Page 111 of Just Ten Seconds

“Ex-husband. Up until yesterday, I haven’t spoken to him since the day he killed Michael. Not during the trial, not even for the divorce.”

His face twitches at that last part. “You saw him,” he states.

“Yes,” I breathe. “Turns out you were right. I needed to see him one last time in order to move forward.” His bottom lip is pulled in as he takes this in. I hold up the envelope again. “I know you don’t want my sob story, but it’s here. In print for you to read. Or you could Google it, I guess. Mara Greenfield. That was my married name.”

Dean is stoically quiet. His body is as still as stone as he glares down from ten steps up, looking like a god guarding the gates to salvation.

I shake my head and swallow down my nerves. “Anyway, I’m just gonna leave this here.”

I start toward the mailbox again. I’m shivering with the feelings running through my body. I’m so nervous. And frightened.

I get to the box and open the door, about to put the letter inside, when he calls, “Mara.”

I look up with a whoosh of relief from hearing him say my name. There’s a long pause as he walks down the stairs. With every step he takes, my stomach tightens, and my heart pounds wildly in my chest. I think he’s going to stop, but he keeps walking, getting closer to me until he’s within three feet of me. Just his presence alone, this close, has me yearning from the inside out.

His hand reaches out and grabs the letter from my hands. He inspects it for a beat, looking at the size and the way it’s sealed in the back.

And then he tears it apart.

I gasp as he slowly rips it into pieces and lets the paper fall to the ground.

My eyes bolt up to his, as I’m shocked and saddened that he’d refuse to read my words. It’s what I do to Benjamin. In Dean’s eyes, I’ve hurt him as much as Benjamin hurt me.

I am his thief.

“I was up all night, reading. Every newspaper article and trial transcript. I drowned myself in your story until I couldn’t breathe anymore,” he says, looking at the fallen paper. When his eyes rise, that gorgeous navy blue is locked straight with mine. “I’m tired of reading.”

“Then, take my words, all of them. If you won’t read them, hear me out.”

“How will I know if they’re full of lies?”

“Because, despite what you think, I never lied to you.” His body flinches, so I hold my hands up to further explain, “I know my omission was just as wrong. I just need you to know that I won’t ever do that to you again. Not in any capacity. Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. Just ask.”

There’s a bird singing in a nearby tree. You’d think it was singing the sweet song of a spring day, but it’s autumn. A pretty cold day actually. Its song seems like an out-of-place beacon of hope in a time when everything else is dying.

With a pursed mouth, he appears to be working something over in his head. “Do you still love him?”

“No,” I answer easily. “I love who I thought he was. That’s the man I mourn. I know you don’t understand this, but that’s where my grief lies.”

He nods. “Just have one more question.”

I open my arms up and show him all of me. “Anything. Just ask.”

“What happened to the baby?” His question stills me. “In the transcript, there was a teddy bear, and the words you said sounded similar to what I heard you say in the meeting the first night.”

My breath hitches. This is just like Dean to not only listen to what he’s told, but to also hear what is being shouted in silence.

He didn’t just read my story.

He felt it.

“I lost it. That day. At ten eighteen p.m., the doctor told me the life inside me was gone.”

Dean runs his hands over his face and rests them against his mouth. “I don’t understand. You had a legitimate reason to be in those meetings. You were mourning.”

“How do you mourn something you never truly had? According to my mother, it was nothing more than a bunch of cells.”

“Your mother had a horrible choice of words.”