Page 138 of All Our Secrets

And there it was. The words I didn’t want to hear. What I’d discovered during the brief moments I had caught her watching my best friend when she thought I wasn’t looking.

“You made me happy, and a part of me died the day you did, knowing you’d never light up a room with your smile again. I know how much you wanted our son.” She wiped her face and sniffled. “God, you wanted to start a family so badly. I wanted to give you that.”

Guilt threatened to swallow me whole. I couldn’t look at my wife as I spoke. “I thought a baby would make you stop looking at King. I thought if I gave you a family, we would be complete. That King couldn’t mess that up.”

“When you were here, it was safer, easier, to ignore Silas. At least, I thought it was. But… that’s not the truth either,” she whispered. “Even when I thought, ‘maybe he’s not my King after all,’ I still kept looking his way. So when you died, I truly tried—to keep Silas away, to stay strong, to ignore these feelings. But I’m weak. Even as I told myself to do right by you, I prayed Silas wouldn’t give up on me. I hoped he would keep coming back, no matter what I said. I lied to myself to make the guilt easier to handle.”

I stared at my wife. No, not my wife. I stared at the widow I had made her into. I had grabbed on to her even when I saw the obvious spark in her eyes for someone else. But any time I remembered the way my heart tightened in my chest the first time her brown eyes locked with mine, I couldn’t find any regret.

Even when she stood there, breaking my heart in fucking two. I was dead. How cruel was it that the emotions that should have died along with me were still ravaging my spirit? Fuck.It hurt.

I had loved her enough to steal my best friend’s happiness, knowing his devotion to his gamer girl. King’s love could never compete with what I had given her. What I had done to have her. If he loved her as much as he claimed, there was no way he would have given her up.

King.I had no idea if they would send an ambulance to his location. A part of me wanted to see him suffer. No part of me wanted him to have Peyton.

But I couldn’t be there for Peyton. King still could. If it wasn’t too late to get him help. In all the years we were friends, he never asked me for anything. For a surly kid, King never had anything mean to say to me like he did anyone else. He always had my back and helped me out anytime I asked. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t let him die. Peyton needed someone to love her and take care of her. I wanted to be by her side and watch my son grow up, but… I’d fucked that up. Not King.

If I hadn’t stormed off on my bike that fateful Sunday, I would still be alive. I could have fought for my wife the second King told her who he was. Would I have kept Peyton? Or would she have chosen him?

I glanced over at her. Peyton’s face and neck were red and blotchy. Even after she’d admitted her darkest thoughts, I still wanted to fall to my knees in front of her and love her for another five years. And ten more after that.

Right then, I didn’t want to know what might have happened between us if I hadn’t died.

Knowing time mattered, I rushed toward Peyton. She gasped when her purse opened. I took out her cell phone. I could only imagine what it looked like to her—floating through the air on its own before landing beside her on the floor. It was difficult to hold things for long periods. The best I could do was throw it, then I fought to unlock it. The tears in Peyton’s eyes sparkled like gems as she gawked.

“Theo?” she whispered. “What…”

She leaned in as I typed slowly.H-E-L.Manifesting the will to touch things took time. But hurting King had come so easily. Anger fed my strength.

“Help?” Peyton questioned. She shot to her feet before I could finish typing King. “Help King?”

Phone forgotten on the floor, Peyton grabbed the car seat and ran. I was already inside the vehicle when she buckled T.J. in. Her hand slipped over into the passenger seat—moving through me as if she searched for something while she drove. “Shit!” she shouted, then placed both hands on the wheel again.

Ah.Her purse and phone.

Two words. That was all it took to send her chasing after him. “Oh my God…” Peyton drifted off as she sped into King’s driveway. A cop car was parked beside his truck. Good. They’d sent someone out to check.

The color drained from Peyton’s face as she put the vehicle in park. As she hooked her arm around the car seat, sirens blared behind us. An ambulance pulled in right behind us. After a quick glance back, Peyton rushed toward the house.

I took a step, then stopped. Everything blurred. The trees around me looked like giant, faceless men closing in. Stopping me.Punishing me.The sky turned darker than during a March thunderstorm. The world had gone silent. Like it had stopped with me. But it hadn’t. Life went on. Had King?

I gripped my hair. Oh God. What had I done?

Heart-wrenching sobs broke through the quiet. When I blinked, life passed me by. Peyton was bent over a stretcher, crying over King’s motionless frame. The two men could barely get him to the ambulance as she clung to him, but they didn’t dare move her aside. How could they when she wept like that?

“Did you cry for me like that?” I wondered as Peyton cried King’s name. A smile touched my lips as the first tear came. “If so, that’s enough.”

But it’s not.

A warm, tingling sensation blanketed me from behind. The first touch of life I’d had since dying. I didn’t dare look back. Not yet. I sensed the calmness of it, knew it was here for me, but—

Spotting one of the men about to shut the door to the ambulance, I rushed forward. My body merged into the unsuspecting man easily, unlike the fight King had given me. The door was almost closed when I yanked it open. The medic looking over King raised a brow when I stepped inside and grabbed Peyton’s hand.

“Ethan?” the man called out, but I ignored him.

My attention was on my startled wife… but she wasn’t anymore, was she?

“I’m not sorry, okay? When King tells you—because I know he will—I’m not sorry that I kept you away from him. I loved you too. Know I would have fought for you if I were…”Alive.

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