Page 36 of Guarding Over You
“Thanks. The shortened version with Billy. We went to high school together. He was a jock who liked to party and had a reputation with the girls. Not really who I socialized with, but we knew of each other. I went away to college, returned, he did the same and we ran into each other out one night. Got talking, he said he always noticed me and I told him he was full of shit.”
“Good for you,” he said.
“He wasn’t used to someone not giving in. Maybe it made him chase me more and the more he did, the more I realized he was a nice guy under it all. Did he like to drink and have a good time? He did. Did I think he did it more than I was comfortable with? Yes. But it’s not as if he drank nonstop. He didn’t. We got engaged after a year and married and a few months after I found out I was pregnant.”
“Planned?”
“No. But we weren’t upset over it.”
At least she wasn’t, but she never knew his true feelings for years.
That the pressure to support them while she was out for three months and the cost of a child was more than he could handle when he was so young and still wanted to have fun.
“What changed? You said he had a reputation. Did he cheat on you?”
“He did, but I didn’t find that out until after I left him. He actually thought I knew and that was why I left, but it wasn’t. He was drinking more. Not just out with friends, but at night after work. He didn’t know his limits and when he hit one too many, he just was combative. Verbally.”
“So you fought more?”
“A lot. I tried not to engage when he was drinking to avoid fighting. I didn’t want Gracie to hear and get upset. But then one day I realized he was drinking all the time. There wasn’t a good time to talk to him about anything. When he was home, he was drunk, then he was high. I found the weed and we fought over that. I don’t care that it’s legal. It’s not what I want in my life. None of it was what I wanted and everything I thought he’d be like when we were kids.”
Which stood to reason why she fell for it as an adult and should have gone with her gut. Her first reaction to who Billy had been in school.
But she thought she was older, wiser and could handle him.
She could. Until she couldn’t.
“Was it only marijuana?”
“No. He was popping pills. He didn’t care what or what he mixed with the alcohol. Bills weren’t being paid. He didn’t have money and I’d ask where it was. When we’d fight, he’d throw things in the house. Not at me, but around the house and break them. Gracie woke up one night and heard it. Came down to get me and was crying.”
“I hope that was the day you left,” he said. He put the plate down. She could see he was barely holding onto his control, let alone his words.
Yet for some reason with Blaze, that lack of control in the moment didn’t upset her.
“It wasn’t. Billy apologized right away, grabbed his keys and left. He didn’t come home for two days. We talked, he said he had a problem, he needed help, and wanted it.”
“You fell for it?”
Her shoulders tensed. “I won’t be insulted over that. It was the man I married and loved. Or did at one point. Our marriagewas a mess, but he was asking for help and I couldn’t turn my back on him.”
“No,” he said. “Sorry. I probably would have done the same thing.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. You would have gotten help, but you would have left long before me and I blame myself for not doing that enough. I don’t need someone else to put it on my shoulders.”
He reached for her hand, laid his much larger one on it and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles until she loosened her fist.
He had a way about him without words. Something no one else ever had and it was exactly what she needed.
“Sorry. Go on.”
“Fast forward, he went into rehab, it worked for a bit then he relapsed. I knew it’d happen. It’s common. But I wasn’t prepared for it again when I foolishly had hope. I’d seen the signs of the drugs again. I found the empty bottles of liquor he was hiding. We had a fight, a big one. Gracie was screaming and I picked her up, left and went to my mother’s. The next day I came home and packed up stuff and moved in with them and served him with divorce papers. No more chances.”
“Good for you.”
“I’d support him with getting help, but it wasn’t in our lives. He went back into rehab and during that time he confessed he’d been cheating on me. He thought he was clearing the air for us to start over, but all he did was give me the hammer and nail for the coffin.”
“Are you divorced or just separated?”
