Page 43 of Secrets That Bind Us

Verity

Present Day

“That wasn’t a goddamn sign, Verity! You left !

You didn’t answer any of my calls. You’re the one that left me behind!

You left me behind, and you made a life with him!

And of course he showed up at the right fucking time!

He manipulated the entire situation and knew you needed him because you didn’t have me .

Christ, he told you I was dead? !” He screams as his fists come down the table so brutally everything from the silverware to the plates and glasses shift, and I tense up.

“Knowing him, he probably blocked my number from your phone. I went through months of physical therapy, so I could get to you. All of this shit happened, I missed years of my life with you, with my daughter, a daughter you named the name I wanted, and then you made a life with him .” He pants.

Fight or flight, and my body chooses the third option, always the third option.

Freeze. And he sees this. Because now that I know everything, now that I can see past the forest and finally see the trees, I remember.

In the beginning, Micah was always using my phone.

He was always so wary of my phone, reading messages, my emails, making up reasons to use my laptop.

He was always so fucking nervous those first few months.

It only stopped after I got a new phone with a new number, and then when I was given a professional email address from my publisher.

He put the settings on for anyone that wasn’t my publisher, to go straight to the spam folder where it would delete after thirty days.

God, I’m a fucking idiot.

He takes my silence as fear, but it’s not. I’m raging internally.

“Jesus, fuck, Verity, baby. I’m sorry.”

But there are no tears this time. Guilt, yes. But tears?

I’ve always wondered if you’re given a certain amount of tears each lifetime, and when you use them up, you just… don’t cry anymore? Like you want to… you just don’t even have the capacity to do so anymore? God knows I cried more than my fair share for him. For Micah. For Mama.

Or maybe I’m so broken I can’t. Maybe I simply haven’t healed enough. I stay as still as I can, even when Dean is on his knees before me, his head in my lap. My fingers itch to run through his hair.

“You left, Verity. You left me here, and all this time I stayed just hoping you'd come back for me. I didn’t live. I cruised through this life on fucking auto-pilot waiting for you to come back to me. I stayed in the dark. You have to believe me. I’m not like this.

I would never hurt you. But all that heartache you felt, or you do feel?

That ache in your stomach and your heart and your soul?

I feel it, too. I have felt it like an open wound for thirteen fucking years .

But you left. You had a whole family, and I stayed here in the dark, waiting for you.

I let life happen all around me, and I stood still through every season.

You left, and you raised my daughter… with him, and you didn’t tell me.

You didn’t reach out. You never came home…

I missed years . I missed a whole decade and more. I’m allowed to be angry.”

“I…m not very hungry anymore.” I choke out on a dry breath. But he’s right. He has every reason to be angry.

He shakes his head, dark hair falling to the side, crystalline eyes closing. “Okay. I’ll go.” He sighs, defeated, standing up, which is the opposite of what I want him to do, and yet I don’t say it. Why can’t I say it?

“But Verity, it’s… I just want to make it very clear; it’s not even you I’m angry at. It’s him.”

“He’s dead .” I shake my head, but I'm angry at Micah, too. For so many things.

“If I had known what he was taking with him – my future- I would’ve killed him myself before you ever stepped foot out of Adelaide.” He leaves with that. The screen door shutting behind him.

And still, no tears.

But I can’t let him go.

He and I are bound.

Today, tomorrow, he’s right. We’re forever. And maybe I’m crazy too, for falling in love with the boy with blue eyes and freckles when I was eight, and then sixteen, and then eighteen, and even now. Because I am meant to fall for him, over and over again – in this life, in the next, we’re eternal.

Denying it does nothing but hurt the other, and I’m done trying to fight it.

So tired of holding back.

So tired of being numb.

I’m so tired of living this life without him.

So I go after him, my steps weak, legs wobbly, heart thumping against my ribcage, but I know if I let him leave now, I know if he goes, we won’t fix this. And that’s the last thing I want.

So I chase after the man I loved before, now, forever with nothing but my heart on my sleeves, ready to make a fool of myself, because in the end, I know I didn't come back for a wedding. I didn’t come back to flip this house and sell it, not really.

I came back for the boy who stole my heart and never gave it back.