Once the punches stopped, I wrapped my arms around her, and we crumbled to the floor together as her body shook in my arms while she sobbed four years' worth of pain into my chest.
Chapter 6
ZOEY
The apartment was quiet. The only sounds were my dying sobs. It was four years of grief and shame that I had kept tightly lidded, but once I opened the wound, it all poured out of me in an uncontrollable flood. River didn't say anything. He just clung to me and let me cry until the last tear. Once I had managed to finally stop crying, he gently lifted my head with his fingers and stared into my eyes.
"I'm so sorry. I wish I could go back in time and change all my choices. I was a fool, Zoey—I am a fool. I'm a stupid piece of shit, and I don't deserve your forgiveness. I really don't, but it doesn't mean I don't want it. I want you, Zoey. I want us back. I love you, baby. I never stopped. I will never stop."
"I'm scared," I whispered.
He covered my hand with his and placed them over his heart. "I know what I want, and there's only ever been one thing. I just need you to give me a chance, baby. I just need that one chance to prove to you that I'm worth it."
I wanted to believe in River. I wanted to let the past go and move on with him, but I was scared. "It's not just me this time. It's also Violet. I can't risk her. I can't have her get that happy family she wants only to rip it away from her. I can forgive you for hurting me, but I could never forgive you for hurting her."
"I will never hurt either of you. I'd rather die."
"I want to know why you picked Ridge over me."
River froze. He pushed back from me, getting up and leaving me on the floor. He paced the room multiple times, and the whole while I sat there waiting. I was willing to stay all night. For four years, I had wanted answers, and now that I had River in front of me, I was going to get them.
River scrubbed his face before ripping his fingers through his hair, disheveling it. "Can't we just leave the past in the past?"
I stood and approached him slowly. "Tell me or leave," I said, keeping my voice calm. I wanted him to know that I wasn't upset if he chose not to tell me, but I needed him to see that I wouldn't have him back in my life until I knew everything. The entire truth.
"He was suicidal."
"Ridge?"
"Yes."
"How is that possible? He never came off like that. He was always happy, smiling, the life of the party. Everyone loved him. Wouldn't we have seen signs?"
"Not always. Sometimes the excess outward joy is some sort of cover. At least it was for Ridge. When I was ten, he slashed his wrists. I found him bleeding out in the bathtub."
My hand came to my mouth to silence the sob that was about to escape. The entire time River and I were dating, he'd never once mentioned that. I thought we’d told each other everything, but I guess some secrets were too dark to ever share. "He would have been thirteen."
River's head came up, and his eyes met mine. He nodded slowly before dropping his head into his hands. "He always had issues with depression. That wasn't the first time he tried to kill himself. It was just the worst time. My parents tried to help, got the best psychologists money could buy. Tried all these experimental drugs, everything, but nothing seemed to work. Then when I was seventeen, he got obsessed with joining the army. I never understood why. I mean, Ridge was never into guns, and he sure as fuck wasn't patriotic."
"Maybe he'd changed his mind."
"That's what I thought, too, until I found his therapy diary. I probably shouldn't have read it, but I was young and nosy as fuck." River inhaled a breath and turned away from me, his feet tapping nervously on the floor. I knew that was a tick. He'd always done it when we were younger when he didn't want to talk about something.
"What aren't you telling me, River?"
When he spoke next, the words came out in a shaky whisper and he stared down at the floor, as if he were unable to control the pain in his voice or the haunting in his eyes."He enlisted to die."
"What?"
"He figured if he died in a war, it wouldn't be as shameful for our parents and they'd move on without any trauma." River turned around and punched the wall. There was a trickle of blood on his knuckle, and my rental apartment now had a fist-sized hole in River's wake.