Page 85 of What He Doesn't Know

Charlie had been the one — theonlyone — to ever understand that about me.

She’d let me love her with my actions, with my hands, with early morning breakfasts and bookshelves built in her honor. She read between the lines, finding the words I could never speak aloud, and for so long, it’d been enough for her.

How stupid I was to believe it always would be.

Charlie and I used to be completely in sync. I could read her mind with one look, could feel her sadness or joy with a simple touch, could heal her by just existing.

When she got pregnant, that connection only intensified.

What we had was rare, it was special, it was unlike any kind of love I’d ever seen in my life. I sure as hell never saw it with my parents, and even my grandparents had a strained relationship. But me and Charlie? We were magic. We were made for each other, plain and simple.

And all I ever wanted, for the rest of my life, was to be her husband — and to be the father to the boys growing inside her.

Losing them changed everything.

Suddenly, I couldn’t read Charlie with just one look, or heal her with a touch. I didn’tknowhow to touch her anymore, or what to do to make her feel okay. I didn’t know the right questions to ask, or the right words to offer, and no matter how I tried to show her I cared, I always fell short.

I brought back her library, hoping it’d bring back her happiness — but in the process, I’d hidden away evidence that our boys had once existed. I’d done the same thing with offering to buy another bird when Edward died. But it wasn’t that I didn’t understand that those things didn’t fix what had happened. I did know that. But I also knew Charlie better than she knew herself.

I knew that she could get lost in books for entire days, that her eyes would light up at dinner that night as she told me about the adventures she’d been on between the pages. I knew that those birds meant more to her than anything else other than me. I saw her smile when she sang with them. I heard her laugh when she taught them new words. And whether she knew it right now or not, I knew a part of her would be missing without them now that she’d freed Jane, too.

I knew Charlie, but I couldn’t reach her.

When our sons died, the hardest part of all of it was that Charlie didn’t realize that she wasn’t the only one who lost them. I may not have cried the way she did, and I may not have spent weeks in bed, and I may not have had the right words to tell her how I was feeling — but I was hurting, too.

I lost them, too.

And I’d be damned if I’d lost Charlie.

I knew Reese was a problem the first night I met him. It’s one of those things you’re tuned into with your significant other. I knew when a guy sees her with respect and as a friend and when a guy wants more from her, when they desire her.

Reese was the latter.

But I tried to trust, tried to give Charlie space. The last thing I wanted to do was demand her not to be friends with someone she grew up with, someone close with her family, someone in the picture way before I ever was.

I tried to play it cool, and it backfired.

“Another one?”

The bartender who had been taking care of me all night interrupted my thoughts, the ones that had been torturing me all night like a horror movie on repeat.

I simply nodded, sliding my empty glass toward her. She topped it off with a sympathetic smile.

“Want to talk about it? You know, bartenders do have a reputation for also being therapists.”

I couldn’t even find it in me to chuckle. If I had words, I would give them to Charlie.

“No, thanks. I’ll take my check when you have a second.”

She smiled again, this time tapping her knuckles on the bar. “I’ll grab it for you now.”

I sipped the amber liquid she’d just poured, letting it take me back into the spiral of doubt, the spiral of truth. It’d been too long that I’d ignored it, too long that I’d let myself pretend everything was okay.

I hadn’t been a good husband.

I’d buried myself in work to try to forget about our boys instead of remembering them the way I should have. In turn, I’d found myself with more responsibilities at work than ever before, simply because I never said no. I’d left my wife at home to grieve alone, without her partner, without the one who loves her more than anyone. I’d been forgetful and selfish.

And now, she’d found comfort in someone who gave her what I used to.