Page 63 of The Marine

I love you too.

When the police arrived, Aidan sat in the living room with them, answering questions. Another one talked to Mom. At one point, they asked me what I knew, and I cannot to this day remember what I said.

I felt Aidan’s eyes on me, burning into my skin, silently begging me to come to him.

I never did.

My mother's pleading, our bond over a lifetime of abuse, her belief that my lover was the man who murdered her husband—my father—kept me frozen.

First, for one day.

Then another.

And another.

Days turned into weeks and months.

Aidan was never charged, as there was no evidence that my father’s heart attack was caused by the previous night’s altercation, but my mother never gave up her position.

To this day.

And the damage had already been done. There was no going back. I hadn’t talked to him or supported him. My silence had, fundamentally, supported my mother's claims.

How could Aidan forgive me for that?

I still had a sliver of doubt, despite the information we were given by the police.

I hated myself for thinking that of a man who had done nothing but respect and protect me.

I didn’t deserve him.

“That boy killed your father,” Mom said every day for months.

It could have been years.

Even in recent days, she’d say how much she missed my father and howthat boyhad killed him. She never accepted that it had been a heart attack, and that Aidan was innocent.

That he had protected me and potentially saved me from being choked to death that night.

My loyalty had to be with my mother. She was my mom. I’d have lost her and my father if I’d walked into Aidan’s arms that morning. I know that for a fact.

A man I loved but had known for only a few months.

I also believed Mom could be right.

I was naïve.

Today, I don’t think she was right.

But it has been ten years since I last saw him, and we both have scars from that time of our lives. Even if we do have insane chemistry.

Aidan is wrong. I don’t belong to him.

And it is over.

It was over ten years ago.

I just need to tell my vagina that.

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