Page 46 of His Bittersweet Regret

“Whose house is this?” Opal asked, her brows furrowed as I turned the truck’s engine off.

“It’s our house.”

She laughed. It was a sound that I hadn’t heard in forever, and if there hadn’t been a hard edge behind it, would have overjoyed me to hear it again.

“Right. Our house.” She laughed again. “We are not even an ‘us’ any longer, so there’s definitely no “our” in play with this house. Please, take me home. I’m not in the mood for whatever torment you have in store for me this week.”

“Opal,” I said, and waited until she turned to give me her attention. It killed me to see her warm brown eyes blurring with unshed tears. “I bought this house for us, but until you’re ready for there to be an ‘us’ again, it’s all yours. Well, yours and Austin’s.”

She shook her head in denial.

“Will you at least let me show it to you?”

We sat there for a few moments before she finally answered me. “We’re already here, and I have to go to the bathroom. God, I hope you have toilet paper in there already.”

I couldn’t help laughing at her, but I honestly didn’t know. My mom had been by the day before to stock what she called, ‘the basics’ in the place. Hopefully, that included toilet paper because it didn’t look like Opal was joking about the bathroom thing.

I got out and moved around the truck to help her down. She looked so damn tired. Beautiful, but tired. I reached up and wrapped one of my arms around her waist. “Just hold onto my shoulders and I’ll lift you down.” She actually did as I asked and then allowed me to keep my arm around her as I guided us to the front door. I thanked every lucky star in the universe that she didn’t immediately swat me away from her as I sorted through the keys on my chain to get to the correct one.

“I have a key for you too,” I told her as I reluctantly let go to open the door.

“I won’t need one,” she argued in a quiet voice.

When I opened the door, and she walked inside the gasp she made told me that my mom had indeed made sure everything looked perfect. What I didn’t expect was the picture of Opal and me from two years ago that now hung on the wall, front and center, across from the door. It was blown up to portrait size and brought back so many damn memories.

“Is this where you’ve been living? I thought you were staying with your brothers?”

“No. I just took possession a couple days ago. I tried to get it sooner, when I realized you were walking everywhere, but this was as quickly as I could get into it.”

“So, you bought a house because you found out I was walking to and from work?”

“Yeah, Well, no. I planned to buy it when I found out you were pregnant.”

The little bit of light present in her eyes, dimmed immediately, and I knew I’d said something wrong, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was.

“I don’t want your house,” she said. “I just need to use the bathroom and then I’d like to go home.”

“You are home, Opal. This is your home. I got it for you.”

She pointed at the picture of us. “Do you think I’d want that hanging in my home? It is a literal reminder of everything I lost, everything you threw away. It’s also a reminder of everything you stole from me.”

“What? I didn’t steal anything.”

“Liar!” She accused. “When you left, you took every single one of our memories with you. Every picture. Every item we purchased together, outside of the crappy furniture, you took it all.”

“No. That wasn’t what I was doing. I just couldn’t bear to part with anything.”

“And you thought I could? I’m glad you had the comforts of our memories, because I was left with an empty apartment, an overwhelming emptiness in my soul, and a baby that you didn’t want.”

“I never said I didn’t want our baby, Opal. That wasn’t me. I swear to you, I would have never said that.”

“No, but you did say that you didn’t want me.”

“No.”

“Yes! You leaving and taking all our memories, telling me that we needed to explore other people, that more than said I wasn’t in your heart any longer.” She threw her arms up and spun around once in a rather clunky fashion that had more to do with her awkward waistline than anything. “Why did you even do this?”

“Because I love you. I never stopped loving you. You needed a house, space to move, and a safe place to raise our son. Plus, it will put you closer to work until I can get you a car.”

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