Page 8 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“Maybe we served our purpose to one another and maybe now is when I consider the quality of life I have going forward and not spend it worrying and second-guessing and doubting you or myself or my own fucking judgment or self-worth. I want to heal. I want to stop replaying the past 15 years over and over,” her finger circled at her temple.

“Analyzing every missed phone call and flight delay. I’m so, so sorry.

Because even after you hurt me, I still don’t want to hurt you,” Tahli was too honest, watching his eyes cram with tears that his bravado wrestled.

“It kills me to see you broken. But I want you to love me enough to let me go, baby.” Vin looked like he had stopped breathing. “I want off the parachute.”

Neither budged. She knew him enough to spot him studying her for proof with his trembling jaw.

“I’m so sorry,” Tahli repeated an apology she watched his quaking face accept.

Finally, Vin picked up the pen. Hesitating, he placed it on the paper three times, drawing it back the same, before he scribbled on it roughly and pushed back from the table.

He snatched his suit jacket from the chair, sending it toppling over without giving it a glance.

Vin only blazed toward the door, swiping his nose with a sniff.

Tahli gaped at the signed papers. His lawyer quickly gathered her belongings to trail him. The mediator followed, stating something about filing. Tahli’s breathing stuttered at the sound of his voice near the door.

“I ruined your life, Tahli.” Her wide, wet eyes flared on the table. “I knew I ruined it 15 years ago, and I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since. For a while, I thought I did. But in the end…I ruined your life, baby love.” He repeated. “I’m sorry about that.”

When she felt his hold release her, a pant sputtered from her lips.

She faced her lawyer, meeting her stunned eyes.

Maybe it wasn’t normal. Maybe nothing about her and Vin was normal.

Because her lawyer didn’t look like the shark Tahli had two meetings with prior.

She looked like a woman caught in the middle of a tragedy.

“That’s…that’s it?” Tahli didn’t mean for her weak voice to quake. The room was still, the signed papers waiting on the other side of her.

“He’s…” Tahli blinked out of her trance. “He’s not my husband anymore?” Unfathomable. Unreal. That easily.

Her lawyer’s throat moved in a swallow and a short head shake followed. Mouth and eyes stretched, Tahli searched the room for direction. Her life had been intertwined with Dalvin Hayes for the better part of it. How would she begin one without him?

“Oh God,” croaked from her throat suddenly. Tahli slammed her hands to her mouth, and those raging waters exploded through her eye sockets. Her lawyer swiped her lashes.

“Will you, um…? Will you be okay?” Her lawyer visibly grappled with professionalism. “I have to be in the city in an hour.”

Heading into Manhattan on a weekday afternoon? Good luck to her. Tahli nodded, anything but okay. She sat there even after her lawyer left the room, alone in all facets.

If you’re reading this, I’ve already lost you.

It was the first words of a paper Tahli almost balled up and tossed, until she caught the handwriting. Tucked under her windshield wiper on a sunny day, it stood out. Now, Tahli had to implore the clouds for Holy strength to read further.

I can’t believe we’re here, Tahli. I can’t believe after all these years of us building a life together, it’s all over. I understand it’s at my doing. It still doesn’t make it cut any less.

I’m not sure how I’ll move on without you. But I guess it’s something I’ll have to figure out.

Because if you’re reading this, it means I finally accepted that you really want this.

Regardless of what I say. Regardless of what I feel.

Of what I try to promise. You don’t believe that I can make you happy anymore.

I’ve hurt you beyond the capacity of repair.

So, I have to let you attempt to find your deserved happiness however you can.

But know that I’ll never stop hoping. I’ll never stop praying. I’ll never stop loving you, baby love.

Because if you’re reading this, you’re not my wife anymore. But you’ll always be my parachute.

Tahli crumbled to the concrete. Must have remained on that parking lot asphalt for another hour, tears soaking the unexpected letter. If the words hadn’t lifted off the paper and hailed down onto her in his voice, Tahli wouldn’t have believed that Dalvin Hayes took the time to pen a letter.

She drove home mentally scrubbing every inch of the note. Almost rearended a Honda Accord that stopped short in front of her Mercedes, as she glanced her ringing phone. Soon realized she wasn’t fit to drive. Couldn’t even remember how to exist.

It was her father’s call she ignored, sentencing herself to solitude. When the ringing ceased, the photo of her screensaver slapped her.

Three months later, and she still hadn’t changed it. A family nestled in their bliss made her face twitch. A family she no longer recognized. Vin, her, and only the children she knew about then.

