Page 69 of Secrets That Bind Us
She scoffs, shaking her head at the ceiling before looking at me. Cinnamon eyes glassy, but her tears don’t fall. A piece of me wants to know how long she’s been holding them back? How long has it been since my girl let herself feel more than just… this? This invisible, gnawing pain that feels as though it’s been buried within us for the past thirteen years. Has she had to hide it? Cry alone?
I know I did.
She licks her lips. “When I got to New York, I finally made it to the exit of the airport, I turned my phone on. It was vibrating so much that it slipped out of my hands and I dropped it in a puddle. The taxi Jake picked me up in ran over it. Once I got a new one, Zoey wouldn’t answer my calls or my text messages, so I called Micah. And he told me that you had died. Jake had to pick me up off the floor… but I grieved you.” She looks down at her hands.
“I mourned your death so ferociously I couldn’t eat. All I could do was cry and sleep. I almost…” she shakes her head. “I felt your death like a dagger to my own heart. I had plans to… I went to the Brooklyn Bridge, and Ihad every intention of throwing myself off because I didn’t want to be in this world without you. But right when I got there, my phone started ringing. The clinic Jake made me go to after I wouldn’t stop throwing up called me… said I was pregnant. I knew the world couldn’t be without your amazing child in it. I knew from that moment Savannah was going to be a force because she was yours. So I walked all the way back to Jake’s apartment, and I promised her I would do everything in my power to keep her safe. That I would be the best mom in the world.”
Now I’m the one in shock. That fucking bastard. If he weren’t already dead, I’d kill him all over again.
“I was close to eight months pregnant when I finally reached out to Zoey because I was scared and exhausted. My mom didn’t want anything to do with me; I have no siblings. Jake was on his way to Japan… I was utterly alone, and I had no idea what to do. Micah less than me. We were just kids. It took forever to reach out to Zo because she was mad at me for leaving without telling anyone. She asked if Savvy was yours, and I told her yes, and when she asked if I was going to tell you, Dean, I swear to God, my earthshook.
“I screamed into the phone. I screamed at Micah; I was so upset I went into premature labor. I had every intention of coming back. But when I called my mom, and she told me I wasn’t welcome, that I had no place in her home, to not come back, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have money to come home. I was still in the process of selling my manuscripts, thankfully I had found Eli by then. But you never showed up. You were alive and never made it back to me. So I took it as a sign, Dean.
“And then Micah kept coming around to help me when I had Sav, and even though I was angry with him for lying to me… I still needed him because I had no one else. Especially when money got even tighter. Then, when she was six months old, I went on my first book signing tour, and the money slowly started rolling in and it was all starting to work out. Telling you about her suddenly wasn’t a high priority. I know that’s terrible. I know that makes me sound horrible, but Dean, I took it as a sign, too. I was meant for New York. I was meant to… to stay away from this place… no matter how much it hurt.”
My anger bubbles over, and I can’t help it anymore. For the first time in a long time, I let it seep out like a poisonous fog.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Verity
Present Day
“That wasn’t a goddamn sign, Verity! Youleft! You didn’t answeranyof my calls. You’re the one that left me behind! You left me behind, and you made a life withhim!Andof coursehe showed up at the right fucking time! He manipulated the entire situation and knew you needed him because you didn’t haveme. Christ, he told you I wasdead?!” He screams as his fists come down the table so brutally everything from the silverware to the plates and glasses shift, and I tense up.
“Knowing him, he probably blocked my number from your phone. I went throughmonthsof physical therapy, so I could get to you. All of this shit happened, I missedyearsof my life with you, with my daughter, a daughter you named the nameIwanted, and then you made a life withhim.” He pants.
Fight or flight, and my body chooses the third option, always the third option. Freeze. And he sees this. Because now that I know everything, now that I can see past the forest and finally see the trees, I remember. In the beginning, Micah was always using my phone. He was always so wary of my phone, reading messages, my emails, making up reasons to use my laptop. He was always so fucking nervous those first few months. It only stopped after I got a new phone with a new number, and then when I was given a professional email address from my publisher. He put the settings on for anyone that wasn’t my publisher, to go straight to the spam folder where it would delete after thirty days.
God, I’m a fucking idiot.
He takes my silence as fear, but it’s not. I’m raging internally.
“Jesus, fuck, Verity, baby. I’m sorry.”
But there are no tears this time. Guilt, yes. But tears?
I’ve always wondered if you’re given a certain amount of tears each lifetime, and when you use them up, you just… don’t cry anymore? Like you want to… you just don’t even have the capacity to do so anymore? God knows I cried more than my fair share for him. For Micah. For Mama.
Or maybe I’m so broken I can’t. Maybe I simply haven’t healed enough. I stay as still as I can, even when Dean is on his knees before me, his head in my lap. My fingers itch to run through his hair.
“You left, Verity. You left me here, and all this time I stayed just hoping you'd come back for me. I didn’t live. I cruised through this life on fucking auto-pilot waiting for you to come back to me. I stayed in the dark. You have to believe me. I’m not like this. I would never hurt you. But all that heartache you felt, or you do feel? That ache in your stomach and your heart and your soul? I feel it, too. I have felt it like an open wound forthirteen fucking years. But you left. You had a whole family, and I stayed here in the dark, waiting for you. I let life happen all around me, and I stood still through every season. You left, and you raised my daughter… withhim,and you didn’t tell me. You didn’t reach out. You never came home… I missedyears. I missed a whole decade and more. I’m allowed to be angry.”
“I…m not very hungry anymore.” I choke out on a dry breath. But he’s right. He has every reason to be angry.
He shakes his head, dark hair falling to the side, crystalline eyes closing. “Okay. I’ll go.” He sighs, defeated, standing up, which is the opposite of what I want him to do, and yet I don’t say it. Why can’t I say it?
“But Verity, it’s… I just want to make it very clear; it’s not even you I’m angry at. It’s him.”
“He’sdead.” I shake my head, but I'm angry at Micah, too. For so many things.
“If I had known what he was taking with him – my future- I would’ve killed him myself before you ever stepped foot out of Adelaide.” He leaves with that. The screen door shutting behind him.
And still, no tears.
But I can’t let him go.
He and I are bound.
