Love On Tap (Love By Design 8)

“Fuck, yes. No. All of it. Help me understand where the hell I went wrong with you. With us.” I sat up and pulled her rigid body into my arms letting her legs straddle mine. She tried rubbing her damp core over me and I stilled her movements squeezing my eyes shut in frustration. I could fuck her little body for hours slowly loving her but it wouldn’t get me the answers I needed.

“Andrew it was never anything you did. It was that I was never right for you to begin with.”

I scoffed at the absurdity.

“And don’t you think I should have had some fucking say in that? You left me the morning after I married you.”

“Let’s be real, you married me because you thought you knocked me up.”

“What?”

“Look, if we’re having confessions, that baby wasn’t yours.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that.” The truth hurt. Burned actually, but it wasn’t going to change anything that had already happened.

“I didn’t want to break you Andrew. I loved you and because I loved you I had to take that shame with me.”

It sounded like an excuse but to two ei

ghteen-year-old kids it hadn’t been something in our wheelhouse to deal with like rational adults. I knew this. I forgave that part of the situation a long time ago.

“Will you tell me who?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She hissed.

“Of course, it does because he hurt you.”

“You can’t get vengeance on a dead man. Karma took care of that and the baby I hadn’t wanted then too.”

Realization dawned on me and the events clicked into place like a stubborn Rubix cube.

“The accident on the freeway. That was you.”

“He was giving me a ride to Poughkeepsie. He was drunk and I was terrified you’d hate me, but all I did was hate myself.”

“The baby?” My heart was a lead balloon in my chest. So much lost, so much more than just time.

“I miscarried.” The words hung heavy and weighted between us. The why didn’t matter so much as the whole knowing she had been alone through all of this. She’d chosen to be alone instead of sharing her burden with me as we’d promised to do when we’d said I do inside that tiny little courthouse room with a judge who’d watched us cause mischief.

She continued almost trance like as if she’d practiced this anesthetized unemotional speech in her head over and over again to protect herself from the pain. “They had to remove tissue, an ovary, and I got an infection. I’m not right. I’ve never been right and I can’t have kids.”

“I’m not worried about future generations of Easton’s. Jesus, Sierra, I wanted you. Damn it, I still want you.” The truths she shared with me were razor sharp scalpels painfully cutting away the wounded flesh around my heart. I didn’t want to feel any of this but the numbing lies she told before stopped giving me relief a long time ago. I would always remember she kept this from me but my stubborn heart had already forgiven her. I’d lay wasted at her feet if she’d just give us a fighting chance.

“Now you see why this is no good. I spent all these years running and coming back feels like the first day all over again. Like I don’t belong.”

I wanted to tell her she’d always belong to me. Instead, I offered, “So who do I owe that beer to?”

She laughed a light sound with her rough unused voice changing the mood entirely.

“His name is Emmett.”

“Emmett.” I let the name roll off my tongue. Oddly enough the typical pangs of jealousy weren’t there. Only gratitude to this person who stepped into my place doing what needed to be done.

Sierra traced the seam of the bed sheet closing her eyes and rocking her head like her time with this man was a dream or a fading memory.

“He’s Amish.”

“That’s unexpected.” I liked this Emmett guy immensely.