She is my wife, and for better or worse, I’m going to be here beside her. I just have to get it together.
“Meghan?” I call out as I open the door to our apartment.
She doesn’t answer.
I toss my bag full of textbooks onto the floor and drop my keys on the entry table. Her keys are there, so I know she’s home.
“Meg?”
Still no answer.
Weird.
I head into the living room and she’s sitting on the couch with her legs crisscrossed and head down.
“Hey,” I say as I make my way to her. “Sorry I’m late.”
When her eyes meet mine, I stop moving. They’re red and puffy, and the pain in them is clear as day.
“What’s wrong?” I’m instantly worried about her and the baby. “Are you okay?”
She shakes her head. “I’m not.”
Worry fills me, pushing me toward her. I tug her to me and hold her tight. Her body starts to shake, and my own fear grows. Something is terribly wrong and whatever it is has her devastated.
“Talk to me.”
Meghan shoves out of my embrace. She reaches behind her and pulls out a leather-bound black journal.
Time stops, because I know now what has her devastated. I’ve written in that journal the last two years—including last week.
“I want to talk.” She sniffs. “I want to talk and ask you things, but I don’t know that I need to because it’s all here.”
No longer is worry my primary emotion, now it’s mixed with anger. Those are my thoughts and feelings. I write because I have to get it out in a place that’s safe.
“In my private journal.”
“It was sitting on the counter, and I didn’t know what it was.”
A part of me doesn’t believe her because I’m never careless. I keep it in the same place so that it would never be found.
Hell, I’ve never told anyone other than Teagan I even keep a damn journal.
But now Meghan knows, and she read it. Without my permission.
“And then when you figured out what it was, you just kept reading?” I push.
A tear falls from her face, and my heart continues to pound to a beat that is so loud in my ears. I stand, needing to get some distance from her.
“I…I wasn’t…I know it was wrong!” She gets to her feet as well. “When I saw some of the…the things you said. Is this really what you feel? You want her? You wish Teagan was pregnant with your child?” She screams the words and the tears fall down her cheek.
I thought I felt that way. I thought maybe it was really what I wanted, but it’s not. I was confused. I wrote it down so I could get it out of my head and move on. At least that has to be the truth because otherwise I’m a fucking failure of a man.
“No! I was dealing with so much and I was fucked-up in the head. It’s not like that!”
“You wrote it, Derek!” She throws the journal at me. “You wrote it all here. You said you love her!”
Meghan’s pain is so deep, I can almost feel it. She’s hurt by what I wrote and rightfully so. I didn’t explain that after I wrote about it, I realized I was crazy.
“I do, but not that way! She’s my best friend.”
“No. No she’s not. You’re in love with her and I would bet my ass she’s in love with you, and you…you wrote about it. You want her.”
“I don’t,” I say as I step closer to her. “I want you. I married you! I love you, Meghan.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “You said…”
“I know what I said but it wasn’t like that. I was so confused and mixed-up.” If I could just explain it to her, maybe she’d understand. “I saw Teagan for our lunch last week and it was different. I was different, and talking about the baby with her, she started crying, and then it was just…I don’t know, but I had to get it out and work through it. It was just my fears and being irrational.”
Meghan steps back. “Do you love Teagan that way?”
I can’t tell her. I can’t lose her and as much as it pains me to lie to her, it’s the only way I can spare her feelings even a little.
“No.”
“Have you ever?”
My eyes widen and as much as I want to deny it and protect her, I can’t.
“I did or I thought I did. I don’t know.”
A heartbreaking sound releases from her mouth. “I…I can’t…you…”
“I thought I did but it could never work and I had you. It was never a question with us. I knew I loved you. I loved you from the beginning.”
“But you loved her.”
“This isn’t about her. It’s about you and me.”
“No.” She throws her hands up. “No, it’s always about her. I’ve tried so hard to understand your friendship and accept it, but I can’t do this. I have to go.”
“Go?”
“Yes. Leave. I’m leaving.”
“Meghan.” I move in front of her. “Don’t do this. I swear, it’s not like that. I love you, damn it. I love our life. Our baby. Everything we have. Please, you can’t leave.”
She wipes the tears that paint her face. “I can’t be the third wheel in my own marriage, Derek!”
“You’re not.”
“No?”
I’ve fucked this up so bad, but the idea of losing her proves that what we have is real. It’s not a fantasy I’ve made up in my head. Meghan is my life.
“I don’t know that I can do this. I don’t know that I can be around her.”
My heart begins to race even faster. I know where this is going. “Around Teagan?”
“I don’t trust you now. I don’t trust her and you. I can’t be worried all the time. Those words will be in my mind forever. Seeing how you feel about her is too much.”
“I don’t feel that way,” I try to remind her, but she isn’t hearing that.
“Even if you’re telling me it’s not true now, there was some part of you that thought it was. I feel like you betrayed me and our marriage.”
Jesus Christ. I wrote about my feelings because I wasn’t strong enough to put them aside, and I hoped putting them down on paper would make them go away. I hurt Meghan when she did nothing wrong.
“Meghan, please, I would never cheat on you.”
She points to the journal. “You did. In your heart, you betrayed me.”
My own tears fall because I despise myself for hurting her. I look at the pain in her eyes, wanting to take it all away, willing to do anything to make this better. “What can I do? What can I do to prove that it’s you I love?”
Her eyes are no longer sad, they’re filled with determination. “If you want this marriage to work, you have to cut her out of your life. Completely. It’s me or her, you choose.”
Chapter Twelve
Teagan
Present
“I’m still not understanding. She read your journal and that was reason enough to stop talking to me? Was she mad because…?”
Derek looks uncomfortable, and I’m truly confused. He’s kept a journal since he was in high school, writing his random thoughts, making plans for things he wanted. It’s not like it held the key to his soul.