Page 123 of All Our Secrets

His pursuit, his determination, his declaration of love were all things I needed years ago. Now we were all wrong for each other when we should have been right.

I took a day off to take T.J. to his checkup. In the mess Silas and I created, my son was the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

“Theodore is doing great. He’s gained some weight too.” The doctor tilted her head and smiled. “How are you doing, mama? You look a little tired.”

“I am,” was all I told her.

She patted my shoulder. “Your health is important too. Take care of yourself.”

I nodded and stood. A sudden wave of dizziness washed over me. I swayed but managed to grab the chair before T.J.’s doctor noticed. I held T.J. tighter to my chest as the guilt settled in. A good night’s sleep was something I lacked lately. And a decent meal. The doctor was right. No matter how much my heart hurt, I had to get my shit together.

“Oh, and don’t forget to see one of the nurses on the way out. Have them schedule you guys in for his next round of shots in two months.”

_____

It wasn’t easy to get my shit together, though. Getting out of bed was hard unless T.J. needed me. Gerald hadn’t spoken to me since Silas was at my door. Instead of having me drop T.J. off at their house, Rosie picked him up and brought him over to me when I got home from work.

Gerald was upset with me, and he didn’t know how far my betrayal ran. If he only knew how much my ugly heart had bled in secret for Silas long before my husband passed. They would despise me, and I couldn’t blame them for it. Silas didn’t do any wrong, though. In reality, it was my actions. I was the one in the relationship thinking of someone else. All he did was want me in silence. That silence let me marry someone else.Thatwas Silas’s mistake. If he’d communicated with me that day at the bar, he would have seen my yearning at first glance. Fuck, he didn’t even have to be my King. He could have walked me out of the bar right then and there. The reaction I had for him in that instant still lived within me, haunting me. But he didn’t stop to check. He barely looked at me, couldn’t wait to run away.

And that was the start of it.This never-ending guilt.

I did fall for Theodore. He was a beautiful person and husband. Everyone in the room laughed in his presence, but he never swept me under a spell where all I saw or thought about was him. Theodore Johnson was my safe place. A peace I never received in my life before him. But Silas… He always lingered inside my thoughts like the pesky man he was.

I hadn’t been home for more than thirty minutes when someone knocked. My breath quickened. I despised my body for going into a full-blown tingle at the thought of Silas showing up at my door again. It didn’t matter that I never answered. I saw no reconciliation in sight. But a deeper,biggerpart of my mind, the one in sync with my heart, wanted him to come for me over and over. To show me how far he’d go to prove himself.

Rubbing T.J.’s back, I didn’t bother to get off the sofa. Instead, I waited and listened. Silas always had things to say. I didn’t know how to forgive him, but I needed his apologies regardless. I was starved for him. His voice. His touch. His presence.

I’d never be on the receiving end of them again. The room shrank. Every wall around me closed in, trapping me in this torture. My chest tightened. My stomach cramped at the idea of all thesenevers.Never would I have him there, right where I always needed someone. Never would I have his smile. Or his lips. His eyes on me. Never would I love anyone beyond him. Never would I be a happy woman without him.

“Peyton, open the door.” Sarah. Not Silas.

My shoulders drooped. With a sigh, I stumbled into the hallway.

Sarah’s gaze flickered up and down. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

She shut the door and followed me into the living room, where I flopped back down on the couch.

T.J. kept blinking up at me. “What? Is your mommy that ugly right now?” I asked, and he let out a giggle.

For a minute, everything was okay. That gummy smile warmed me from head to toe. I might not be happily in love, but I’d always know a different kind of forever love.

“Sheesh. I guess that’s a yeah.”

“Let me have him,” Sarah said as she took my son out of my arms.

She cooed and talked to him for a few minutes while I watched. When T.J. started fussing for a bottle, I let her feed him. That was when she exhaled. “King isn’t handling this well. The man looks worse than you.”

I said nothing; just kept watching my son drink his milk.

“Is it really so bad that he’s this gaming friend of yours? Isn’t that good news?”

My skin prickled as the anger burst back to life. “He lied to me for all these years. Every time I brought up my gaming pal, he found a way to change the conversation. And do you remember the night the men mentioned he had a gaming friend in front of us? That was me. He could have told me then and didn’t. I don’t know which is worse. Him denying it for years, or the possibility that he never planned on telling me who he was.”

And to go without knowing Silas and King were one and the same was a crime. I loved both. At one point, to learn he was both would have been… perfect.

Sarah’s forehead wrinkled. “That is shitty…”

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