Page 79 of Say You Want Me
“Then you make him talk.”
I’ve been putting off the talk about where we, as a couple, go from here. Part of me is afraid of what words will be spoken. If he doesn’t return my love, can I withstand another devastation? I don’t think I can. Between the healing my body is doing, the hormones that are wreaking havoc on my system, and Wyatt’s mood . . . I can’t.
I would rather suffer in silence than be deafened by the truth.
IWAKE WITH A GASP.Sweat trickles down my skin, my breathing is accelerated, and my heart is pounding. I hate this dream. I look over to the other side of the bed, and once again, Wyatt’s side is empty. It’s the fifth night in a row I’ve had this terrifying dream. The car tumbling, the pain of hitting my head, the haunting sound of the monitors beeping, listening to them telling me I’ve lost my baby. Then, I find that my nightmare is my reality.
My feet hit the cold floor, and I go in search of Wyatt. He’s lying on the couch with the television on.
I stand here for a few minutes, but he doesn’t notice my presence. He doesn’t look like the same man from only a few short weeks ago. Wyatt was always smiling, full of joy and warmth. Now he’s cold and distant, not in a way that was even before the accident though. He was still him, just with something on his mind.
This is a man drowning in grief. I have to pull him out.
I know this. I have to find a way to get him to meet me halfway so we can get past this awful phase. I’ve been here before. I know what it looks like and where it can lead. I won’t let the man I love get lost in the abyss.
I pull my sweater around myself a little tighter and brace for a conversation we need to have.
I can’t live like this anymore. Ineedmy Wyatt back.
“Hey,” I rasp. My throat still dry from sleep.
“Did I wake you?” he asks, sitting straight up.
I shake my head. “No. I had another dream.”
He doesn’t say anything as he presses his lips together. I move around the side of the couch, wanting to sit with him. We haven’t really spoken at all the last four days. He’s been at the ranch or his brother’s houses. When he gets home, he’s not really here. I’m lonely and sad.
“The accident?” Wyatt guesses.
“Yeah.” I curl up on the opposite end of the couch with what feels like an ocean between us. Three weeks ago, I would’ve practically been in his lap. “I woke up looking for you, but you were gone again.”
Wyatt leans his head back against the couch. “I started watching this movie. I didn’t even realize how late it was,” he explains.
When I look at the screen, there’s no movie playing. It’s an infomercial about skincare.
“Have you slept at all? It’s been a few nights of this.”
The dark circles under his eyes tell me he hasn’t. “I can’t.”
I shift closer, hoping maybe my touch will thaw him a little, but he moves farther away. “You can talk to me, Wyatt.”
“I’m fine.”
Right.
“It might help?” I continue to urge. “We both lost, Faith. We’re both in this together. It might help you to talk to me.”
When I say her name, his eyes cut to me. The look he gives tells me we’re still in the anger stage.
Awesome.
I start putting my steel walls up. I know this is going to be ugly, but I can’t let it continue on like this. He’s not the only one living in this purgatory of sorrow. I cry every day—mostly in the shower so he won’t hear me if he’s home. I wake up every morning with my hand on my belly. I’m hurting too, but I’ve been here before, and it’s not a place I want to visit again. We have to move forward in some way or another.
He lets out a short breath through his nose. “What do you want me to say? I’m not sleeping. It’s not like you should care anyway.”
Okay. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“Why do you think?” His tone is clearly disturbed. “Go back to bed, Angie.”
