Love's Suicide: Love's Suicide (45 page)

“How could you do something like that? She trusted you. Dad trusted you.”

“Brooks, don’t walk away. You need to hear everything.”

B came into the bathroom with a doll in her hand. “Mama, boosh hair.”

While sitting on the floor, feeling nauseous, I brushed her baby doll’s hair. When I was finished she touched my cheek where a tear was in the process of falling. “No cry.” Then she ran out of the room.

Brooks was standing at the door, still in his military dress attire. He’d removed his hat, or whatever those
barrette looking things were, and stared at me. “I can’t listen to her.”

“I know what you mean, but I need to know the whole story. This doesn’t just involve you or my dad. It involves all of us, even Branch.”

“I just had to bury Bobby, and now she’s making things worse. I can’t do it, Brooks. Find out what she has to say and then make her go. Buy her a ticket and send her home.”

He crossed his arms. “Kat, this time I’m asking. I need you.”

Brooks never needed me and hearing him ask made everything that I was going through seem irrelevant. I started to stand and he helped me, lifting me the rest of the way. For a moment he looked into my eyes and wiped away my tears. “No matter what she has to say, however it affects us, it won’t change anything for me. If you want space, I’ll give it to you. If we can’t move forward, I’ll accept it.”

I couldn’t give him an answer, because it would have required me to speak and I was too emotion
al to do it without breaking down.

We held hands as we walked back into the room and sat down across from the woman that was doing a great job tearing our family
completely apart.

“Why was my mother in that building, Danica? I need to know.”

“After she walked in on us we didn’t exactly have the words to explain. She put on a pretty face and told me to leave, without saying anything else. I think that hurt me more than anything; the fact that she refused to look at me. I felt so ashamed and regretted everything immediately. I don’t know what they talked about, or how she managed to get through the night without anyone knowing. I went home and made dinner, just waiting for her to confront me. I even called you boys in early that night, in fear of having to leave and spend the night away from the house. Your father was a mess. I’d broken his heart and he wasn’t willing to accept that we were through. The thing is, I never stopped loving him. I just got so caught up in the affair.”

I felt like cringing as she spoke,
but instead I squeezed Brooks hand as his mother broke his heart.

“The next morning he left for work and finally was able to call. He said that you were all going to be moving and the house was going to be up for sale within the week. He told me that I was a mistake and that he’d spend the rest of his life making his mistake up to your mother.”

She put her head down and cried harder. “That’s the last time I heard from your father, but not the last time I heard from your mother.”

Danica looked right at me. “Katy, that morning she drove you all to school, and none of you probably caught on that anything was wrong. She was going to meet your
father so that they could talk.”

“How do you know that? B
ecause I know she wouldn’t have called to tell you that.”

“The s
chool called me first, letting me know that I had to come get the boys. They asked if you’d be coming home with me, too. As angry as she was at me, I knew you were her first priority, so I called her. When she answered I could tell that it was bad. She didn’t get on the line and start cussing me out, or accusing me of ruining your family. She was calm, almost like she knew what was happening and that they weren’t going to make it. I’ll never forget the words she said to me.” She paused and looked right at me. “Take care of Katy, Dani. Keep her safe and love her forever. Make sure Brooks never takes her for granted.”

I was crying so hard that Brooks was literally holding my body still. I could hear Danica’s sobs, but I refused to open my eyes. It
hurt too much to think about. I felt his arms wrapping around my back and him kissing the top of my head. “Shh.”

I couldn’t control my emotions as the pain ripped through me over and over again. I was playing it all out in my head. It was as if I could see her driving to see my father, hoping that they could somehow work through it to keep our family together. I could see her overlooking that betrayal to give one final wish for her only child. After Danica had deceived her and tried to tear them apart, she still wanted her to care for me, because she knew I’d
be loved. How could someone, who knew they were dying, swallow their pride and be that brave? My mother wasn’t just beautiful, she was my hero, and she died with the man that was willing to do anything to keep us all together. I wanted to be mad, but it was so poetic at the same time. If I ever had to choose a way to die, in that desperate of situations, I’d want to be with Brooks, because knowing he was at my side would make it all somehow easier.

When I finally opened my eyes and looked in her direction, I was ready to find out why, out of all the
times she could have told us, what she was telling us now. “Why now?”

Danica looked at me like I should have already known why. “Don’t you get it, Katy? You can’t move forward with Brooks because you think you were responsible for Bobby’s death. How do you think I felt, raising the daughter of the couple that I killed?”

Then it all made sense.

Everything.

Every single time she’d forgiven me. Every time she looked into my eyes and told me she loved me. Every moment that she spent trying to fix my wounds and comfort me when I was sad.

IT ALL MADE SENSE.

What was even more enlightening, for me, was that I could finally see the point that she was hopelessly trying to get me to see.

“Katy, you’ve got one life; one chance to make things right. It’s taken me a long time to accept the things that I can’t change. I’ve got to live with myself every
day. I’ve got to look in the mirror and face those demons, but I do it, because I have you and the rest of our family. You see, out of something tragic, I learned to be better to myself and to the people around me. I worked things out with Walt and I’ve never loved anyone like I love him now. Seeing you making the same mistakes I made is killing me. I don’t want you walking away from something you were always meant to have. Even your mother knew it. You two have been in love your whole lives. I’ve never seen something so beautiful in all of my life. I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, but please don’t give up on each other. I know your parents are looking out for you. They brought you two back together. I have to believe that.”

She stoo
d up and walked out of the room while Brooks and I pulled apart and looked at each other, both completely in shock.

