Page 13

Chapter 12

Deirdre

“Deep in earth my love is lying, and I must weep alone.” Edgar Allan Poe

“A lexis’ death is my fault.”

The words repeat themselves in my head for what feels like an eternity.

His confession hangs in the air, a cold chill sweeping across my skin along with it. I pull the sheets up to cover myself and stare at him, trying to process what I just heard and unsure of how to react.

I look down and nervously twist my hands in my lap. “Okay, Kieran, you’re going to have to give me a little more of an explanation than that. What do you mean Alexis’ death was your fault?”

Kieran finally brings his gaze to mine, a look of torment mixed with gut wrenching guilt haunting his dark eyes. My stomach churns with unease and confusion. I never asked how she died, and I know they were having problems in their marriage, but surely Kieran didn’t kill her.

His eyes drop to the journal that is now lying on my lap.

He gestures to it with a shaky hand. “That will explain everything,” he says, his voice hoarse. “It’s all in there.”

My eyes lock on the book, but I don’t move to open it. I just stare at it, like it’s about to combust into flames.

“Why are you saying this now? Why didn’t you tell me before we...?”

Briefly, a nervous expression flashes across his face, as if the moment we just shared will be our last. Like I am going to bolt.

I stroke his hand, trying to reassure him. He lets out a bitter laugh, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “And how exactly was I supposed to bring it up, Deirdre? ‘Hey, I’m attracted to you, but oh, by the way, I killed my wife’? That’s not exactly how you get the girl.”

The sarcasm in his tone stings, but I know he’s using it as a shield. It is his desperate attempt at deflecting from the raw vulnerability he is currently exposing to me.

“Please, read it,” he says quietly. “If you really want to know the whole story, it’s all in there. I don’t have the strength to say it all out loud.”

I let out a shaky sigh as my hand turns the cover of the journal. There it is. On the first page. His words, his trembling handwriting. Some of the ink is smeared from what looks like tears on the page. I try to imagine him writing this memory down for me, tearing himself apart to open himself up to my scrutiny. This is the demon he has been fighting, the one he said was all in the past.

“Some days I can lock it away, bury it beneath these papers, lectures, and the weight of my responsibility as a professor. But tonight, it’s here, vivid and inescapable, like the scent of smoke clinging to clothes long after the fire has been extinguished. It’s haunting me because I can’t fully give you my love when I know you deserve to know why I’ve been fighting like hell to survive for the last ten years.

It was raining that night, of course—it had to be raining. The kind of treacherous downpour that makes you feel like you’re suffocating inside your car because you can’t see a foot in front of you.

Alexis sat beside me, her body trembling with quiet sobs after we left the doctor’s office. The sound of the rain pounding against the car was deafening. I kept my hands on the wheel, gripping it so tightly my knuckles were white. I couldn’t look her in the eye. I couldn’t bear to see the devastation on her face again. The appointment replayed in my head over and over again. Another failure. Another poor pathetic ‘I’m sorry’ from our fertility specialist.

“Why? Why can’t it be us for once?” she finally chokes out, through her raw sobs. “Why can’t we…why can’t you…”

“Don’t do this, Alexis.” I remember snapping at her. My jaw was clenched so tight my teeth were grinding together.

“Don’t do what?” Her voice cracked, and suddenly, her sobs turned into furious screams. “Don’t blame you? Because that’s exactly what I’m doing, Kieran! I’ve carried the blame for years. It’s time someone else shares the blame with me in this! It’s your fault!”

“Stop it!” I couldn’t control my shouting. My voice reverberating off the walls of the car. My hands shook against the wheel, the tension in my chest threatening to suffocate me. “Do you think this is easy for me? Do you think you’re alone in this? Do you think I don’t feel like a failure every goddamn day?”

“You don’t get to play the victim. I’m the one losing everything, Kieran. My body. My sanity. The little bit of hope I cling to at every appointment. I’m the one who gets poked and prodded. You jack off into a fucking cup.” Her words pierce through my heart like a knife. I couldn’t believe how angry she was. We had always promised that no matter how hard this journey was, that we would never turn on each other. We failed in that promise.

The rain was coming down harder now, the wipers barely keeping up. I could feel my pulse pounding in my ears, and my anger began to boil in my stomach, threatening to overflow. I did everything to keep from coming unglued, but I just couldn’t control myself anymore.

“I’m trying, Alexis!” I yelled as we took a sharp turn onto the winding road leading toward our home. The home where we would probably never bring a baby. “I’m doing everything I can. I play the role of the supportive, doting husband, but you…”

I can still feel the way the words caught in my throat when the tires lost their grip on the slick asphalt. Time seemed to slow to a crawl and then speed up all at once. Alexis’ scream still haunts me as the car swerved, and the wheel jerked in my hands. Some nights, in my dreams, I can feel the sickening lurch of the car as we spun out of control. I remember the deafening sound of the glass windows shattering as the headlights slammed into the trunk of a tree before the world around me faded to black.

When I opened my eyes, there was silence. The rain had stopped, and Alexis was no longer screaming. Everything was quiet.

I stumbled out of the car, disoriented, my legs shaking beneath me. The front of the car was crushed against the tree, the metal frame mangled beyond repair.

“Alexis?” My voice was nothing more than a broken rasp, throat raw and scratchy as I staggered over to the passenger side of the car. The passenger windowpane was shattered, the rain pouring in, and there she was, slumped over, her face pale and her body still.

