Page 19 of What He Always Knew

“Okay,” I said after a moment.

“I’m sorry.”

Her cheeks tinged pink, her eyes falling to my chest, but I just shook my head.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.”

Say something,I urged myself.Tell her you love her. Tell herwhyyou love her. Tell her everything she means to you. Tell her you’ve been hurting, too. Tell her the truth about what she thinks she knows. Tell her it’s killing you that she’s in your arms thinking about him.

But the words wouldn’t come.

Charlie forced a small smile, one that fell quickly as she lifted to plant a quick kiss on my lips. Then, she rolled out from under me, grabbing a nightgown from her top dresser drawer and disappearing into the bathroom.

I wasn’t sure how long I laid there, but it was long after Charlie had come back from the bathroom, long after she’d turned down the lights, and long after her breaths had steadied out as she fell asleep. I was still there in that same spot, fully dressed, and it felt like the first time I’d blinked in hours when I finally came to around midnight.

The thoughts that swirled in my head during that time were like the nastiest tornado, sweeping me up at the granular level before funneling me up into the catastrophic tunnel above. I thought of the time I had left, the time I’d wasted, the woman I loved, the woman who didn’t just love me anymore. Up and up I went, further into the storm, each thought worse than the one before it as I let the worst-case scenarios play out in front of me.

I could try as hard as I could, and still lose her.

I could lose her to him.

And the worst part was that I felt helpless, like even though I’d asked for time to bring her back to me, there was no possible way to do it. How could I make her stay when I couldn’t open my mouth and give her the reasons, when I couldn’t tell her all the things she needed to hear?

I climbed out of bed quietly, careful not to wake Charlie as I changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt and made my way downstairs. I slipped into my office after making a cup of tea, and the steam was the only thing that warmed me as I pulled up the search engine window on my computer.

If I was to lose Charlie, I’d be damned if I’d do it still holding onto words I needed to say, to truths that could possibly make her stay.

So, for the first time in my life, I buried my pride and faced my fear.

I booked an appointment with a therapist.

Reese

A week and a half after the disastrous night at The Kinky Starfish, I drank coffee at my kitchen island while Blake packed up her things for the weekend.

“I’ll be back Sunday afternoon,” she assured me again, stuffing her tablet into her backpack. “Call me if you need me to get anything on my way home.”

Home. I hated that she called my house that.

“I will.”

“Are you sure you can’t come with me?” she asked again, pulling her long blonde hair over her shoulder as she assessed her bags.

“Sorry, I’ve got a couple of tutoring sessions tomorrow afternoon,” I lied.

The truth was, I’d cleared my schedule for the weekend in hopes I could steal Charlie away. It had been nine long days and nights since we’d fought, since she’d found out about Blake, and I was so desperate to get her alone I was ready to lock her in the janitor’s closet at school.

She’d barely said two words to me since that night, and it was slowly killing me from the inside out. I had no idea what Cameron was doing when he had her alone, but I knew it wasn’t anything working in my favor.

Charlie and I had had the most perfect weekend together. We’d figured everything out. She’d finally admitted that she loved me, and we were going to be together. We just were. It didn’t even scare me that Cameron wanted two months — not really — because I knew there was nothing he could say or do that could erase how Charlie felt for me.

At least, I hoped.

But then, everything went up in flames the night of the dinner. Blake had thrown the biggest, ugliest wrench in our plan to be together, and now everything I’d built was in danger of crashing to the cold, hard ground below.

Charlie was right — why should she believe me when I’d kept the biggest secret of all from her? Why should she trust me with her heart any more than she trusted Cameron?

The more the days dragged on without her feeling that connection from me, the more time Charlie spent with Cameron and away from me, the more worried I became. And I realized that it wasn’t just two months for Cameron, it was two months forme, too — to make that rocky foundation we’d started on a more sound and solid one, one she could depend on.