He cleared his throat. “I know we don’t have an infinite amount of time, so I’m just gonna start.”
Staying silent, I took a sip of my drink.
“First off, I’ll never be able to apologize enough for the way I freaked out after our accident. Leaving the way I did was not the answer. It felt like I was doing you a favor at the time, but I see things much differently now.” He let out a long exhale. “The accident… It brought back some difficult memories for me, and I didn’t handle it well.” He shut his eyes. “There was something I hadn’t told you, and that omission was part of why my reaction probably didn’t make sense to you.”
My heart sank. I’d always suspected there was something he hadn’t said.
He took a deep breath. “When the accident happened back in college, my girlfriend at the time, Becca, was injured, too. She was ultimately okay—I told you that before. But…I didn’t tell you she was pregnant.” He swallowed.
I felt my eyes widen.
“She was four months along, and the impact of the crash was too much. She lost the baby.”
Sadness rushed through my body. “I’m sorry. So sorry, Deacon.”
He nodded and stared down at his cup. “So while the loss of my football career was devastating, it was compounded by knowing I hadn’t been able to stop the accident that killed my unborn child. It was so much more than football. And I’m sorry for never telling you that part. I was very ashamed.”
I reached across the table for his hand. He looped his fingers with mine.
“After the accident—understandably—Becca became depressed. Between that and my own depression, our relationship couldn’t survive. We were so young to begin with.” He squeezed my hand. “Anyway, we broke up, and soon after, I moved away to go to college out of state. And that was it.”
He would’ve had a child around ten years old now. I let go of his hand. Touching him felt too intense at the moment.
Deacon ran his fingers through his hair. “I ran away from everything back then, Carys. I hadn’t dealt with any of it until recently. It wasn’t until I met you that I started allowing myself to even reflect on those days.” He began to shred a napkin. “But then our accident, coming home from the farm…” He shut his eyes tightly for a moment. “It threw me back to that place I’d been a decade ago. I couldn’t protect the two people I cared about most in this world—it scared the fuck out of me. And I panicked, overcome by the fear that I was destined to hurt the people I love.”
I looked away. “Well, that certainly explains things a little more, but I don’t understand why you couldn’t have told me this then, why we couldn’t have worked it out together.”
He nodded silently. “I don’t fully have the answer to why I reacted the way I did, why I couldn’t sit down and tell you the story like I am now. I felt ashamed and a little shell-shocked, and I think running is my pattern. That’s how I handled the first accident, and my impulse was to do the same again. I know that was terrible, but I’ve realized that all this time, I hadn’t dealt with anything that happened back in college. I’d only buried it. It took being back in Minnesota, facing the people I believed I’d disappointed so badly, to start that process. Unfortunately, I also hurt and disappointed you.”
“What happened in Minnesota?”
“A lot happened. I don’t have to tell you about it all now, but—”
“Tell me,” I interrupted. “We’re here now. Tell me everything.”
Deacon went on to recount his father’s cancer diagnosis and how he’d connected again with his dad and his entire family. But I was most surprised by what he saved for last.
“Before I came back to New York, I decided to look Becca up on social media. I hadn’t seen her since leaving home ten years ago. My father convinced me it was important to get some closure there, since a lot of my guilt came from hurting her.”
A sudden wave of jealousy hit me. It was perhaps the strongest emotion I’d felt since this conversation started.
Did he rekindle something with Becca while he was away? “What happened?” I asked.
“Well, I found her profile online. We chatted for a bit and decided to meet for lunch.”
As angry as I was at Deacon for leaving, and as sad as I was to learn he’d lost a baby, nothing gripped me as powerfully as my jealousy over his reconnecting with someone he likely once loved.
“We met at this restaurant near her house. I told her we didn’t have to talk about the past if she didn’t want to, but she was open to it. And it wasn’t anything like I’d expected—and dreaded.”
“Did you love her?”
“I thought I did. But honestly, I’m not sure if it was love. I was so young. I didn’t know what I wanted. When we found out she was pregnant, we had planned to stay together because of the baby, but then everything fell apart.”
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I asked, “What did Becca say when you met with her?”
He blew out a long breath. “She said she was pretty devastated that first year, not only about losing the baby, but about losing me. But in the end, she came to the conclusion that everything happens for a reason. She saw a therapist—something I’ve never done but probably should. A year after the accident, Becca went back to school. A couple of years ago, she met her current fiancé. They live together in the next town over from my parents with their dog.”
I exhaled. “So she’s happy.”
“Yeah, and my takeaway is that all these years I’d believed she must hate me and blame me for everything. But that was a reflection of my feelings toward myself. I know now that lack of communication can lead to years of needless suffering. Maybe I wanted to suffer because I felt I deserved it, but I certainly didn’t have to. And I don’t want to repeat that mistake, though I’ve already caused you needless suffering, too. I know that.”
We sat in silence for a bit until he took my hand again and looked into my eyes.
“Leaving the way I did was a huge mistake. I’m not justifying it, only trying to explain what I was thinking at the time and let you know that I grew a lot while I was away. I don’t know where your head is, Carys, or whether you can ever learn to trust me again. But I need you to know that I see things more clearly now. I’m not going anywhere. Even if you choose not to give me another chance, I’m not leaving again. I’ll be here for you no matter what—if not as your lover, then as your friend.”
I sighed, feeling so many things all at once. “I don’t know what to say. I haven’t processed you coming back, let alone all of this. I’m not sure I can trust you not to leave again. That’s not something I want to go through a second time—or a third time, actually. I’d rather be alone.”
“I understand,” he said after a moment. “Can I ask you one favor?”
“Okay…”
“Will you let me bring you coffee again? No commitments. No promises. Just coffee a few times a week.”
It seemed like a simple thing, but it was letting him back into my life. Would I be better off not seeing him while I thought things through? He had just poured his heart out to me, though... And I did have a different perspective on why he left. In the end, the pained look in his eyes made it impossible to say no.