What about Mack? He had to be utterly shattered.
I gripped the arm of the bench as my chest collapsed. Davena had warned me I’d only have one shot at life. She must’ve known it was the end.
I waited for tears as I stared at the mottled, gray sidewalk under my feet. Despite watching her grow frailer, it’d never occurred to me that . . . that she’d actuallydie.
How could this happen? How could someone leave, just like that? How could she let that happen, when we needed her here? How, how,how—
I wanted Bill. To hug him, to have him tell me it would be okay, to come home so we could cry together. And I wanted to be alone. To hide my emptiness from him. Because Icouldn’tcry. I didn’t even have the urge. Was I too cold and hardened? How could I feel everything and nothing?
I opened my mouth to tell him all of it. How much it hurt to lose someone who’d been a mother to me when my own couldn’t. How I hated that we hadn’t been there when she’d passed, or that I’d missed the true meaning in her words last week. Then maybe, when he got home tonight, I’d even share the truth behind the scar on my side, all the ugly details.
The weight of everything I held inside was suddenly greater than the pain I avoided by keeping Bill at a distance.
“Olivia?” Bill asked. “You still there?”
People passed on the sidewalk. Potted trees at the curb smelled of damp soil. Beneath me, the bench was strong and supportive.
I needed someone else to carry this grief. And maybe Bill just . . . couldn’t. Maybe that was why I shielded him from the things that haunted me most. He’d try to rationalize it all away, slipping and sliding over the parts he didn’t get so he could solve this and move on. I didn’t want that. But I shouldn’t have to do it on my own. It wasn’t fair.
Davena had asked me to try to open up. Before it was too late.
I put my head between my knees. Sometimes I could hardly keep from crying out because of all the things I held inside. Bill might think I was cold, but fear, pain, beauty, love—I felt it all. It was too much to keep inside, but I didn’t know how to speak it. I couldn’t tell Bill I was scared to love him the way he deserved. If I told my mom all the ways she’d hurt me, she’d just respond with all the fabricated ways my father was to blame. There wasn’t room for two victims in our relationship. And my dad had dealt with enough of that from her for a lifetime. He expected the emotional strength he’d instilled in me.
I steeled myself, sat up, and looked over my shoulder toward the station. I met David’s concerned gaze as he stood near the doors. He was giving me distance. To speak to my husband. Who was waiting for me to respond.
“I’m at the police station,” I said.
“What?” Bill asked. “Are you all right?”
“Mark Alvarez came to my office last night. I thought you were calling about that.” David didn’t take his eyes off me for a second. “Mark was more aggressive this time, but the cops arrived just in time.”
“Holy shit, Olivia. Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’ll tell you the whole story later, but I just gave a statement, and he’s in custody.”
“I knew that bastard would break his parole,” Bill said. “You said earlier you’re with Cooper? The detective?”
“He said he knows you.”
“I’ll give him a call now,” Bill said. “But you really shouldn’t talk to the police without me present.”
“It all happened so fast, and Cooper called us in first thing—”
“Us?”
I took a breath. If I didn’t tell Bill about David, Cooper would. “One of the bachelors from the article was in the office,” I said. “He’s the one who called the police.”
“Jesus.”
“He was just filling in some details for the piece,” I explained. “We could’ve probably done it over the phone, but—”
“Thank God you didn’t and that he was there,” Bill said. “Is he with you now? Thank him for me, all right?”
An uncomfortable knot formed in my stomach. It didn’t even occur to Bill that someone else could threaten our relationship. I’d made him feel safe in our marriage, as he’d done for me. That was not just the vows we’d taken, but also the silent contract we had—don’t rock the boat. I nodded. “I will.”
“So Mark’s in custody, right?” he sighed. “You’re not in any danger?”
I bit my bottom lip. Cooper had sounded confident that Mark’s threats were all bluster. “The detective said the gang the Alvarezes were part of won’t care enough to retaliate.”
