Page 77 of The Trust We Broke
The way I had to close my eyes because I couldn’t look at her tears and come at the same time.
And how I feel like an ass for protecting my heart and going for the thrill of coming inside Lucy again instead of pausing to check she’s okay.
Her hands stroke my back. Her thighs hug me tightly.
This could have been us.
The words repeat in my head. So lost in the moment, I revealed my true feelings to her. That this is who we could have been. Together, on a frigid winter’s day, making love and fucking until we were utterly spent.
There’s a really good chance this is as much a goodbye and closure as it is a happy reunion. It’s been hard enough to forget about Lucy when she was half the country away.
This time, we used protection. And I’m relieved.
Co-parenting with her, seeing my kid only half the time, would bring its own kind of agony. She’ll move on. She’ll find someone else.
Shit. She even had a ring on her finger not too long ago.
Nah, I couldn’t deal with seeing her every week at kiddie handover in some parking lot.
Without saying a word, I get up and head into the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. As I clean myself up in the sink, my reflection tells me nothing. I just look like me. Messy hair, face in need of a shave, ink that tells stories I’m proud of. But on the inside, I’m ruined.
When I’m done, I run a cloth beneath the warm water and squeeze out the excess before returning to Lucy.
She’s exactly where I left her, only with two or three fresh tears on the side of her face and the back of her wrist resting on the bridge of her cute, upturned nose.
Gently, I remove her wrist and wipe her face, first, smoothing away the tears. Then, I dip the cloth between her legs. I should be furious at her, but I just can’t when it comes to this woman.
Not now, when she’s still tender from what just happened between us.
I might say the things she needs when we have sex, but I’d never reduce her to the sum of the words I choose.
I’ve always thought she was…precious. Someone special worth protecting.
Maybe that’s it. I’ve always been a little mad she never gave me the chance to fully protect her. Angry that she never found her way to me when she was under pressure. Guilty, that I put her in that position in the first place by getting arrested, and not fighting harder against something I didn’t do.
I toss the cloth onto the side table and climb into the bed next to her before tucking the covers over us.
“We can’t do that again until we talk, Zach. It’s not fair to either of us,” Lucy says finally, when she’s tucked up tightly in my arms, her head resting over my heart that’s having a real hard time reconciling that she’s back.
Her breath flutters across my chest as I stroke the hair from her face.
Deep down, I know she’s right. “I know. Just give me five more minutes of pretending everything is fine. That we’ve fallen back in love, and this is the life we should have had all along. I’m scared that what you’re about to tell me won’t make any sense. That you threw us away for some reason I can’t ever forgive you for.”
She nuzzles back beneath my chin. “You aren’t the only one who missed us,” she says as an opening gambit.
And I’m immediately sucked in. “What do you mean by that?”
Lucy sits up, tugging the sheet with her to cover her breasts. I try to tug it away from her, but she reaches for my Henley, which landed over the lamp, and pulls it on, instead.
She smiles like she knew what I was trying to do, but there is a sad edge to it.
“He threatened to make your sentence as long as it could be if I didn’t divorce you, and shorten it if I did. Back then, and now, there’s nothing my dad won’t do to win a case. But to understand what happened then, you need to understand what’s happening now. The real reason I’m back.”
“It’s not just because your ex cheated on you and you needed to get out of Dodge?”
She shakes her head. “Dad had a stroke, and as a result, he has aphasia.”
“Aff-what?”
