Page 49 of Don't Leave Me
“We always said, no secrets.”
“I couldn’t tell you Arthur hit me,” she said. “That he hired people to track me down when I dared to stray. It was hard enough to convince you Evan was a threat, when he didn’t look threatening at all. Would you have even agreed to marry me if you hadn’t seen the physical evidence of his abuse?”
I let my head fall back on my shoulders and looked to the stars for that answer.
“Yes,” I said, knowing it to be true. If for no other reason than I had this ingrained sense, that, even though I’d broken up with her, even though I was the one to end things between us despite her saying the words first, she would always be mine.
“I wanted the plan to work,” she said. “Our marriage. I wanted so bad for it to make everything stop. I just had no idea how far they would go. Once I knew I was pregnant, it changed everything.”
I set my beer bottle down on the porch, and stood. “It’s late. I should leave.”
Which, we both knew, meant I needed time to process everything she’d told me.
Ash didn’t look at me. Or couldn’t look at me. I wasn’t sure which.
She’d set down her wine and pulled her feet up onto the seat, resting her chin against her knees. She looked like a kid when she did that, and I thought how presumptuous I’d been when we were kids. I’d thought I knew everything about her, and, in so many ways, I didn’t know her fiercest traits.
Her resilience. Her backbone. Her brains. Her fearlessness.
“I keep telling you, Marc,” she said. “There is no way to undo what I did. I made you believe I was dead. I didn’t tell you about your son. Neither of those things are forgivable.”
“I think that’s for me to decide. You’re alive, Ash. We’re both free. It’s time we stopped thinking about who we were and what we did to each other. Instead, we can think about what we want to become.”
With that, I trotted off the porch and made my way home. I got into bed and reached for my phone.
Me:Just so I’m clear, you still owe me one kiss.
I put the phone down on the table because I knew there would be no reply. What could she say?
After all, a bet was a bet.
