Page 73 of Infinite
Aston’s lips part, and she huffs. “You’re so wrong it’s not even funny. You think that you take my happiness away? Idiot!” she yells and throws her hands up. “I’m in love with an idiot!” Then she collects herself. “I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t ask you to do any of that. I’m sorry.”
She rushes off the porch, and I hear the door close as I stand here.
I want to smile, laugh, pull her into my arms and spin her around. She called me an idiot. For the first time in months, I sawmyAshton. It’s the woman who wouldn’t shield her anger or watch her mouth. She was there for a moment before she reined it back in and became apologetic.
I head back into the house and find her sitting at the table, staring at her hands.
“I am an idiot.” My voice is low and careful. I don’t want to scare her off, but I also don’t want to spend the time we have together like this.
“I know.”
I grin this time. “We have a lot of shit to deal with, don’t we?”
Ashton looks up at me. “Yeah, we do. I can’t lie to you, Quinn. I won’t tell you that I want you to go, but I understand it.”
“Do you think it’s because of our daughter?”
Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “I think it’s from all of it, but mostly me. You struggle when you see me. I watch your eyes change, and there’s a level of pain beneath it all.”
“I hurt for you,fragolina. I hurt because I didn’t give you what you needed and you had to leave me to find it. When I look at you, I see my failure to take care of the woman I promised to protect.”
“Isn’t it sad that we’re both fighting the same thing? I feel like I failed you, and you think you failed me. In reality,” Ashton says, and then the tear falls down her face, “neither of us had anything to do with it.”
“I know that I couldn’t stop us from losing her. But I could’ve held your hand after. I should’ve been by your side, but I wasn’t. I’ve often wondered whether the time you had to put on your brave face was the reason you struggled so much after.”
“No, God no, Quinn. It was neveryourfault. I blame myself, my body, Aaron, but not you. Never once did I think it was your fault that we lost her. Maybe we were just . . . never supposed to have her.”
I sit beside her, both our hands folded in front of us on the table. I don’t think that’s true. “Do you think about her? What she might have looked like? Sounded like?”
My goal isn’t to hurt her, but we have to talk about this. The loss of our daughter weighs on both of us.
Ashton’s lips part and her voice is full of pain. “Every single day.”
“I would give anything to change things,” I confess.
Her big blue eyes look up at me, and I watch her emotions play out like a movie. “I would give anything to go back and undo the hurt I caused. So many mistakes I’ve made.”
We both did. I tried to love her enough to get through her grief, and in the end, it hurt us both. She didn’t deal with things and I kept thinking if I forced her to stay by my side, we’d find a way. Now I see I should’ve let her go.
“Loving what would’ve been our daughter was never a mistake.”
“She deserves a name,” Ashton says, her voice cracking. “She was ours and we . . . we loved her.”
I think of the nights we laid in bed, laughing at the names we suggested just to outdo each other. I found it funny and Ashton’s sense of competition kicked in. God, we had some ridiculous ones.
“None of the options we had before would be right.”
She shakes her head. “No, definitely not. I’ve been trying to find something in my heart that feels right. Something that has hope and meaning.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Iris or Rose.”
I’m not sure what meaning either of them have in our world. “Why?”
“Iris means rainbow and there’s the whole crossing the rainbow thing. But my favorite is Rose. First, because they’re beautiful and you gave me roses—which helped lead to my pregnancy. With your poetic card that I couldn’t resist forgiving you.”
I forgot about that. It feels like a million years ago that I was sending her things like coffee and flowers just to get her to talk to me. Not to mention my version of Roses are Red.
