Radleigh shook his head, still not looking at either of us.
What a spineless asshole. Who was this guy? He wasn’t defending Jen, but he sure as hell wasn’t on my side either. This woman had helped deface the dress I was supposed to walk down the aisle to marry him in, and the only emotion I got from him was… confusion? I wasn’t even sure that was it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the anger I’d have expected.
I didn’t know what to do. I was supposed to be letting Radleigh spend some time with his daughter, and I’d hoped maybe he and I could talk a little, but all I really wanted in that moment was to get as far away from that place as possible. I didn’t want to see my ruined wedding gown, or the woman who had helped spoil it, for another second.
Turning to Deanna so I didn’t have to see the two people who were slowly ripping my world to pieces, I said, “I need to go. Please can you bring Jessica home later?”
She nodded, and the tears in her eyes made my own spill over. Seeing how much she hurt for me just made everything worse. Her support meant everything to me, but knowing the effect this was having on her and Mitch made me feel awful. They didn’t deserve to go through this. Didn’t deserve to deal with the same stress I was dealing with.
“I’ll bring her back,” Radleigh said.
Without taking my eyes from Deanna, I said, “No. You won’t. I don’t want to see you right now.”
“We need to talk.”
I almost laughed. Now he wanted to talk? Now, when the last remaining bit of hope I’d had that we’d be okay had been destroyed? Where had he been over the last seven days when I’d needed him to help me make sense of what was happening between us? Why hadn’t he tried to bridge the gap sooner?
Before I let myself get sucked into the spiralling thought patterns of whether or not this was my fault, I pushed my hands through my hair and sighed. “You need to make a decision. I wanted you to have time to think, Radleigh. I wanted to let you figure out whether you still want to marry me now the love of your life is back in town with your son. But you’ve had time. If you don’t know what you want by now, there’s not much hope for us. Even after she’s done this… you’re still not fighting for me.”
The silence boomed in my ears, but I wasn’t expecting a response. So when he yelled, my heart hammered, making me jump and turn to face him.
“When did you fight for me?” His ice blue eyes blazed with rage. “When did you fight for me? Jen came back, and you just let me go as if it was the easiest thing in the world! As if I meant nothing to you! So don’t fucking tell me I didn’t fight for you when you were the one who told me to leave!”
“You lied to me! Over and over again! What was I supposed to do, huh? Pretend that was okay with me? That you sneaking around with her was okay? That you letting her kiss you and hold your hand did
n’t matter to me? That you’d come home, climb into our bed with me, and pretend everything was great when it wasn’t? You don’t get to have it both ways!”
I tried hard to control my heart rate, but I couldn’t stop my anger from forcing it to pump harder, my chest rising and falling rapidly.
“If you want me to fight for you, here it is,” I told him. “I. Love. You. This whole thing is killing me. Waking up without you every morning hurts. Going to bed alone every night hurts. Cooking dinner for one sucks. The idea that I might not get to spend the rest of my life with you makes me feel sick. Physically sick. Because there has never been anyone I’ve wanted more than I want you. And at this point, I don’t know if you feel the same. As much I don’t want to have to face the prospect of you wanting to be with her, I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t. I’m gonna need you to choose where you want to be. And whatever decision you make, we need to figure out a better way to communicate, for Jessica’s sake even more than ours. I can’t imagine a life that doesn’t have you in it. One that doesn’t involve us being together with the house full of children we talked about. I don’t want to imagine it. I want us, Radleigh.”
The silence boomed around us until, slowly, he nodded, not taking his eyes off me. That wasn’t his answer. It was him telling me he heard me and that he was sick of this too. Deanna and Jen both stood totally still while he and I battled it out, and when I was sure he wasn’t going to say anything more, I turned back to Deanna. “Do you have enough of Jessica’s stuff to keep her overnight?”
She nodded, swallowing hard. Again, I had to breathe deeply, to stop myself crying until I’d got out of there. Turning to Radleigh one more time, I said, “Would you like to keep her for the night?”
“Yes. I’d like that.”
I gave him a small smile. “I’ll pick her up in the morning. Can you please give her a kiss from me? I… I have to go.”
I didn’t give him a chance to answer, just hurried to the door and went outside to take some gulps of fresh air as the tears finally fell. I stumbled my way to the car and got into the driver’s seat then rested my head against the steering wheel as heavy sobs wracked my body.
The ache in my heart seemed to penetrate right through to my soul, and all I could do was sit still and cry it out. I’d fought so hard to do the right thing. Trying to pin him to my side would not have been the right thing. Letting him take a while to think was the only option that made sense to me. I felt as though I’d made my feelings for him clear before he left, but maybe, in my panic and desperation not to get hurt, I hadn’t. Or maybe he knew but was just as scared as me, so he tried to make it easier to be apart by fighting with me.
Or maybe he loved her now. Maybe I’d blown it.
Everything had fallen apart. My relationship was as messed up as my wedding dress, and Jen had been the one to taint them both.
As my sobs gave way to a thumping headache, I sensed movement outside my car, and I slowly lifted my head. Jen was putting Jayden and Harley into her own car, Harley still covered in paint and crying. Jen’s tears had dried up, and she didn’t have the aura of a person who felt horribly guilty or concerned about the damage caused. Regardless of the dress, she was sure to be facing a bill for the cost of Mitch and Deanna’s carpets, which now looked like they’d been walked over by a bunch of Smurfs and the cast of Avatar. I was surprised she hadn’t come over to make some bitchy comment, but she just got in her car and drove away.
Knowing she was no longer anywhere near Radleigh and Jessica eased a little of my tension, but I still felt like I’d had the life sucked out of me. And I didn’t want to go back to my empty house yet.
Unsure where I was going at first, I pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. I turned on the radio to drown out my thoughts, and focused only on the music until my car brought me to a stop.
I’d found my way to the beach, just a little way from where I used to live with Freya. Since it was only early evening, it was still light and warm, and the gentle breeze whipped my dark hair around my face as I strolled along the soft sand. As always, people were still surfing, or simply hanging out, laughing together. I tried to absorb some of their carefree vibes, and it helped to a degree. More than anything, it was a distraction from real life.
Making a right turn, I headed towards the water, and as I did so, I squinted as I thought I saw someone familiar sitting on the sand, close to the gently lapping waves. Her red hair blew around her head as she hugged her knees.
“Small world,” I said, sitting down beside her.