Page 167 of Aftersome
I’d apologize the rest of my life if I had to.
And I probably will.
With a cold water bottle in my hand, and another weight lifted off my chest, I felt like I could finally breathe again.
But what I was about to confess was something else entirely.
Already I was feeling uncertain of how and what exactly I was going to say, but it was something they needed to know.
“I need to be honest with you. I know about the plan you made with Wren.” I peered over at the two of them and immediately saw the regret in their eyes. “I’m not upset about it, if anything I should be thanking you…”
Shit.
I didn’t want to put it like that.
“What I mean is… That Doe… I mean, Wren…” Shaking my head, I knew I was fucking this up majorly. Face now the shade of a tomato, I went to open my mouth again, but Shelia quickly intercepted.
“Mal, hey, it’s okay,” she tried to comfort me.
“No, it’s not okay, you need to know everything. When I first saw Wren, I wanted her gone. I didn’t want to see her, talk toher, anything, but she refused to listen to me. And I knew at that moment, I was utterly fucked.”
I didn’t care if I was saying things I probably shouldn’t have, but this was me.
The words I was saying might not be pretty, but it didn’t matter. The way I felt about this woman was the only thing that fucking mattered anyway.
“I was an asshole. I pushed her away, I didn’t let anyone get close to her, and still she managed to make me want to be a better man. And somewhere along the way, I don’t know when it happened, or where, I fell hard for the woman I knew could never be mine.”
Shelia’s eyes filled with tears as Greg looked damn near close to crying too.
“Then I saw her phone and all the messages you were leaving her, and I made her confess everything to me that night and in the end I broke her heart.”
“Mal…” Shelia cried and soon she was moving to sit next to me.
“I pushed her away because I couldn’t stand the thought of sharing her heart with anyone else,” I admitted and immediately, I regretted it.
“Mal, listen to me, please.” Shelia grabbed my hand and forced my attention on her. “We know, baby. We know everything. We know you love her, and we know she loves you.”
When I should have felt relief, I didn’t.
“It’s none of our business who the two of you fall in love with. And don’t think for one second that we would hate you because you fell in love with the girl Hayes had loved. Wren has been through so much and over the years, we’ve had the privilege of watching her grow into the beautiful, strong woman she is today. We would have been stupid to not think that something would happen between the two of you.”
Shelia glanced over at Greg.
“We never expected Wren to remain single her whole life. We know how much she loved Hayes, but it would be selfish of us to expect her to cling on to his presence forever. I only prayed that had she met someone, it would be someone who deserved her.” Greg then looked back over at his wife, who then looked at me.
Taking the hand she had on mine, she lifted it to my cheek.
“Someone like you, Mal, because I know how truly wonderful of a person you are.”
Fuck.
All my life, all I ever wanted was to be someone worthy. To be someone good. And hearing it from both Greg and Shelia… I could barely find any air from the shock of it.
“We love you, Mal. When you were ten, twenty, thirty, and when you’re a hundred. You will always be our son.” Shelia rubbed her finger along my cheekbone, causing my chest to expand.
I spent a few more hours with them, then decided that it was finally time to go get my girl.
Or, at least apologize and see where things go from there, but with a promise of returning, Shelia whispered one last thing to me before I made my journey to Doe.
