Page 33 of Secrets Within Us

“That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?” I asked calmly. By keeping any trace of fear and anger out of my voice, I attempted to show him nothing but understanding and reason. “I just want to understand, Kip. I don’t make them like Molly does, and that’s why you don’t like them.”

“Don’t say her name!” He commanded. “Don’t you dare say her name.”

“She’s your wife, isn’t she?” I asked, with more strength behind it. “You think I don’t deserve to know if you’re married? Or if at any point a woman is going to walk through the front door and want to know what the hell I’m doing in her house?”

He wouldn’t answer me though, he just threw his bowl into the sink where the porcelain shattered against the stainless steel. I flinched again, but he didn’t care. He marched past me to the front door, where he started putting his gear back on. He was just going to walk out and expect me to just sit here and be okay with it.

“I see you; you know.” I breathed. He didn’t stop lacing up his boots as I spoke, but I knew he was listening. “I see you every morning wake up and look around and for a brief second,” I closed my eyes and shook my head slightly as I fought for composure, “just one second, I see the disappointment in your eyes when you see it’s me next to you in bed.” My voice trembled, and I battled to steady my breathing as I fought against the flood of emotions in my throat, finally opening my eyes again. He stopped moving as he just stood with his back to me, staring at the wall. I took a step closer to him, and the sound of my own footsteps echoed in the room. “It happens so fast, I can almost convince myself it didn’t happen at all, and that I imagined the pain that the rejection causes inside of my heart. But then it happens again the very next morning, and the pain comes back like it never left to begin with.”

He turned quickly and looked over his shoulder at me. Pain reflecting mine showed on his face, but I couldn’t tell if it was pain for me or pain for himself. Opening my arms at my side, I bared my vulnerable self to him. “I didn’t ask to be here, Kip. I didn’t ask for you to want me or to feel guilty for it, either.” With him at least looking at me, I attempted to reason with him.

Didn’t he see my pain like I saw his? Didn’t that soften him even a little? So I tried again.

“I didn’t ask for any of this, but I can’t just bury my head in the sand and hope that one day you’ll wake up and find peace in your soul, that it’s me next to you when you wake up like I do every single morning waking up in your arms. I can’t wait around and just blindly hope for that Kip. If you can’t tell me everything right now, at least tell me I’m not sticking around in a hopeless situation.” I pleaded as I held my hands over my heart. “Please, just have mercy on me.”

He still said nothing as I closed my eyes and dropped my head, wrapping my arms around myself, trying to hold it all together.

He walked over to me, closing the distance slowly. The moment our eyes met, I could sense my hope pouring out through my gaze. I could feel my body freeze up and hang on to what he was about to say.

But then he just did what he was good at.

He stayed silent.

He leaned down and kissed my cheek, not touching me anywhere other than where his lips seared my skin before he turned and walked back out the front door.

When the wood creaked beneath the force of the slam so powerful the walls rattled, I let out a shuttered breath and Dev bellowed from the front porch.

“It seems that my peace here has officially come to a close,” I whispered to the silent house.

Occupying my brain with indoor chores, I picked up the mess from lunch and silently made plans.

As I stood in the laundry room, folding a load of laundry and packing my bag, I tried to come up with the words to tell him what I had done in his mountains, as a last resort to rescue the situation. But I knew if I did, he could ruin my life with that information. I found myself staring blankly at the closed door next to the bathroom, my mind racing with repetitive thoughts.

The only room in the house Kip had never shown me and the only one that he kept the door closed on. With trembling hands, I set the laundry down and cautiously approached the door. Peering down the long, empty hallway, I strained my ears for any hint of Kip or Dev’s approach, but the silence remained unbroken. My pulse sped up as I stood there staring at the door handle for what felt like an eternity.

Something inside of me told me to walk away, that if he had wanted me to know what was in the room, he would have left the door open or told me about it.

But he hadn’t even mentioned it, he acted as though the door didn’t exist, and that made me feel like I needed to know what was on the other side of it.

I took a deep breath and then quickly reached down and turned the handle before I lost the nerve. My heart nearly exploded out of my chest when it turned and opened with hardly any effort. With one hand, I pushed the door open and stood frozen in the hallway, absorbing the scene before me.

Someone painted the walls pink and blue, separating the space into two halves. On the pink side, there was a white daybed with a pastel purple comforter on it, adorned with frills and lace, beneath hanging butterflies from the ceiling. On the blue side, baseball trophies and decor splattered haphazardly on the walls and furniture in true boy fashion.

It was a kids’ room.

“My god,” I whispered as I took in the sight of it.

Boxes were scattered in the center of the room with items hanging out of them and strewn across the floor as if someone had thrown them in here without a care.

As if on autopilot, my feet led me towards them, and I ended up in the middle of the room, peering down at the fascinating items.

Memories.

On top of one box was a photo frame with a broken glass front. I tipped the frame over and let the glass fall into the half-empty box below it. And there, framed in broken shards of glass and a busted wooden edge, was a picture of Kip. He looked younger, maybe by a couple of years, but he didn’t have a beard or a scowl. Instead, he was clean-shaven and smiling from ear to ear back at the camera sitting on a log next to a campsite.

And the reason he looked the happiest I’d ever seen him was wrapped around him on all sides.

A beautiful blond woman stood behind him, with her arms around his shoulders, as she leaned down and kissed his cheek. And on each knee were two of the cutest kids I’d ever seen.

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