Page 93 of Every Silent Lie

I need to be brave. I have to show him.

I walk to him, albeit tentatively, and reach for my mobile, but his hand is a vise around it. “Please,” I whisper, dipping to fall into his downcast gaze. His fingers peel away, and I drop my mobile onto my bag, leaving it ringing, my husband’s name lighting up the screen.

Dec takes a moment, reaching for both my hands and squeezing them as he closes his eyes. I let him have his time, because I need it too.

It’s a long few minutes, the silence oddly comforting, his thumbs working slow circles over the tops of my hands, before he eventually draws air and looks at me. “Do you want to be here?” he asks.

“More than anything,” I whisper.

He nods, drops one of my hands, and gently pulls me toward the stairs.

I follow a few steps behind him, our arms stretched between us, all the way to his bathroom, where he releases my hand and goes to the tub, flipping on the tap and running his hand beneath it before adding some bath soak. Then he starts to strip slowly, dropping his clothes into a pile until he’s naked. I take in his body, trembling, as he moves toward me, and then study his face under the dimmed light as he begins to undress me, silent and focused. I slip my shoes off and hold his shoulders as he bends, peeling my dress down, pushing it aside when I step out of it.

Everything is slow. Silent. Everything is measured. Everything is calm.

Even me. I’m calm. Accepting. Suddenly so very clear-headed. I made him believe I didn’t want him, and that hurts. How could I not want this man?

Walking us to the bath, Dec steps in, the water still running, and helps me, holding my hands as I lower between his thighs and settle, resting against his chest. The water feels hot on my cold skin, but the atmosphere is thick with the unspoken, but by no means uncomfortable. We’re both just waiting, taking our time, letting this play out naturally.

Dec eventually slices through the quiet with some soft but unbearably loud words. “I can’t make you love me.”

I stare forward at his bent knees framing mine, swallowing hard, unable to distinguish if the lump there represents what I’ve already lost or what I could lose. Both? And yet I accept in my heart that to lose something, you must have it in the first place. And I’m so scared of losing again. Amid the trauma of this evening, I’ve misplaced the magic of what Dec’s brought into my life. Let his unorthodox light be shadowed by my murky past. I hate that he believes I can’t love him because I love someone else. So I fill my lungs and let the words out. “You don’t need to make me love you,” I whisper, the words sounding tattered and torn. “I already do.” His inhale lifts me with him, and I know he’s holding his breath because my wet skin chills from being out of the water for a few moments until his exhale sinks me back beneath.

He reaches past me and turns off the running water, and then he turns me over so I’m lying on his front, my face level with his throat. “But you still love him.”

“I don’t love him. I don’t need to get over him, because I am over him,” I say with grit, fighting back the muscles in my throat from tightening. I can do this. If there’s going to be any chance of saving myself, I have to do this. And I want to. For Dec. I want to show him.

I have to say it.

“But I will never be over my little boy,” I murmur, my heart turning in my chest at the sound of those words out loud.

Dec jolts so hard, the water splashes, his eyes wide and haunted when I sneak a look up. “What?”

“He was four,” I go on, not wanting to stop for fear of not being able to start again. To finish. To give Dec the complete picture, to erase any doubt he has about how I feel about Dominic and how I feel about him.

I want you to be over him.

Never.

“He was run down.” I sound robotic. It’s the only way. “By a drunk driver. It was three fifteen on a Friday. December nineteenth.” He’s a statue. Frozen. Disturbed. “The driver, a woman, had been for a boozy Christmas lunch with her work colleagues. She was late picking up her kid, driving too fast.” I don’t know how I keep our eye contact, but I do. Resolute. Somehow taking strength from him. Dec’s holding my eyes too, and yet I know it’s because of pure shock and nothing else. This isn’t sinking in. “She was sentenced to two years.” For the first time, I allow my eyes to leave his, frowning. “I saw her the other day. In a clothes store. She was buying kids clothes. Christmas presents, I suppose. She was smiling. Carrying on with her life after a small blip. She was released after a year. Just a year lost with her children.” Looking back at Dec, I see nothing’s changed in his blank face. His eyes are fixed, unblinking. It’s okay. I don’t want him to faff and fuss, hug me or wipe my eyes. I just need him to listen and understand. “I was supposed to pick Noah up that day, but I was called into a meeting last minute, so Dominic got him. He was on a work call. Not paying attention, not holding his hand. Everyone knows you check both ways and wait for the cars to stop before you cross a zebra crossing, and she was driving too fast to stop.” I breathe out, realising I’ve been spitting out the words without drawing breath, desperate to just get it out there. He's still motionless, still quiet, still vacant. “Dec?”

One blink. A swallow. His chin pulls in, a slight shake of his head, as if he’s shaking off a daze. The creases around his eyes are so deep, his frown heavy. Everything suggests he doesn’t understand. Doesn’t comprehend.

Because he could never have anticipated this, and he doesn’t need to tell me that.

Slipping his hands under my armpits, he pushes me back so I’m kneeling between his legs, his gaze now avoiding mine. He rises, the water pouring from his naked body, and he steps out of the tub. He doesn’t grab a towel, doesn’t dry himself. Long strides take him out of the bathroom soaking wet, leaving me alone in his tub, wondering what the hell just happened.

My eyes dart across the water lapping gently around my kneeling form. Should I go after him? Should I dry myself, get dressed, and leave? A tidal wave of uncertainties circles my twisted mind, tangling it more. Don’t tell me that on top of everything, seeing Dominic with a woman who’s pregnant, knowing he’s moving on, replacing our little boy, building a new family, I’m going to have to mourn the peace I found with Dec?

Mourn the loss of him too?

I just told him I love him. How could I have gotten it so wrong? He said nothing would change for him.

Biting down on my lip, I wince away the fresh bout of pain stabbing at my heart, reaching for the sides of the tub to lift myself out, but the sound of a loud bang, followed by a crash that echoes through the house, stops me. I stare at the doorway, hearing him curse loudly.

Then . . . silence.

And then I’m shutting down. I can feel it happening, the iron walls coming up, my mind blocking every ugly thought coming at me, trying not to let it attach and stick. Deflecting. He can’t handle the truth. He can’t handle me. As I always feared.