Love’s Suicide(52)
Author: Jennifer Foor

“We weren’t even talking!” I reiterated.

“Because you walked out on me, on us.”

“Because you were too much of a pu**y to admit that you were in love with me the whole time.”

All of the sudden it got quiet. I could hear the crickets chirping as we stared right into each other’s eyes. “Katy, you knew how I felt,” he whispered.

I shook my head. “No. I didn’t.” I threw my hands up in the air. “We’ve both made mistakes and maybe mine were worse. I can’t change the past. I can’t change that I spent years with your brother. I can’t change the fact that I ran away from what we had, and I certainly can’t change having our daughter and finding someone to take care of us when you weren’t around. You didn’t have to join the military, Brooks. You could have fought for us too.”

He tightened his lips. “I need to leave.”

I watched him walking toward his truck. “You were always good at walking away.”

He turned around and got right up in my face again. “I refuse to do this with you tonight, Kat. I’m mad and I need to take some time to calm down. I have a shift in the morning, but I can be here around three. Have my daughter dressed and ready to go.”

“You’re not taking her without me.”

He threw his hands up. “Great! Why don’t you invite your husband so we can be one big happy family?”

I was so frustrated with him. “I don’t know why I ever loved you!”

He laughed. “I feel the same way.”

It didn’t sink in that I’d said it until he was all the way down the driveway. I sat down on the step and watched him brake. I was already crying, regretting saying something so horrible to him, especially knowing that I’d never felt that way about him.

All of the sudden he was backing up his truck and getting out. I stood up and prepared to be bitched out again. We were face to face and he was furious. “Take it back.”

I had to keep myself from laughing at his comment. “No!”

He scratched his head. “You see, I can’t go to bed mad, so I’m not leaving until you take it back.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I guess you’re going to be standing here for a while then.”

“You know, I could be a real dick right now if I wanted to be.”

“Who said you aren’t already?”

He laughed. “Some things never change I see.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” My hands went right to my hips.

“You can’t lie to my face. You never could.”

I threw both hands in the air surrendering. “Fine! I don’t wish I never loved you. Are you happy now?”

He started walking away with a smile on his face, in the midst of still being angry with me. He never turned around when he spoke. Not that he needed to. I could hear him just fine. “Our daughter is beautiful, Kat, just like I always knew our kids would be. Have her ready tomorrow. I’ll be here at three thirty, and we’re going out, with or without you.”

Chapter 30

As anyone could have imagined, I didn’t get any sleep.

I tossed and turned until my head was going to explode. When I knew my frustrations and angst had gotten the best of me, I called Bobby, hoping he would pick up.

“Hello?” He sounded awake.

“Please come home.”

“Katy, it’s nearly three in the mornin’, babe. I’ll be home in a few hours. Did somethin’ happen? Are you alright?”

It made me cry more knowing that he was concerned about me, when I should have been asking him the same thing. “I don’t even know how I am. Are you okay?”

He sighed. “I’ve just been sittin’ up thinkin’ about things. It all still seems like it’s not real. One day he’s gone and then the next he’s at our front door. It don’t help that he appears to be a straight up nice guy. I still want to hate him, though.”

I laughed through my tears. “I can understand why.”

“It’s not just that he’s always been that one guy that you’ll never get over. I sat with him for a good bit and could see how torn up he was over all of this. I should have pushed you to tell him, because if I were in his shoes, I’d want to know my little girl, too.”

I was quiet for a few minutes, already settled on the fact that I’d done all of this. Both of the men in my life were torn up and I was to blame. “Bobby, I want you to come home. You never should have left. Brooks didn’t even stay for more than an hour. He put B to sleep and said goodbye. Not that I blame him, I said some pretty shitty to things him.”

“Katy, you’re both goin’ to need to sit down and straighten it all out, whether I’m there or not. You’ve got sixteen years left that you’ll have to share your daughter. If you think this is all goin’ to get better on its own, you’re blindly mistaken, darlin’.”

“I know. Brooks is hard to explain. Right now he hates me for what I did, but I know he’d never hurt me. I don’t know why and I’ve never asked him, but he doesn’t like to hold grudges when it comes to me. Brooks was always the one person who would protect me.”

“You do realize that you kept his child from him. Somethin’ like that can change a man, you know?”

“Yes, but even tonight, he started to walk away angry and didn’t leave until he had calmed down.”

Bobby stopped talking. I half expected him to have fallen asleep, being that it was in the wee hours of the morning.

“Are you there?”

“Katy, I think I shouldn’t come home for a while. Maybe you need to get things figured out first.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“The reason that man can’t hurt you is because he loves you.”

I shook my head even though I knew he couldn’t even see me. “No. He’s over feeling something like that for me. B was the last straw for him.”

Bobby chuckled. “Katy, open your eyes. He’s back from the dead. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about bein’ with him. You forget sometimes how well I know you.”

“It won’t happen. I’m married to you, Bobby.”

The line was quiet again. “Yeah, you are. For now.”

It hurt to hear him say that. My love for Brooks was forever, but it didn’t mean that I would ever want to hurt Bobby and end my marriage. Life didn’t work out the way we wanted it to. Mine had been filled with heartache for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t going to magically fix itself.