If I Break THE COMPLETE SERIES Bundle (180 page)

But Gia forgave me. I’d never forget the day she showed up at our little farm, which was still half empty, in the process of coming together. I was reupholstering a chair while sitting on the porch, and I looked up at her getting out of her car with a beautifully wrapped silver box. My heart stopped as joy and fear coursed through me. Her hello was simple.

“I missed you so much, little sis, and I don’t want to hate you anymore,” she said.

She gave me back the necklace she had taken back from me that day she found out. Then I was ecstatic that she understood. She got it, and she forgave—me at least. She didn’t stay long. Will was still on her shit list, but it was a start.

Today though, as I walk back into my own house where the betrayal took place, I wonder how she could do that. How could she put her hate aside and just welcome me back into her life with open arms? I realize for me, it starts with learning the truth. I know from experience that sometimes you imagine the monster under your bed to be a lot scarier than it actually is. The house is quiet. Chris and his family are back in Chicago.

I walk through the house and search for him. I notice the house is clean, immaculate. Not only cleaned but sanitized, the smell of lemon still in the air. I walk up the stairs and see him. My heart jumps when I see him scrubbing the walls. He stops and turns to look at me, his arms covered in soap. His eyes are tired and red, but when he sees me, they widen, and he smiles. He’s called me a thousand times, and that was before I turned off my phone.

“What are you doing?” I ask, crossing my arms.

He sets the soapy sponge into the big white bucket beside him. “I wanted the house to be clean when you came back… if you came back.”

I can tell he’s nervous from the way he’s fidgeting with his overalls, his eyes shifting. He’s quiet, obviously watching his words, afraid of saying the wrong thing.

“I’d like to talk. I’ll meet you at the dining room table when you’re ready,” I say quickly, turning away and heading down the steps.

I don’t give him time to react, to say anything. I can’t. I need to hear the things I have to know. Because along with this hatred I have, as tangible as it is, I still feel love, and that hurts more than anything.

I sit at the dining room table, trying to mask my emotions. I want to appear hard and indifferent, but I know the moment he walks in, he’ll see it’s a façade. So I decide to let him see me without the mask and see all my anger, pain, and even love. I hear him hesitate in the doorway, then he walks in and quickly sits across from me. He’s cleaned himself up, though his eyes are still a shade of red, and bags are still under his eyes. He smiles at me, and I close my eyes and sigh. His smile is still the same, and it calls me to smile back. Then I wonder if he gave her that same smile, and I frown at him until his smile disappears.

“I’ve missed you so—”

I put up a finger to stop him. “There are some things I need to know.”

He nods as if to let me know he’s ready to tell me anything. If only I was ready to hear it.

“When did it start?” I ask.

He sighs and glues his gaze to the table. “A couple of months after I started tutoring her.” His voice is pained and full of guilt, and I cringe.

I shake my head, remembering it was my bright idea to have him tutor her. She needed the help, and Will was a shell of himself going through a midlife crisis. I chuckle angrily. Pairing a hormonal, impressionable, beautiful teenage girl with a handsome older man who felt lost, old, and for some reason unwanted had to have been possibly the worst idea in the world. He looks at me, trying to gauge my reaction, and I let out a small breath.

“How long did it go on for?” I will my tone not to break.

“Only a few months,” he says.

My eyes lock on his. “How long is a few months? How many?”

He shakes his head as if recalling it is difficult, as if he can’t pinpoint it, and my fists clench underneath the table.

“Maybe six, seven at the most. It was so long ago,” he says reluctantly.

I let out a deep sigh, feeling my eyes tear up. “Chris, he said he caught you in our house. How many times did it happen in our house?” My tone is incredibly weak from the burning in my throat.

He looks at me sorrowfully and with pity. I don’t want his pity. I want his answers.

“Gwen, is this important?” he pleads.

“Don’t you dare ask me what’s important or not!” I yell.

“Twice, only twice. The time Chris caught us and one other time. It wasn’t actual sex the first time,” he says painfully, and I cringe not wanting to know what he’s talking about.

I hear the frustration in his voice, and I resent him for it. Tears that I can’t control are coming, and I want to get up and run. He doesn’t deserve to see them, but I have to finish this.

“Why her, Will? Of all people, why a girl who grew up with our son, his best friend, a teenage girl?”

He covers his face in his hands. “I don’t know, Gwen. It just happened.”

I feel my face harden.

“And I don’t mean to make it sound trivial or simple, but I don’t know! It was just a terrible situation that I regret every day. I regretted it while it happened,” he says and huffs.

“Not enough to stop it! If Chris hadn’t caught you, would you have stopped?” I yell.

“Yes, I would have. I loved you. I know it was wrong. I just… I was weak. I was stupid. She made me feel alive. I felt dead! I don’t know why. I can’t explain, but she did,” he says frantically.

I’m sobbing now, and it looks as though my wails cut though him.

“I’m so incredibly, unbelievably sorry,” he says, tears pouring from his eyes.

