Page 76 of Stay With Me

He picked up his keys and started out the door. “I’ll come talk to Ari tomorrow.”

He slammed the door behind him and trudged through the storm back to his car. He didn’t feel the rain or the wind. He couldn’t hear the thunderclaps or see the lightning. He was just numb.

When he pulled the car door open, however, he finally felt something.

The rush of a body slamming against his back, and a pair of arms wrapped around his waist. He heard sobbing.

And then he heard something he hadn’t heard in a long time.

“I love you.”

He didn’t make a move yet.

“Please don’t do this.”

He let his hand drop from the door handle.

“I’m so sorry, Nick.”

Sammie moved her grasp from his waist to his arm, holding it tightly and burying her face into his shoulder.

“I know this has been hard,” she cried. “It’s always been hard, and I know it’s because I’m not the easiest person to be married to. But I need you. I love you so much that it kills me every time I’ve taken my anger and frustration out on you. You’ve been so good to me and all I’ve done is beat you down, and I swear I’ll stop. I’ll try harder. Please don’t leave. Stay with me. Don’t give up, and I won’t give up either.”

He couldn’t speak. After everything that had happened that day, he knew if he opened his mouth it would unleash a wave of sobs that rivaled his wife’s.

Instead, he reached for the handle again, but this time he closed the door.

And since he’d been rendered speechless, he could only show her how much her earnest words meant, so he pulled her hands off his arm and placed them around his neck, then kissed her like he had on all the good days.

The day they brought Ari home.

The day he’d carried her over the threshold of their new home.

The first day he woke up next to her after she’d become his wife.

The day she’d saved his life.

The day he’d scandalously pulled her into the back office of a restaurant that wouldn’t be there much longer.

All of the good days.

He’d made a promise to do life with her, and life included days like this.

And on days like this one, in moments like these, you have to remember the good days.

Chapter Nineteen

Samantha

Back…forth…back…forth.

Samantha’s eyes had been closed since daybreak, but she knew it had to be around noon. She felt like the sun was sitting directly on top of her face.

Her skin was on fire. She wondered if there was sunscreen in the first aid kit. She couldn’t remember seeing any all the times she’d rifled through it.

She still felt nauseated, but at this point she would have killed someone for water even though she’d probably vomit it up anyway. She’d already finished off the last of the water back when the morning air was still cool, and her stomach had rejected it.

What a waste.