That lone tear dripped off her chin and splattered onto his hand while he still had both of her wrists in his grip. His desperate attempt to hold the fuck on any way he could. As if he let go, he’d lose her forever.
When she continued, her voice shook and her lips quivered. “A woman gone way before her time. That end not coming peacefully, either, but violently. I imagined how she struggled to survive, worried what would happen to her only son and how she suffered greatly in her last few moments. Consumed by panic, fear, terror. Her begging for her life falling on deaf ears.” Another tear slipping free. Then another. “So, yes, I did, Ozzy. I put myself in your place. I tried to relive what happened back then. I tried to imagine what you saw. How you felt. I tried to understand why you chose to do what you did.”
He held his breath.
“Did I become angry? Yes. Did I want whoever did that to her to pay? Absolutely. But, Ozzy… That’s where we’re so different. Where our minds, our hearts, work differently. I would be devastated but I wouldn’t hunt down the person who killed her. I’d let the law handle her justice. Because taking revenge into my own hands by killing her killer would make me no better than him.”
He slowly released his breath, closed his eyes, lifted her hands and pressed his forehead to them.
He didn’t know if it was her hands that held a tremor or his. Maybe it was both.
“I have a hard time getting past what you did. Honestly, I’m not sure if I can, Ozzy. I’m really not. I don’t want to tell you I can if that’s not true.”
He opened his eyes and lifted his face, not hiding anything on it. He let her see how her words affected him. He was done keeping secrets from her. He would be a goddamn open book. “Got somethin’ else to confess.”
The corners of her lips tipped downward and another tear fell free, the hot drop landing on his arm. Searing him. Burning him to his very core.
“I don’t know if I can take any more confessions,” she whispered.
This one was his fucking hail Mary. He would lob this admission, hoping it would change the game.
It might not, but he couldn’t not take it since he had nothing left to lose. He needed to risk everything because if he didn’t, if he walked away and never told her, he might regret it for the rest of his fucking life.
“Sweetheart…”
She shook her head. “Ozzy…”
“Never told anyone this before…”
She pinned her lips together and he could feel her hands tense within his, see her body go solid in preparation of more bad news.
“Need you to look at me and listen. Really hear me…”
“Please… just… just say whatever you’re going to say. Just get it out. Because I can’t—”
“I love you, Shay.”
Her body jerked so hard, he almost lost the grip on her hands. He squeezed them tighter and pushed himself to his feet, waiting for her to respond, for any other reaction.
Her mouth opened, then slowly closed again. When her face twisted and the tears began falling faster, his heart seized.
“You probably hate me,” he began, again feeling nothing but helplessness and hopelessness.
She shook her head. “I don’t hate you, Oz. I don’t. I want to, but I can’t.”
Suddenly, the flood gates opened. Tears streamed unchecked down her face, blending together, and she tried to muffle a sob, but he heard it.
It took him back to that day two weeks ago. The day she fell apart. The day she left Manning Grove. The day she left… him.
He pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her, holding her as close as he could as she cried. He wished he could absorb her, her pain, her sadness. But he couldn’t. With her face buried in between his cut and pressed to his thermal shirt, her tears soaked the cotton.
He didn’t care. He was just so fucking thankful he got to hold her one more time. Even if it was the last time.
He had released her hands after pulling her into him and her fists were now pressed to his chest as he stroked her hair. He put his lips to her ear and whispered, “I love you, sweetheart. It’s true. Want nothin’ more than for us to move past this. Hope to fuck you can, but understand it if you can’t. Just tell me to go. Need to hear that you can never forgive me. That you’ll never be able to love me ‘cause of what I did. And not ‘cause of what I did to Ham but what I did to you. ‘Cause, fuck it, ain’t gonna lie to you, so I wanna be clear, my biggest regret outta all of this is how what I did affected you. Also promise to never keep a secret from you again. No matter what it is. No matter how much it fuckin’ hurts. Want nothin’ between us.”