Page 11 of The Next Of Us
“I’ve tried and tried to talk to you,” I pleaded, my voice shamefully close to a whine, before giving my head a shake and clearing my throat.
His chin dropped, eyes skittering away as he grimaced.“I know that, too.”
Swallowing painfully, I pushed the words past the lump in my throat.“I feel like I’m losing you.”
He shook his head forcefully.“You’re not.”
I couldn’t not ask.After all, we’d been together since we were sixteen.Was there ever any real hope for us to go the distance?
Gathering my courage, I leveled my tone.“Is there someone else?”
His head shot up, but his hands remained glued to the table.“No,” he denied adamantly.“No, Nadine.There has never been nor will there ever be anyone else.”
Grief, my closest companion over the past year, gripped my throat.Swallowing hard, I choked out the words I needed to say.“You didn’t sleep with me last night.I don’t even know what time you came home.Where were you?”
Mouth twisting to the side, he shook his head.“Work.”
“Alone?”
“Yes,” he stated firmly.This time he reached across the table and offered his palm.“Alone.”
My hands remained clasped tightly in my lap.I wanted to reach for him but feared the inevitable letting go.“What is going on?”I whispered desperately, and not for the first time.“Tell me what’s happening!”
He closed his eyes and withdrew the offer of his hand.“I’m sorry.I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t want your ‘sorry’,” I hissed.“I want answers.”
“And you deserve them, Nadine, I just—"
“I can’t live like this.”
Eyes closing, he nodded in defeat.“I know.”
Aaron?Defeated?
When we got pregnant, Aaron wasn’t my knight in shining armor, no, he was the fucking dragon, burning down everything and everyone blocking our path.
Even as a teenager, Aaron possessed a confidence that most men strove for years to acquire.He knew who he was, knew what he wanted, and understood his worth.His mother instilled that in him as a child and up until now, he’d never lost it.
This Aaron who wouldn’t talk to me, this Aaron who stayed out all hours and didn’t come to our bed, this Aaron who had barely touched me in months, rarely smiled, and sat beside me even now with the weight of the world on his shoulders was a pale shadow of the Aaron I knew and loved.
Sifting through the chaos of the past year brought me no closer to pinpointing the moment I lost him.
And I couldn’t begin to fathom how many years it had been since I lost myself.
Now we were losing us.
I sucked in a breath and held it, ultimately failing to keep the words inside even as I prayed he wouldn’t let me take us down this path.“Maybe we should take some time apart—"
Abruptly, Aaron leaned across the space between us.“Come with me to the cabin.”
“What?”I drew back.“When?I have work.”My mouth twisted with a sneer, my hostility over his hours no longer worth hiding.“You have work.”
He shook his head.“I don’t.Not for the next two weeks.”
I blinked, shocked to my core.“What do you mean you don’t have work for the next two weeks?You’re taking time off without me?”
He winced.“It was sudden.”
