Page 37 of Mercy Lake

Owen and I remained on that garden bench, staring ahead, ruminating on everything that was revealed.

Everly lied. Fucking assaulted my husband and said he was the father of her baby. What kind of evil person thinks of doing something like that? Let alone to a friend.

Despite those new revelations, it also didn’t excuse Owen’s part in the betrayal.

I shifted, unfurling from my inanimate state.“You sat on that information for a month, Owen. That betrayal… It’s disgusting, not to mention dangerous. You put my health at risk. You had unprotected sex with us both. God knows what could have happened if you passed something on to me.”

My mind ran back to that time. “Now that I think on it, we weren’t intimate for a while after I got back from that conference. Were you sleeping with her that whole time?”

“Fuck no. I told you it was only once, and even that was too much.” He shuddered, then gave a regrettable sigh. “I was waiting for my test results to know I was all clear. I would never do that to you.”

I scoffed.What type of bullshit is that?

“So, what? You were waiting on the all clear from a STD panel and then thought ‘right, everything is good now’ and slept with me?”

“Not at all. This is fucked up reasoning, but I thought when we eventually had it out, I could show you the results and prove that I at least did something right. That at least I didn’t put your health at risk, didn’t put your safety at risk.”

He really was delusional. He even managed to gaslight himself, the poor moron.

“I remember trying to initiate intimacy, and you shut me down,” I said.

“To be honest, it wasn’t just the health check. I loathed myself. Fucking hated myself. I didn’t deserve to touch you. Didn’t deserve to find pleasure with you after what I had done.”

“But you ended up sleeping with me anyway. That one night before everything went down.”

He dropped his head, almost in surrender. “’Cause I’m weak. I could only resist you for so long, Lex. I needed to feel you again. Have your touch and know it wasn’t all a lie. What I felt for you, what you felt for me, what we had together. My mind and emotions were in such a mess. I was utterly selfish, and needed you to feel whole again. I was dying without you.”

“This is hard to reconcile, Owen. Everything was so premeditated, planned and thought out. You went a whole month. One month, Owen. And for one week, you knew Everly was supposedly pregnant. That’s a long time to keep a secret of that magnitude. If she didn’t turn up pregnant, were you ever going to tell me the truth?”

“Yes. I was going to tell you.”Hmm, debatable.

“To assuage your guilty conscience or for me?”

“For you. At that point, I didn’t care about me. All I cared about was you,” he huffed. “You know what my family is like. I wasn’t brought up to discuss my issues. Liam and I were taught to hide our pain, bury our hurt until we could handle it ourselves. I didn’t have the skills to communicate something on that scale. I didn’t know how! I didn’t. But I would have found a way eventually. I would have come clean. It sounds stupid now, but I didn’t want to cause you pain.”

“Oh, come off it. You weren’t going to tell me. You got caught. EvenEverlyhad to step up and say the words. You didn’t do it to prevent me pain. You did it for your own selfish needs!”

“What have I got to lose by lying, Alexis?! I had already lost everything that ever meant a damn. I lostyou. I’m not saying this to placate you. The worst already happened! I can’t come back from that.”

I rolled my eyes, which made him switch up fast. “What about you, huh?!”

“Me?!” I shrieked.

“Yes! You cut me out so thoroughly that over four years later, I’m still fucking recovering. Why didn’t you stay? Why didn’t you talk to me? Why didn’t you fight for me—”

“FOR WHAT, OWEN!?” I was on my feet then, standing over him, yelling in his face. Unwilling and totally unwanted, tears tracked down my cheeks as our shared history swept through me as if it were yesterday.

“You refused to talk to me for a whole fucking month! You have the audacity to ask that of me? How dare you!”

I concentrated on my breathing since I was near hyperventilating. My head was getting fuzzy. He had to hear me, listen to what I had to say as I unloaded the past four years onto him.

When I finally reestablished myself, I stared down into his sorrowful eyes and told him what his lies did to me.

“‘I’m pregnant… with your husband’s baby.’ Six words, Owen. Six. That’s all it took for my world to be absolutelydecimated.The man I loved. The man who vowed to be by my side forever betrayed me in the worst possible way. Tell me the right way to handle that? Tell me how I should have stayed? How should I have talked to you? I may be a coward for running, but you don’t understand, Owen. I was just trying to survive. That’s all I was trying to do.”

Owen remained sitting as he grabbed onto my waist, his distraught face mirroring mine. I ripped at the middle of my chest, that familiar ache I hadn’t felt in years coming back in full force.

“I was dealt a fatal wound, so thorough and so deep I barely made it out alive. And every time I thought about you two together, it felt like another stab wound was added to the rest. Every memory we shared… The mere sound of your name… God, it felt like my wounds were constantly being ripped open by your very own hands, Owen. Every. Single. Time. So yes. I stayed away, pushed you out of my mind to the point that, in my world, you no longer existed. BUT I HAD TO FUCKING SURVIVE!”

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