Grant
My heart stopped.
We stared at each other, and she seemed a mile away, even though there was only a
stretch of parking lot between us, weeds growing up through the cracks and faded white
lines that needed r epainting. Mercy looked terrified, more scared than I’d ever seen her,
and that included waking up from a coma without any memory of marrying me.
“I loved you too,” she r epeated, taking a st ep closer. “Didn’t I?”
“Mercy . . .”
“No,” she said, eyes flashing. “You’re going to tell me this, because there’s this . . . this
part of me that I can’t quiet. All day, I sat in that house, and I drove in my car, and you
were all that I could think about.”
Her voice was trembling, but she didn’t cry. She was always so much braver than me.
Especially in this.
I hung a hand off the back of my neck and stared up at the sky, unable to force the
words out. They were locked so tight, an attempt to preserve the last vestiges of a
relationship that I wasn’t ready to let go of.
“Darling,” I whispered, “it’s not so simple as that.”
“The fuck it isn’t. I’ve never loved anyone before.” Her chin quivered, and I started to
reach for her but let my hands hang uselessly at my sides, fingers curling in trembling
fists. “And I think I must have loved you. What other explanation is there for how hard this
is?”
I tilted my head. “What?”
“Watching you leave,” she whispered. “I was the one who asked for space. I should
have felt relief when you were gone. And I didn’t. I k ept waiting for it, but it never came.”
Against my better judgment, hope took hold, coiling around my insides before I could
stop it from taking root.
“I k ept thinking about how hard this must have been for you.” Mercy pinched her eyes
shut and laid a fist over her heart. “I have this . . . this giant hole right here. I k ept
thinking it was all the things I can’t remember. I can’t fill it. I can’t ignore it.” Her eyes
opened, glittering green and full of tears. “But I think it’s you. Thinking about how hard
this must have been for you. How careless I’ve been with your feelings—”
“You didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know,” she agreed. “But now that I do . . . I don’t want to forget.”
“Oh, love.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“How?” I begged hoarsely. “How was I supposed to do that? Do you know how
terrifying it is to have the person you love most in the world look at you with distrust and
suspicion? When they don’t want to be in the same room as you? I had to rebuild
everything from the very first brick, and I would’ve done that. I would’ve taken months,
years, if it meant we could get back to the place we were, but by God, I was not going to
trap you by handing you a mantle of iron and expecting you to wear it.”
“You’re not trapping me by telling me the truth!”
“Aren’t I?” I yelled. “I am terrified that you will feel chained in place by all the parts of
our life that you don’t remember. It’s not just the memories, the normal days and the
boring nights or the arguments that we had, because by God, we had those. It was hard
work, and challenging each other. It was late nights helping you with costumes for Spirit
Week and field trips with your class and hauling that bloody awful desk into that
classroom because you refused to let me buy a new one. It was messes in the kitchen.
Arguing over artwork. You trying your absolute best to get a reaction out of me by
donating over a million dollars in a single month, just to see if I’d get angry. And it was
perfect, Mercy. Every fucking day was perfect. I don’t even know how to find the words for
the life we built.”
She laid a hand over her mouth, but I saw the tremble of her lips behind her fingers.
I shrugged the bag off my shoulder and let it fall to the ground, crossing the remaining
space between us and gripping her upper arms. “I have never been as scared as I have
been the past month. Not when I left my family and moved across the ocean and knew no
one. Not when I buried my best friend and felt like I’d lost a bloody limb. You, Mercy.
Losing you is the only thing I’ve ever really feared.”
“I’m right here,” she said. “You haven’t lost me. But I can’t always be three st eps
behind either. And I will if I don’t know everything. Isn’t that worse?”
I held her gaze, heart thrashing wildly. “No.”
Mercy’s head snapped back. “What?”
“Because I don’t want you to run. I’ve had a front row to this for years. To all the
reasons you won’t stay. The things people do too soon, too intensely, that you can’t
possibly bring yourself to believe. You run before they can hurt you.”
She dropped her gaze, a muscle flexing in her jaw. But she didn’t argue.
“I didn’t want you to feel behind, darling. But if I’d been honest from the beginning, I
would’ve lost you before you set foot out of that hospital.”
“And this was better?” she whispered, finally raising her head. “When I thought we
were . . . less.”
