Page 87 of Afterglow

Looking at him physically hurts, so I drop my head to my arms again. The sob that tears from my throat is too raw. I don’t want him to see me like this.

“Blondie, please.” I hear him in front of me, feel his presence, but he doesn’t touch me.

“Do not call me that.” I pull from the well of emotion until I find the anger lurking beneath the sadness. Anger is easier.

“Talk to me, please. I don’t know what’s going on, but you can tell me anything. Please, Leanne.”

I lift my head and glare at him, disgust on my face that he could say that to me. “I can tell you anything? What about you, Bryce? Can you tell me anything?”

He rears back like I slapped him, realization dawning in his brown eyes before he pinches them closed tight.

“Fuck.” He breathes the word, shaking his head as his hands form tight fists against his thighs where he kneels before me. “You heard us talking.”

Not a question, though his gaze holds multitudes of them when he finally opens his eyes to look at me.

I won’t soften under that look. I’m right to be mad. I deserve to feel this way. “Yes.”

His hands move to his head, running though his hair and destroying the swoop that was gelled into perfection earlier. The inhale he pulls through his nose is measured, like he’s trying to calm himself down… as if he deserves to be mad as well.

“What am I to you, Bryce? Just a replacement for the wife you lost? And this baby? Just a replacement for—” I hate the way my voice trembles. I can’t even get the whole sentence out.

“No. Jesus, Leanne. How can you even say that?” He’s shaking his head, sorrow and pain rearranging his features like physical blows.

“Because I don’t know you at all.”

“That’s not true,” he says, defensive. His voice is tight, somewhere on the edge between angry and pleading.

“Isn’t it?” I ask, tears continuing to drip down my face despite my rage. “I knew you lost your wife, but you didn’t think sharing you also lost a baby was relevant? How did they die?” I know I’m poking at a wound he’d rather leave alone, but I don’t care. I want to hurt him like he’s hurting me.

His sharp intake of breath tells me I hit my mark, and I hate myself for it. Hate that I do care, which might be the hardest thing to face.

“I…” He closes his eyes and his breathing increases, as though he’s reliving something behind his eyelids. “It was an accident.” His voice is so quiet I can barely hear him. “A car accident. She was twenty-six weeks pregnant. They tried…” He swallows, staring down at his knees. “They tried to save them, but her injuries were too extensive and Sam wasn’t strong enough. They were both gone before I even got to the hospital.”

He lifts his head, and I’ve never seen a man so wrecked. His face is streaked with tears and his eyes are rimmed in red. The hurt from reliving his worst nightmare and from my callous way of asking him to is clear.

I feel sick. I knew what I was doing, but watching him crumble in front of me has bile rising in my throat. They say hurt people hurt people, and I’ve never understood that better than I do right now.

I swallow over the lump in my windpipe. I want to tell him I’m sorry. As if those words can bridge the divide we’ve both caused in the last twenty minutes. But I don’t. It won’t be enough to fix any of this, and even if he says it back, it won’t be enough either.

He shakes his head. “I should have told you. I should have told you when I told you about Sarah.”

“Why didn’t you?” I ask, pleading for an answer I need and also don’t want at the same time.

“Because I was afraid. Afraid you’d come to the exact conclusion you did. That I only wanted you, wanted her”—his hands twitch like he wants to reach for our baby girl—“because of what I lost. I didn’t want you to see me as just another Craig, or as the other side of the same coin. He left because he only saw what you couldn’t give him.” He looks up and pins me with his gaze. “Tell me you aren’t sitting there thinking I’m only here because of what you can give me?”

I shake my head, but he’s right on the money with his assessment. It makes me want to vomit. I want my walls back—all the ones he’s torn down—the ones that would have kept my heart from breaking.

“But nothing could be further from the truth, Leanne. Please, believe me,” he begs, but I can’t find it in my heart to do so.

Haven’t I been hurt enough?

“You wouldn’t be here—we wouldn’t be whatever we are right now—if I wasn’t pregnant, Bryce. We never would’ve seen each other again. It’s not me you want. It’s this.” I swipe a hand out at the room surrounding us.

“That isn’t true. I have wanted you since the beginning,” he says, and I scoff, turning my face away and flicking away a tear. “I felt pulled to you from the very first moment we met. Even when you were biting my head off, I was drawn to you. Even after you left the ranch without a word, I felt connected to you in a way I never expected to feel again. I couldn’t have stayed away much longer, even if you hadn’t called to tell me you were pregnant. You were never a replacement for them. They’re a part of me still and always will be—but I love you, Leanne. I love you so much and—”

“Stop,” I croak. I can’t trust those words when I can barely wrap my head around everything else. “I don’t want… I can’t hear you say you love me right now. It hurts too much.”

His face falls and his whole body sags forward, his hands on the floor and head heavy. “Leanne, I never wanted to hurt you.”