Page 204 of It Should Have Been You

“I didn’t look for you hard enough,” he mutters mostly to himself.

We’re both angry and confused without knowing how to fix it.

I take a step forward, but quickly halt when his words pin me.

“I can’t move. I can’t fucking breathe without thinking about what he did to you. Toyou, Beth.You!” He throws out his arms. “I grew up with his shit. I helped women as I got older, and it tore me apart. But what I saw tonight… that wasn’t abuse, that was torture. TO YOU!” he shouts. “Fuck. Just thinking of another man resting a hand on you tears me apart.”

I could go to him. Comfort him. But it’s not what he needs, and it’s not what he wants.

I said my piece in the journal.

He needs space to tell me what he’s thinking.

So, I stand, and I wait.

I wait for the blows.

But they never come.

“You, baby… So, I can’t describe this feeling when I think of him putting his hands on you. Not just to touch you but to hurt you. I can’t fucking breathe. And now I’ve seen it… I don’t know what you were trying to do by showing me, but if it was to turn me away, it didn’t work.” My chest rises and falls with his, both of our bodies falling in sync. “Nobody will touch you without your say again, do you understand me? Not without getting through me first, and I guarantee, it won’t fucking happen.”

Wordless, I nod, trying to swallow the lump in my throat.

“He hurt you.” It’s not a question. “Really fucking hurt you.”

I nod again.

He’s seen the pictures. I can’t deny it now, and I’m done defending a man that doesn’t deserve it.

“He did, but I’m still here.” I stop myself because there’s a fire beginning to build in my belly. It’s a flame I long suppressed, a rage I never put my energy into because it doesn’t make sense. But none of this makes sense.

I refuse to meet his eyes because I know I’ll never get it out if I do. “Logan, I need you to understand something… I love my girls. I breathe for my babies.” I bite down on my lip, scrubbing a hand over my face to dry the threatening tears. “And I would do it all over again just to have them. I would take the hurtful words, bruises, and broken bones just to have those girls in my arms.” My lungs are desperate for air, but I need to get this out because if I don’t, I’ll drown in it.

The wind picks up through the doors, blowing my hair onto my face, but I take the moment to inhale a steadying breath. “Then you happened, and I was starting to see parts of a girl I thought was dead. Like a fucked-up crime scene where you were the last one to see her alive. And that girl… she’s so fucking angry at you.”

He flinches but remains steady on his feet.

“You kissed me, and it was like…” I try to find the words.

“Everything made sense,” he finishes for me because he gets it.

Of course he does.

Trembling, I finally ask, “Why didn’t you kiss me? That night, all those years ago, why didn’t you kiss me?”

Everything would have been different.

And maybe not.

But I’m sinking into the possibilities of the unknown, and I’m suffocating in it.

I expect him to step away.

He doesn’t.

His pain is so raw, he’s practically bleeding out in front of me.

I meet his eyes, letting the tears fall as I finally admit out loud, “It should have been you.”

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