Page 74 of Since Always

"O, please. It's okay. Talk to me."

He buries his head in my hair. His tears drip onto my skin.

"It was my fault." His voice is barely audible, even with his mouth right next to my ear. I have no idea what he is talking about, but I squeeze him tighter.

"What was?"

"Kaitlyn. The accident. I killed her."

CHAPTER 24

Owen

"What?" She draws back from me and sits back down, startled. I sit next to her, but I can't look her in the face. I stare past her and it's as though I am watching it all play out in front of me; a movie I've seen again and again.

"She was cheating on me."

"Kaitlyn?" This shocks her, and I can't blame her.

Kaitlyn was the perfect girl. Perfect daughter, perfect sister. The perfect wife.

"Not the entire time. At first, we were great. Really great. But I had just started my first job at a firm, and I was a junior associate trying to make a name for myself. I said yes to everything they asked. I ended up working eighty or ninety hours a week, and Kait hated it. Most of the time that we were together, we were arguing about all the time we weren't. She wanted me to quit—not just the firm, but the law. She begged me to find a different profession. I hated her for asking that of me after all the work I had done to get where I was. Plus, I loved it. I thought she was being selfish, and she thought I was. I guess we were both right.

"She got close to a friend of ours, a guy she met in college. They started spending a lot of time together when I wasn't there. I completely snapped when I realized they were sleeping together. I've thought about it a lot though, in the years since, and I think the truth is my reaction was just a show. In some fucked up way, I was relieved when I found out she was cheating. It was a way out for me. My career was more important to me than my wife, and so I pulled away from her and she found someone else."

I squeeze my eyes shut, because I don't want to tell her the rest. But I need her to understand. I take a long inhale to steady myself before speaking again.

"She was pregnant, Cass."

"When she...?" she whispers. She can't even finish the sentence. Because that's how horrible the truth is.

"We found out a week before the accident. I had already confronted her about the affair. She cried and said she would stop. I told her not to bother, that I was going to move out anyway. I stayed at a hotel for a week, and then she showed up there to give me the news. She was already almost three months—she had missed the early signs. When she told me I—I remember how excited she looked. Scared, but excited. It was too soon, and we were too young, but she had wanted to be a mom so bad. She said we could make it work. She told me I would probably have to pull back from work a little to be there for them—her and the baby. And that was all I heard. More accusations, more asking me to give up on my dream. I said I would not do that for a baby that I wasn't even sure was mine, and I slammed the door in her face. That was the last time I saw her."

I am fighting the tears as I continue.

"I regretted what I said the second I shut that door, but my pride got in the way of calling to tell her that. Instead, I avoided her for the next few days. When I finally decided I was ready to talk to her, I called to ask her where she was to see if we could meet. The thing is, I don't remember what I was going to say. I've thought about it since then; was I going to forgive her? Was I going to end it for good? It's all a blur. When she answered the phone, I heard him in the background—the guy—and she admitted to me she was at his house.

"I just came unglued, Cass. I poured everything I was feeling into my anger towards them, and I screamed at her. She broke down in tears and swore to me nothing was happening. It's not a good enough defense, but it did hurt that time; the fact that she went right back to him. Even though I had pushed her away. I said things. Horrible things. Things that wake me up in the middle of the night still.

"She begged me to listen, begged me to stop yelling. Said she needed to see me, and that we could talk it out. I told her to stay with him; I didn't want to see her. But she didn't listen. She got in the car. She was on her way to my office. She was upset, and, I imagine crying, but it was sleeting out and icy."

With that, I stop. She knows the rest.

"Do you know if it was…If it was your baby?

"No. And I guess we never will."

She moves her hand to my chest, as though she is trying to touch my heart. "I can't believe you have carried all that around. Have you talked to anyone about this?"

"Like therapy? No. I should have gone, but I never did."

"Not just therapy. Does Chris know?"

I shake my head. "I never told anyone. I just couldn't. But there are people who know. The guy—Justin was his name. He found me at the reception for the funeral and confronted me and we came within striking distance of a fistfight, but we were interrupted. Mark was using the bathroom of the room were in. He heard everything."

"Oh my God."

"Yeah, it's the real reason he hates me. To him, I killed his sister as much as I had if I had put a gun to her head. I earned it. And I hate him because he reminds me of my worst failures and biggest mistakes. But he's in the right. Not me."

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