Page 41 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

Nothing would ever be okay again.

Nothing.

The ride back to my place felt like a death sentence.

I knew when I got back, I’d have to make the calls.

That had to be why I rode as slow as I could back to where I couldn’t even see as home.

It would be my new home, though.

Because Mary was right in one way.

This new place was just that…new.

No memories of how I crossed the threshold with her in my arms on the day of our marriage.

No reminders of bringing our first baby home, and the huge ass smile on her face.

No flowers in the front that she painstakingly planted with every bit of love and affection she possessed.

No, this place was a new, blank slate.

She’d stamped it with her life, of course, over the last eight months.

But not every ding on the counter, or scratch on the wall, would remind me of her.

I didn’t know if that was better or worse, to be honest.

I reluctantly pulled into the driveway and parked.

I got off the bike, steeled my shoulders, and looked at my wife.

“Help me get her out, please?” I asked through the lump in my throat.

Silas was the one to get her out.

He had her in his arms, and I tried not to pay too much attention to how fucking white she was.

How dead she looked.

“Thank you,” I croaked.

He helped me get her into the house.

Silas laid her on the bed in our room, and I dropped down to my knees beside the bed and pressed one last kiss to her cheek.

“I’ll find you in the next life, my love,” I promised her. “Wait for me.”

She didn’t reply, and that was the last little stab right to my heart that killed it forever.

Chapter

Twenty-One

Dear Santa, I was framed.

—Hoax’s secret thoughts

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