Page 32 of All I Ask
Still no answer.
Weird.
I head into the living room and she’s sitting on the couch with her legs crisscrossed and head down.
“Hey,” I say as I make my way to her. “Sorry I’m late.”
When her eyes meet mine, I stop moving. They’re red and puffy, and the pain in them is clear as day.
“What’s wrong?” I’m instantly worried about her and the baby. “Are you okay?”
She shakes her head. “I’m not.”
Worry fills me, pushing me toward her. I tug her to me and hold her tight. Her body starts to shake, and my own fear grows. Something is terribly wrong and whatever it is has her devastated.
“Talk to me.”
Meghan shoves out of my embrace. She reaches behind her and pulls out a leather-bound black journal.
Time stops, because I know now what has her devastated. I’ve written in that journal the last two years—including last week.
“I want to talk.” She sniffs. “I want to talk and ask you things, but I don’t know that I need to because it’s all here.”
No longer is worry my primary emotion, now it’s mixed with anger. Those are my thoughts and feelings. I write because I have to get it out in a place that’s safe.
“In my private journal.”
“It was sitting on the counter, and I didn’t know what it was.”
A part of me doesn’t believe her because I’m never careless. I keep it in the same place so that it would never be found.
Hell, I’ve never told anyone other than Teagan I even keep a damn journal.
But now Meghan knows, and she read it. Without my permission.
“And then when you figured out what it was, you just kept reading?” I push.
A tear falls from her face, and my heart continues to pound to a beat that is so loud in my ears. I stand, needing to get some distance from her.
“I…I wasn’t…I know it was wrong!” She gets to her feet as well. “When I saw some of the…the things you said. Is this really what you feel? You want her? You wish Teagan was pregnant with your child?” She screams the words and the tears fall down her cheek.
I thought I felt that way. I thought maybe it was really what I wanted, but it’s not. I was confused. I wrote it down so I could get it out of my head and move on. At least that has to be the truth because otherwise I’m a fucking failure of a man.
“No! I was dealing with so much and I was fucked-up in the head. It’s not like that!”
“You wrote it, Derek!” She throws the journal at me. “You wrote it all here. You said you loveher!”
Meghan’s pain is so deep, I can almost feel it. She’s hurt by what I wrote and rightfully so. I didn’t explain that after I wrote about it, I realized I was crazy.
“I do, but not that way! She’s my best friend.”
“No. No she’s not. You’re in love with her and I would bet my ass she’s in love with you, andyou…you wrote about it. You want her.”
“I don’t,” I say as I step closer to her. “I want you. I married you! I love you, Meghan.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “You said…”
“I know what I said but it wasn’t like that. I was so confused and mixed-up.” If I could just explain it to her, maybe she’d understand. “I saw Teagan for our lunch last week and it was different. I was different, and talking about the baby with her, she started crying, and then it was just…I don’t know, but I had to get it out and work through it. It was just my fears and being irrational.”