“I would take scraps of you for the rest of my life,” I said in a harsh voice that didn’t
even sound like mine. “That’s the bargain I made with God in that chapel. Your polite
indifference is better than nothing, and as long as you’re in the world with me, I will suffer
loving you alone.” I pulled in a shuddering breath, feeling naked and exposed and raw.
“That’s what the fear of losing you has done to me. The man it’s turned me into.”
“Do you think you’re the only one that’s afraid?”
“No. No, I know you’re afraid, too, and more than anything, I want to carry those fears
with you.” My palms skimmed along her shoulders, up the sides of her neck until I held
her face in both hands. “You can tell me.”
Would she, though?
In the charged silence that followed, I could practically see her wheels turning. Maybe
she didn’t know what she was afraid of or wasn’t quite sure she could say it yet, but it was
there, in the slight furrow of her brow.
Give this to me, I wanted to beg. I can hold all of it and let you rest.
Come back to me.
I love you.
She stayed quiet. My stomach sank. I knew what I had to do. I had to let her off the
hook, at least for the moment.
“I went to the cemetery today.”
She lifted her head, eyes wary. “Why?”
“I couldn’t help but wonder what your brother’s advice would be in a moment like this
one. What he’d say when he saw me walk out the door.”
Her brow wrinkled briefly. “He’d probably tell you to quit being an idiot and don’t fuck
it up.”
I laughed, and when her eyes locked on my mouth, the laugh gentled into a rueful
smile. “My thoughts exactly.” With a harsh gust of wind, a strand of her hair slipped
across her face, catching on her lips. My hand moved without thought, and I brushed her
hair behind her ears, watching with a warm curl of satisfaction when her eyes fluttered
shut. “I’ve missed talking to you. You’re my best friend, you know.”
Mercy opened her eyes and let out a weighted breath. “Maybe that’s what we need. Is
just . . . to talk.”
“I’m still not sure us being in the house together is the best idea,” I said gently.
“Why not?”
My thumb skimmed her jaw, brushing over the lush line of her bottom lip. “Because of
this. It might get us in trouble right now. I doubt I’d be able to resist you tonight. Not if
you looked at me the way you are right now.” She closed her eyes again and pulled her
head back on an understanding nod. “Sex has never been one of our problems.”
“When did that start?” she asked.
I hummed. “Not long after we got married. Maybe three weeks.”
“I lasted three weeks? Impressive.”
“Oh, the impressive feat was me holding out, I assure you.” I narrowed my eyes in a
playful glare. “You were quite vocal about what you wanted.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like me at all.”
When I smiled again, she raised her hand, touching the lines that bracketed my mouth.
My breath caught at the casual touch. At Mercy being the one to instigate.
“Darling, if you ke ep touching me, I’ll have no choice but to kiss you.”
Mercy dropped her hand, but her smile k ept it from feeling like a rejection. “Thank
you,” she said. “For being honest.”
I nodded.
“I’m still going to stay at the hotel tonight,” I told her. “We’ve had a heavy day, and I
don’t want to overwhelm you. But may I call you?”
“A phone date?” Her eyes searched mine.
“To start. We’ve never done that.”
“When will you come home?”
Home.
A roar of satisfaction warmed my stomach, but I k ept it off my face. “Soon.”
She was disappointed. With two fingers, I tipped her chin up so that she had no choice
but to meet my gaze. “Not because I don’t want to be there. Because I want to do this
right. It might do you some good to miss me, Kincaid.”
Mercy rolled her eyes.
I laughed under my breath, dropping a soft kiss on her forehead. “I won’t say it,” I
whispered against her skin. “Not until you’re ready. But I am always, always thinking it.”
Her expression was unexpectedly candid when I pulled back. “Always?”
Almost like she didn’t believe it.
“Always.” I k ept my eyes on hers. “Even when you’re wrong, which happens quite a
lot.”
Mercy swore under her breath and gave me a playful shove backward.
I was still smiling when I got into my car and sank back against the seat with a loaded
exhale.
I watched as Mercy drove off, and the enormity of what had happened finally sank in.
“Bloody hell. Now what?”
There was nothing left to hide. Nothing left to explain that wasn’t just details.
All that was left to do was try to win over my wife.