Chapter 59

I didn’t know what to say to him
, and it was obvious that he was also at a complete loss for words. As he used his thumbs to wipe away my tears, his head rested against mine. What else could he do? He was in shock.

We both were.

Our parents had been having an affair, and it had cost my innocent mother her life. For years we’d all lived under the same roof with no clue that it had ever happened.

That wasn’t what was bothering me
. What was making it hard for me to understand was the fact that Danica’s confession had opened my eyes to what I was doing with my own life. I was dwelling on the things that I couldn’t change and taking for granted what was right in front of me.

Whether or not I could forgive Danica wasn’t the issue. There was something way more imp
ortant that I needed to tend to; someone that I’d relied on my whole life, but never really let myself believe that it could really exist. Considering my past, and all the pain that came with it, imagining rainbows and sunshine never happened for me. Sure, I knew I loved Brooks, and I also knew he was all I wanted, but I guess I just never had faith that I’d have the chance at it. I’d been living in the now for so long, protecting myself from more long-term heartache. Instead of imagining a forever, I’d thought about when it would all fall apart again.

My eyes were finally open.

Without speaking, I pulled Brooks into my bedroom and sat him down on the bed. “Wait here.”

He watched me walk out, but never argued or asked where I was going. I pee
ked into B’s room and saw her lying with her grandmother. Danica needed her. As upset and shocked as I was, I also knew that she had honored my mother’s last wish. She’d taken care of me and given me the best life that I could have. She let me make my own decisions, and even though they were wrong, I was able to learn it for myself. She’d forgiven me for all of my flaws and accepted the fact that I’d kept my daughter from her for two years. I knew everything wasn’t going to go back to the way it was over night. Since me and Brooks still needed to sleep on how to react to what we’d just discovered, I took comfort in knowing she wasn’t alone. She was with the one person in the world that was too young to understand what was occurring. Danica was with the one person on the planet that loved her unconditionally.

I knew B was in good hands, so I went back into my room and locked the door.

Brooks was still sitting there with his hands on his knees. He was looking down at the floor, most likely wondering how he was going to be able to look at his mother the same way again.

I got down on the floor
and wedged myself in between his legs. He looked into my eyes and I wiped away his tears. His cheeks were warm and a darker shade of pink from being emotional, yet he was still so handsome. When he got upset, his eyes were an even brighter shade of blue.

“I’m so sorry about my
mom, Kat. If I would have known-”

I cut him off by putting my finger up to his lips. “Shh, don’t talk about it. Just listen to what I have to say.”

I knew my eyes were glossy, and I was about to pour my heart out and pray that I could fix what I’d broken. “Do you know that there’s not one single day in my life that I can remember where I didn’t love you?”

He folded his hands together and I watched his saddened face change. He wasn’t smiling, but I definitely had his attention. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he teased.

“I’m tired of fighting with you. I’m sick of all of it.” I waited to see if I was confusing him. When his eyes began to squint, I knew he was thinking. “What your Mom told us may be unbelievable, but I get why she did it. For the first time I understand what she’s been trying to get through my hard head. It’s like I’m seeing clearly, finally.” He held up his arms, like I made no sense at all. “Brooks, if you don’t move all of your shit into this house soon, I’m going to go crazy. There’s no reason you’re still going to the base to change. B and I need you here. We can’t be a family unless you’re here with us, all of the time. Your mom was right. I can’t change my past, and I shouldn’t ruin my future; our future. If it’s still okay, I’m ready to fall completely into this with you. I’ve been ready my whole life, but I was just too scared of losing you. I’m not scared anymore, Brooks. I’m not afraid of what tomorrow might bring, because I know you’re going to be there. I know you’ll protect me and love me like you’ve done our whole lives. God, I’ve wasted so much time. Are you even listening to me? Do you still want this?” He was silent. “Say something?”

He stared at me,
never responding.

Then he fell back onto the bed and stared at
the ceiling, while I sat there, crouched down on the floor. All of the sudden I heard him laughing.

No, he wasn’t just laughing, he was losing his mind, carrying on with himself so loudly that I knew his mother could hear him. I climbed on the bed, wondering if
he was literally going insane. When I went to shake him, he grabbed my arm before I could make contact. Then he was quiet.

I looked at him, concerned and wondering if I’d been right to assume he was going crazy. That’s when I saw the tears running down the sides of his face. “
Are you okay? Is it the affair? Do you want to talk about it?” I hadn’t considered that he needed time. I’d been selfish again and not put him first.

He sat up and peered into my eyes, so serious with intent. “I can’t be mad about something that we had no control over. I’ve never been one to live in the past, not when I knew you were always my future.”

The room started to spin as my heart rate picked up and I felt as if I were starting to float. “Come again?” I wanted to hear it one more time.

“I said that you are my future and I’ve always known it, well felt is a better word.”

I felt it too, every single time a flash of him came into my mind. I felt it when he walked into the room, or when he touched me. It was always there. I kissed him with more emotion that we’d ever shared between us. It was as if years of pain, and loss were being wiped clean from our memories. Love radiated between us and it wasn’t like our first kiss, or the first time I remembered being with him. This was something so much more powerful. It was forever finally opening its door for us to enter into.

Our slow and paced kisses turned into hunger. I needed to feel him against my skin and I wasn’t going to wait another second for it to happen.
I’d stopped thinking about what other people thought of me, or how I’d played a part in Bobby losing his life. I wasn’t thinking about Danica and my father, or the pain that my mother felt. All I could feel was Brooks and the moment that we were having together. Our movements were in sync and, without even undressing, it felt as if we were already making love.