It felt like an out-of-body experience. A nightmare seeing my wife’s body smashed against the center console. I screamed her name, crying out against the rain, wrenching the door open to get to her. Blood trickled down her temple, and her breaths were shallow and uneven. I just knelt there, cradling her face with shaking hands, whispering her name over and over like it would somehow keep her alive until help came.

I heard the sirens long before I saw the flashing lights.

The paramedics jumped out of the ambulance, their voices a blur as they ripped her away from me and loaded her lifeless body into the unit. They made me ride in the second ambulance. I was alone in my thoughts, numb and silent, my clothes soaked through with the rain and her blood. I remember staring at my hands like I didn’t recognize them anymore, thinking how yet another part of me was useless. I couldn’t save her.

She didn’t wake up in the hospital. The doctors told me they did everything they could, but her injuries were too severe. I sat beside her for hours, holding her hand, begging her to forgive me even though she’d never hear it. A forgiveness I was sure I didn’t deserve.

When the doctor told me it was time to take her off life support, I didn’t even remember signing the consent form. I’m pretty sure my signature looked just like a straight line falling off the paper.

When they took her off the machine, they turned it off as quickly as they could, but I will never forget the sound of her slipping away. The relentless beeping of the flatlining machine faded, and I could hear the pounding of my heart in my chest as I walked numbly away from the hospital room. I can faintly remember hearing the doctor calling my name, but I couldn’t bring myself to stay and make arrangements.

I walked away unscathed. Not a scratch. Not so much as a bruise. But I’ve been bleeding ever since. Her death was on me. I’ll be trapped in this torment, this hell, forever. I swore then and there no one could ever save me.

Until you.

The journal feels a thousand times heavier as I close the pages. My chest is heaving as I try to catch my breath. His words are a weight that press against my chest like an anvil, the pain they bring a familiar ache I learned to live with when I walked away from Trevor and when I lost my dad.

My throat feels tight, but I know the last thing he needs from me right now is silence.

“How could you possibly blame yourself for this?” I ask, though I can see the answer written all over his face.

“You don’t understand,” he replies, his voice sharper now, tinged with frustration. “You didn’t see her, didn’t hear her… She blamed me, Deirdre. She said it was my fault, and she wasn’t wrong.”

Kieran twists away from me in the bed, putting his feet over the edge. His back to me, he puts his elbows on his knees, and then his shoulders start heaving as he takes deep, uneven breaths.

I stare at his back, my heart aching for him. All I want is to take the pain away, to take away the guilt he has been carrying with him for ten years.

“Kieran,” I start, but I can’t speak without facing him, so I crawl out of my side of the bed and walk around to stand in front of him. Both naked, we’re completely vulnerable and open.

I kneel down in front of him.

“Kieran, thank you for sharing this with me. But you have to promise me that you’re going to work through your guilt.”

His voice breaks as he says, “What if I can’t? What if I lose you, too?”

“Hey, stop trying to push me away,” I say, meeting his gaze with unwavering determination. “You’ve taken the first step. You’ve let me in. Let me help carry this, even just a little. You don’t have to do it alone anymore.”

For a long moment, he sat there not saying a word, his expression blank. But then, slowly, he nods.

“I’ll try,” he says, the words barely above a whisper.

It isn’t much, but it is a start. And for now, that is enough.

Kieran pulls me off my knees and wraps an arm around me, pulling me close. “You’re something else, Miss Ravencroft,” he murmurs against my skin.

“And don’t you forget it,” I tease, melting into his embrace.

I glance down at the bed, where the journal sits on the white sheets.

I can only imagine the secrets this book will hold in our future.

The night air is cool against my flushed skin as I drive through the quiet streets of New Haven back to Cornelia Heights. My body still hums with the aftermath of Kieran, his touch, his voice, the way he unraveled me piece by piece. I feel different somehow, like something inside me has shifted.

The city lights blur as I replay every moment in my mind like a film reel. The heat of his hands on my skin, the sharp sting of pain on my ass when he spanked me, and how I craved more. The way I screamed his name like it was something sacred. The intensity in his eyes as he looked at me, like he saw me , all of me, and wasn’t afraid of what he found.

I let out a shaky breath. My pulse is still unsteady, my heart and brain caught somewhere between exhilaration and disbelief. The sweet sting on my skin every time I shift in my seat is confirmation that I didn’t just dream this whole evening.

This wasn’t just a meaningless night, not for me, not for Kieran. This was the start of something deeper than some passing, forbidden lust.

The glow of my phone screen pulls my attention as I pull into the dorm parking lot. A text.

Professor McKnight: Goodnight, Miss Ravencroft.

A smile tugs at my lips, warmth spreading through my chest as I quickly type back.

Deirdre: Goodnight, Professor.

I linger for a moment, staring at the screen, half-waiting, half-hoping for another message. But when none comes, I set my phone down, exhaling softly.

I stare at the journal sitting in my passenger seat for a beat before picking it up. Stepping out of my car, I wrap my arms around myself as I make my way toward the dorm, still feeling the ghost of his touch on my skin.

I don’t know where this will lead. I don’t know if we’re destined to crash and burn or if we’ll defy the odds stacked against us.

But what I do know is that tonight, I was his. And despite every warning, every logical reason to stop this before it gets too messy…I don’t want to.