went from Saturday nights to include Fridays as well. Then I added Sunday afternoons. At some point, whether I got drunk or not, I’d pour a drink every night. Sometimes it was just something to drink, and other times, it was to numb the pain.”