Page 57 of In Their Hearts
A dream that will never come true. I know I’m falling down a dark path, but I can’t stop it.
I roll over and turn my phone off. What seems like dozens of texts, missed calls, and messages. I ignore all of them.
Not now.
Not tonight.
My sobs are quiet now, drained, and empty. I clutch at the sheets, as if holding them can hold me together.
I close my eyes, and my thoughts want to pull me back to him. Clay pacing, checking his phone again, his voice calling her name, desperate and afraid.
And for a moment, a fleeting, sharp ache tears through my heart.
I allow it. I feel it. Feel it bleeding.
I can’t. I can’t fix anything tonight.
I fall deeper into the dark, into the anguish, and into the spiral.
For tonight, there is nothing but the sobs, the guilt, and the silence.
Alone.
One last thought enters my mind. Do I let Shelly win?
30
Grant
Clay is still sleeping next to me. His lashes resting against his cheeks, looking at peace. I held him close all through the night. I couldn’t rest unless I were touching him in some way. My palm on his chest, feeling his heartbeat, or my arm locked tight around his waist as if he might drift away if I let go.
My brain needed the reminder he’s right here. Alive. Breathing.
The last forty-eight hours replay behind my eyelids, over and over.
The explosion. The smoke. His lifeless body. The ambulance. The sterile hospital. The blood. The moment I thought I was about to lose him.
My heart lodges in my throat all over again.
And then—worse in a different way—he asked for her when he woke up.
His confession.
I could’ve lost him. Gone. In the blink of an eye. It’s hard to take in that he loves someone else, too.
He loves someone else.
I never thought this would happen. Yes, we like to have a woman between us occasionally, but the first time with Jo, I think I knew it was already more. This accident has me backing up in fear that he will be gone too soon.
Am I ready to share him?
I don’t love her today, not the way I love him. But Clay is right about one thing: that given time, I could grow to love her. Accept her fully as a part of us. My insecurities scream that I could lose him, but Jo doesn’t seem like the type who’s trying to take my husband away from me.
My husband wouldn’t fall for someone like that. Jo seems anything but jealous or spiteful. Not calculating or planning to shut me out.
I just need time.
The problem is, I don’t know how much or what that even looks like. I can’t offer him any reassurances, and that hurts me too.
