Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
What the fuck was the matter with me?
I cleaned up and came out of the bathroom still unsure of what to say. Right away she got out of bed and went into the bathroom, without even looking at me. She shut the door with less force than I had, but with enough to make it obvious she was upset.
I didn’t blame her.
Lowering myself onto the edge of the bed, I hung my head. I had majorly fucked up. I’d gotten myself into a place I couldn’t get out of without hurting someone who didn’t deserve it.
She came out of the bathroom and went over to her suitcase. The bedroom light was off, but the hall light was still on, and I watched her pull on underwear and her Snoopy T-shirt.
“What are you doing?” I asked. She’d been sleeping naked every night—we both had.
“Nothing.”
“Come here.”
She closed her suitcase and came over to the bed, tentatively sitting on the edge a good three feet from me, her arms crossed over her chest, her knees pressed together. She stared straight ahead.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was a jerk about what just happened. It wasn’t your fault.”
She didn’t say anything, and I found myself groping for more words. I felt like I owed her a better explanation, and there was one, but it terrified me to think about unlocking that particular vault. Tearing down that particular wall. But I heard myself say it a moment later.
“She was pregnant.”
Blair looked at me. “What?”
“My ex, Kayla. She got pregnant right before I left for my final deployment. But I didn’t know until I was already gone.”
Silence. “Oh.”
“I was terrified, but fear was something a guy like me couldn’t admit. Couldn’t talk about. I’d grown up believing a man should be tough. I’d joined the Marines because they were the most badass. I’d been trained to be a killer ruled by self-discipline, and I was fucking good at it. I didn’t feel qualified to be a father yet, to raise a child. Not to mention there was a chance my kid wouldn’t ever know his dad. I knew plenty of guys tougher than me who didn’t come home.”
Blair turned toward me slightly.
“But then, as it sank in over the next few weeks, I started to get really excited about it. The idea of this innocent little being who would need me to protect him or her. I pictured all the stuff I’d done with my dad—playing catch, building a treehouse, restoring an old car. Imagining the life ahead of me got me through my worst days.”
“So what happened?” she whispered. “Where’s the baby now?”
“She had a miscarriage.”
“Oh.” She reached over and briefly touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“I was shocked at the way the loss fucking gutted me. But again, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.”
“You never told anybody?”
“No. There was no one to tell. The guys in my unit didn’t talk about their fucking feelings. We were busy trying to keep each other alive.”
“What about your family?”
“They never knew either. Kayla had made me promise not to say anything, because she hadn’t told her family yet. They were strict and old-fashioned, the kind of people who would have judged us harshly.”
“That must have been hard for her,” Blair said softly. “For both of you.”
I ran a hand over my hair. “The worst came later. She blamed me for losing the baby. She accused me of not wanting it. She said it was the stress of having to deal with the pregnancy on her own that caused the loss. She said if I hadn’t re-enlisted, we’d have been married already, and she’d have been able to carry the baby to term. She said it was my fault.”
Blair gasped. “Griffin, you know that’s not true.”
“I used to think it wasn’t. But then I started to believe it. You hear a thing enough times, it starts to feel real.”
She touched my shoulder again. “It wasn’t.”
“When I got home, I tried everything I could to make things right, to keep my promises. I just wanted to be able to fucking fix things, but I couldn’t. The damage was done. She finally told me she’d fallen for someone else while I’d been away, someone who’d been there for her when I wasn’t.”
“Griffin, she was hurt and angry. She wanted to punish you.”
“It worked. I was a fucking wreck of a human being until my dad and my friends sat me down and told me to quit being mad at the world because things didn’t go the way I’d planned. And I get it. Life is unpredictable, and shit happens. But I never wanted to be in that place again, so that’s why I have all the rules.”
“To protect yourself?”
“To protect everyone.” I stood up, grabbed my boxer briefs from the floor and pulled them on.