“You didn’t love her. At all,” I say, looking into his eyes.

He squints at me. “No, it was never love. Not how I felt for you, how I feel for you.”

“You cared about her at least!” I say in disbelief. I can’t believe the man I loved, whom I’m still undeniably in love with, would do this to me and to a young girl without caring about her at all.

He looks at his hands. “Yes, I did care about her.”

I’d thought hearing that would make me feel better, but it makes me feel worse. “How could you pretend that it didn’t happen? After she moved back here, how did you both just act like what you did never happened?”

He grips his hands. “That night Chris found us, it was a wake-up call. I realized that what I had been searching for, I’d always had, and I was on the cusp of losing it all. My son, my wife.” He sobs, and I close my eyes. “I knew at that moment that I was a fucking idiot! That I had to be crazy to do anything as foolish as I had. That I wouldn’t make it without you and Chris. Without you, there was no point in living.” He sounds so genuine it makes me sick.

“You had to sleep without our son’s eighteen-year-old best friend to figure that out?” I ask in disbelief, and his face falls. I can’t hear anymore. “Now you have another reason to exist—your love child. You don’t need me anymore, Will.” I stand from the table.

“Gwen, please!” He rushes over to me and pulls me close.

I push him away.

“This was eight years ago. I made a mistake, please,” he cries, holding me. His whole body shakes as he cries, and I begin to cry too—a hard, ugly cry. “Please forgive me. I’ll do anything you want. Please don’t leave me. Hate me, hit me, treat me like shit, but please don’t leave me. Give me a chance to make things right. I’ll do counseling. I’ll do whatever it takes.” He looks up at me, his chin resting on my stomach.

“I don’t know if I can,” I tell him, hatred and love crashing against each other inside me when I stare into his sea-blue eyes.

“Try, please,” he says, his grip loosening on my waist.

I slowly step away from him. “Have you seen your daughter yet?”

He glances at me guiltily. “I went there to confront Lisa about telling Chris. I saw her briefly. I don’t know if I’m in a good state to be anyone’s father right now.” He holds his head.

I sigh. “Well, you should get there. You’re a couple of years behind already, I think.” With all the strength in me, I walk out the door.

Present Day

“L
olli!” Willa runs up the steps and squeezes the golden retriever sitting on my aunt Dani’s porch. “I missed you so much!”

William’s sudden appearance sent me into one of my patterns from so long ago. It used to be a lot easier to run away from my problems. Now it’s like no matter where I run, I have to carry them with me.

“Willa bear,” my aunt Dani says, stepping out on her porch, her brown hair peeking out from under her scarf. She’s so much thinner than she was just a few weeks ago, and I do my absolute best not to give away how bad it hurts to see her like this.

“Mommy,” Willa says, letting go of Lolli and jumping into Aunt Dani’s arms.

It takes Dani a minute before she can lift her. “I missed you so much.” Dani strokes her hair.

“I missed you too,” she says, squeezing her tight.

I meet them at the top of the stairs.

“Are you having fun at Lisa’s?” she asks.

“A little bit. There’s not a lot to do there, and she keeps fighting with people,” Willa says.

I sigh as Aunt Dani cuts her eyes to me.

“Your cousin’s always been a fighter. Just like her daddy,” she says, but the look in her eyes shows me she’s not happy. “Why don’t you go to your room and play with Lolli while I talk to your cousin, okay?”

“Come on, Lolli,” Willa says, going into the house and heading up the stairs with her best friend in tow.

“Why don’t you come in and catch me up on what’s going on,” Dani says, opening the door for me.

We sit down in the living room, and she makes sure to turn the TV on so Willa can’t hear us.

“What on earth…” She pauses, obviously trying to calm herself but unable to hide her frustration. “You’re fighting around Willa?”

“I told you I had a lot of things to work out,” I say quietly, too embarrassed to meet her eyes. I hear her frustrated sigh.

“Lisa. You can’t do those types of things around her. I thought you taking her this weekend would be a step in the right direction. For you to start preparing things for her,” she says, exasperated.

“I told her father about her,” I blurt out quickly.

“You. Did. What?” she says, her anger rising with each word.

“That was the best way for me to get things prepared for her,” I say urgently.

She shakes her head then covers her face. “I can’t believe you did that. That was not the right thing to do right now. Why did you do that?”

I’m caught off guard. I’d thought that me clearing up the past and attempting to build a relationship with her father would have gotten me a “you did the right thing” at least.

“I thought that was the right thing to do!” I say defensively.

She removes the scarf from her head and squeezes it in disbelief. “Sometimes you are just like your mother,” she says with a bitter laugh.

“Wow. Okay, I’m going to go and try to figure this out. Since I obviously royally screwed up this parenting thing before I even started,” I say, standing and heading to the door.

“Lisa, sit down!” she demands.

I stop but don’t turn around to face her. I feel tears forming in my eyes, but I quickly wipe them away.