The sounds, smells, and joy captured in that picture almost sucked her in, until a blaring horn snatched her from it. Tahli tapped back on her horn for no reason, no clue how long she’d been stagnant at the light.

As she drove, mentally navigating through an emotional earthquake, Tahli tip-toed back towards that time machine of a picture. It zapped her right back into that screensaver.

“ Terran, no. Don’t climb on the bars.”

A then 4-year-old Terran immediately stopped imitating the boy ahead of them in line.

But Tahli knew she was anxious. Disneyworld lines on Christmas break weren’t for the feeble, even the express ones.

For a vacation, Tahli would trade being on an island right now , e ven though she appreciated Disney’s magical holiday décor.

But this trip wasn’t about her and Vin. No, it was his surprise to their children —a flight that left right after they opened their Christmas presents.

Tahli could’ve killed him, not allowing her the opportunity to do the planning.

Instead, she chose to kiss him. He'd worked with a travel agency all on his own. The effort alone warranted praise.

They had kicked off the vacation with Tahli’s favorite park, Animal Kingdom, just yesterday. Had been her favorite park until then. Milo had complained the whole time they waited for the Kilimanjaro Safaris.

“I hate Animal Kingdom. It’s boring,” her son griped. Soon after, they were on the off-road safari truck.

“Look at the monkeys, Daddy!” Terran’s chubby brown finger pointed. “Mommy, look. They’re hugging!”

Dali, Milo, and Terran were in the front row with Terran in the middle. Vin and Tahli sat behind them.

“Aw!” Tahli cooed, until… “Oh.” She glimpsed Vin, and his amused eyes on the visual.

“Mommy, what are they doing?”

Gorilla A placed one foot up on a rock, situated behind Gorilla B to thrust into her. Tahli’s jaw sank, as Vin snickered impishly.

‘Oh, they fucking, fucking,” Tahli murmured to Vin. She watched his lips separate; dark eyes zeroed in on the scene under the brim of his ball cap.

“Vin.”

“Aye,” he snapped out of his stun. “Look…over here. On this side. Check out the uh…the um…”

“Flamingos!” Tahli saved him.

“That’s not good, monkey! Leave that other monkey alone,” Terran scolded, waving a finger, as Milo and Dali giggled.

“Hey! Look at the flamingos!” Vin boomed.

It had been a memory. Tahli even joked later in privacy that his nasty ass had gotten turned on from some gorilla pussy. Now they were in the much more predictable Magic Kingdom, and she was waiting for him to rejoin them in line.

“’Scuse me, brown skin in the white shorts…” A subtle smirk curled her lips to the words in her ear. Fingers hooked through her belt loops, pulling her back into cologne-scented strength. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“I don’t know… I’m kinda here with my husband,” she played along.

“Oh yeah? He must be dumb, or something. Leaving you alone.”

Tahli curved her head to look up into Vin’s fine face.

The envious would deem it unnatural for butterflies to still flutter for the same man all of this time later.

She still felt her belly flip when she spotted him across a room, or heard his car pull into the driveway…

or when he returned from a bathroom break with their 13-year-old daughter while waiting for a Disney attraction.

“Nah. He’s far from dumb,” Tahli warned, poking his steel chest. “And you better get out of here. ‘Cause if he sees you talking to me, he’ll kill you.”

“I think can take him,” Vin joked, flexing a muscle, and Tahli only grinned wider, adoring him behind a starry gaze.

“I don’t think so.”

“Dad, do you have the candy? Dad got us candy,” Dali bragged to Milo, but Milo barely raised his face from his Nintendo Switch. He’d been that way before Vin and Dali left the line.

Tahli was sure a bunch of pirate parents would have something to say about screen time, but it was how her autistic son braved the Disney bustle.

“Oh, Dad got us candy, huh?” Tahli teased. “Before lunch?”

Vin shrugged a broad shoulder, a little mischief in his smirk.

“It’s Disney, baby love. There’s no rules.”

“As if there’s ever rules for Dalvin Hayes,” Tahli sneered.

“Terran, don’t climb on the bars, baby,” Vin warned, dispersing the candy as Tahli gave Terran a look —o ne look of many words.

Didn’t I already tell you, words. And do it again, and there will be trouble.

Terran’s wide eyes locked with her mother’s as she happily took some fruit-flavored chew from Vin’s inked hand.

“You good?”

Milo nodded to Vin’s query, still engrossed in his game. “You wanna take a walk? Or we can use the pass for the next one?”