Tripp is slouched in his seat with his forearms resting on his knees as the weight of our conversation bears down on us like an immovable object. We’ve spent the last hour dissecting our every wound, tearing into pieces of our past that neither of us have ever wanted to revisit, but that we’ve only hurt ourselves by avoiding.
“I lost you,” he finally says after too many beats of silence. His head dips slightly, and when I open my mouth to speak, he quiets me with a subtle raising of his hand. “I think it happened when Paxton died. He died, and so did parts of us.”
He clears his throat, chewing at the corner of his lip. Scooting my chair closer to his, I reach for his hand, holding his tattooed knuckles to my lips as my elbows rest on the table.
“I think we were both so focused on just trying to get through it that we let go of each other,” he tells me. “I should have done more to hold onto you. I could have done more.”
I quickly and gently swipe a tear away from the corner of my eye, sniffling.
“What are youtalkingabout?” I ask him with a furrowed brow. “You’re the only reason I survived it.”
Tripp stayed by my side constantly after we lost Paxton. He flew in his older brother, who may as well be my own flesh and blood, to help us because we couldn’t turn to our parents, and I was hardly able to function.
My husband bathed me when I couldn’t bring myself to do it on my own. He sat on the floor in front of the couch and spoonfed me applesauce, just like he’d done for his sister when she was living through her own grief in their childhood.
He held my hand while I delivered our son, and he cried with me as he told me how sorry and how proud he was.
He put me on a life raft and stayed in the water.
He let himself drown so I wouldn’t.
Releasing his hand, I move to sit on his lap, wrapping my arms tightly around him as I bury my face into the crook of his neck. I don’t expect them to, but his arms snake around my waist and he squeezes me just as tightly in return.
Minutes pass in near silence while we hold each other, the only sound in the house being that of the bell inside Drumstick’s toy jingling as he chases it around the living room.
As I finally pull my head up and away from the safe and comforting warmth of his skin, he reaches to brush away my fallen tears with his thumb.
“I have to think about some things,” he tells me quietly, “but I’m home, okay? Just…I swear to God, Jules, don’t lie to me again.”
“I won’t,” I promise him with a shake of my head.
What he has to think about, I’m not sure of, and right now, I don’t know that I care. He’shome.
Taking his hand in mine, I move to pull him with me up the stairs and toward our bedroom. It’s a mess in here; blankets disheveled on top of our mattress, my snacks now littering the bedding, most of the furniture still in disarray.
In spite of that, we climb into our bed together. As I drop onto my side, I’m pulled close to my husband’s body and for the first time in too long, he holds me tightly.
Kissing me.
Fucking me.
Making the world melt away.
Chapter 21
TRIPP
2 Years Ago
It’s always quiet here.
We don’t have a noisy house. We don’t play much music unless we have friends over. We keep the TV at a comfortable volume when it’s on.
It’s always quiet here.
Today, though, stepping into the house with my wife’s hand held tightly in mine, the silence is heavy enough that it feels like my chest might cave in.
I don’t think either of us can take a full breath.
