I understood . . . I did. And I hated that I’d done this to her. I hated that it left us in the same place.
“What scares you more?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “The things we’ve both said and the things I’ve done scare me. But I’ve made sure I wouldn’t have a minute to breathe, let alone think, and when I found out I—” Her eyes shut tightly and she leaned heavily against the wall as both hands gently fell to her stomach. “I already felt like I was losing control on keeping everything together, and then you were here, and I just . . .” One of her shoulders lifted. “I fell apart a little more each day.”
I nodded as I pushed from the island, grabbing her plate and water and walking over to the kitchen table. After I had her stuff in front of the seat she liked, I sank into a chair a few away from hers so she’d have space. Stretching out with my feet propped up on one of the other chairs and dragging a hand over my face as all the exhaustion from these weeks wove through me. When I was folding my arms over my chest, she joined me. Moving all kinds of graceful and sensual the way she always had, even when we were in the middle of hell.
“When we were, uh . . . sixteen?” I thought for a second before nodding. “Yeah, sixteen. It was right after the first time we’d snuck in here when you said you wanted to elope. You remember that?”
She made an acknowledging hum around a bite of the sandwich.
“I went to your house when you were at dance and asked your parents for their permission to date you.”
Her chewing slowed and her eyebrows pulled together. “What?” she asked around the bite.
“They said, ‘no.’ Not that I expected anything different and not like we hadn’t already been together. But I told them about our dream for this place and your dream wedding. Told them how you wanted to give that up to elope just so they couldn’t keep us apart anymore and how I wasn’t gonna let that happen. Said that I’d be there, asking for their permission until they gave it to me.”
“What’d they say?”
A huff left me. “They were pissed, but I got their permission eventually.”
She inhaled softly. “That night the Rowes had you arrested.” When I nodded, Savannah asked, “Why are you telling me this?”
My stare shifted from the table to her. “I’m trying to think of absolutely anything I’ve kept from you throughout our lives.”
She studied me for a while, looking torn as hell before offering a subtle nod.
“The house,” I said after another minute. “When we got married, I told you I’d gotten permission to buy the house, and I had. But I’d already had it for a while . . . months.” At her shock, I explained, “I wanted it to be a gift, and I wasn’t buying it without you.”
“But months?” she asked. “It could’ve been an early wedding gift.”
“You really think a few months would’ve made a difference?”
She huffed and rolled her eyes. “No, and it was perfect, and you know that,” she mumbled before taking another bite.
The corner of my mouth tipped up. “Besides, I got permission the afternoon of my last fight,” I said, the low words filled with meaning. “I could barely figure out a good time to tell you we could use the back for our wedding. It wouldn’t have been the right time to tell you it was ours.”
“No,” she agreed after a moment. “I guess you’re right.” Her stare darted between her plate and me a few times as she picked at a piece of fruit. “What else?”
I shrugged as I thought. “I don’t keep things from you,” I said, feeling that weight press down on me all over again because what I had kept from her was now out in the open and had brought us here. “Other than the Madison shit, the only other things I can think of are what I just told you. Things that were for you—for us.”
I eased deeper in the chair and fought the pull of sleep when this moment with her was so necessary.
But being in our home and beside her was the most relaxed I’d been in so long.
“Hunter,” I said suddenly. “Hunter and I didn’t talk for all that time because, in the beginning, I couldn’t stand to see him without wanting to die. Then when he came back, he brought back all that guilt and pain that I’d had to push aside so we could move on with our lives. So, I made sure I didn’t see him.” I met Savannah’s disappointed stare and said, “Made sure he wouldn’t wanna see me.”
“Beau . . .”
“Yeah.”
“Does he know that now?”
I lifted my chin in acknowledgment. “We talked when I took the kids over there this weekend.”
“That’s good,” Savannah mumbled, her stare unfocused as if she was thinking about something else. “And Madi’s there?”
“Hunter said she’s living with her parents, but she’s been there every time I’ve gone over. But they’re engaged, so, I dunno. She’ll probably move in soon.”
Savannah’s eyes widened and snapped to me. “They are?”
“I thought you’ve been talking to my brothers.”
“I have been,” she said, the words slow and wounded. After a while, a huff punched from her chest. “They probably knew I didn’t want to know. Or wasn’t ready.” She lifted part of her sandwich and dropped it back to the plate, focusing intently on what she was doing when she asked, “Have you talked to her?”
“Barely,” I mumbled. “I went there a couple weekends ago when I was in a bad place. I hadn’t heard from you, and I was yelling at Hunter. Madison was standing behind him. I said something to her about how what we’d done hadn’t ruined all of us, it’d only ruined you and me. I haven’t said anything to her since.”
I watched the way Savannah absentmindedly nodded, her eyes filling with tears before one rolled down her cheek.
I let my feet fall to the floor and sat up, leaning forward and reaching across the table even as the next heavy tear ripped through me, slaying me with all that grief.
With what I’d done.
“Savannah.” My hands curled into fists as the need to hold her and comfort her overwhelmed me, as her pain mixed with my own and kept me in place. “I’m sorry,” I said when her head lifted and glassy eyes met mine. “I’m so fucking sorry. If I could go back and change everything, you have to know that I would.”
She blinked quickly and hurried to wipe at her cheeks as if she’d just realized she was crying, her head moving in hard and fast shakes as she pushed back in her chair.
“Savannah—”
“No, it’s, um . . . I’m tired.” Her hand gestured between us. “We’ve said so much tonight, and I’m just overwhelmed by everything and whatever happened upstairs earlier. I need to go to sleep.”
I dropped my head into my hand, nodding and gripping at my hair. “Yeah. Yeah, all right.” I stood from my chair and reached for her dishes, but she grabbed them.
“I’ve got it, it’s fine,” she said quickly as she pushed to her feet and moved through the kitchen, dumping what she hadn’t eaten and putting everything in the dishwasher.