“But I never stopped—” He broke off and cleared his throat, his grip on my shoulders loosening but not releasing. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with the emotions he was struggling to hold back. “I never stopped wanting you. Even when you pulled away from me, like you couldn’t stand the thought of me touching you. Even when you were at that gym seven days a week, changing everything about yourself like you were trying to become someone else entirely. I still wanted you. Still loved you. Still do, if I’m being honest.”
My throat burned with unshed tears, but he wasn’t done yet. The dam that had broken, and everything we’d carefully avoided for years, came pouring out.
“I didn’t just lose Levi that night. Lost you, too. Watched you slip away piece by piece and blamed myself. Every fucking day, I blamed myself for not waking up sooner. For not being able to save him. And I thought—I thought you blamed me too.”
“So you ran to the club,” I said with a brittle laugh, needing to push back against the version of truth he was serving. “Where everything’s sunshine and rainbows, and the women are always happy to see you.”
“What women?” he asked, his voice deadly calm.
“Oh, please. You can drop the act. We’re divorced now, no sense in acting like you weren’t getting your dick wet?—”
Teddy pressed me against the door, his hand locking around my jaw to hold me in place.
I’d gone too far, struck too close to something raw.
“Told you before, I never cheated on you,” he said, adopting a carefully controlled tone.
I searched his hazel eyes for signs of deception but found only raw honesty and a pain that mirrored my own.
“One woman,” he growled, baring his teeth. “Been with one woman my entire life, baby. You. Never touched anyone else, never wanted to. Even after the papers were signed, even when I couldn’t stand to be in the same state as you because it hurt too fucking much—there was only you.”
“But you were always gone,” I whispered, hating how meek my voice sounded. “Every night. Sometimes you wouldn’t come home until?—”
“Because I couldn’t stand being in that house,” he admitted, his thumb brushing away a tear I hadn’t realized had escaped. “There were reminders of him everywhere—his backpack still lying on the bench in the mudroom where he left it, the hamper of dirty clothes in the laundry room. And you—Jesus, Kels, you were like a ghost. There, but not there. Going through the motions on fucking autopilot.”
As much as I tried to convince myself things had gotten better since the divorce, a part of me still felt like a ghost, haunting an empty house that once held happy memories but was now nothing but a tomb for the family and marriage I’d lost.
“I thought if I gave you space, you’d come back to me.” Teddy pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand and exhaled slowly before forcing himself to continue. “Thought maybe you needed time to grieve without me hovering. But the space just kept growing until I couldn’t reach you anymore.”
“I couldn’t—” The admission caught in my chest, fighting against years of carefully constructed walls. “I couldn’t let you see me fall apart.”
“Why? You think I couldn’t handle it?” Teddy’s voice came out strangled. “Jesus Christ, Kelsey. You think I was that weak? That selfish?”
I wanted to pull away, to retreat into myself where it was safe, where the ugly truth couldn’t hurt anyone but me. But his body caged me against the door, and there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
“Say something,” he demanded when the silence stretched too long. “Anything.”
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“Can’t what?” He released my jaw to drag a hand through his hair, the movement sharp with frustration. “Can’t talk to me? Can’t be honest for once in your life?”
My head shook. A tiny movement, barely perceptible, but it was all I could manage. “I can’t tell you what you want to hear.”
“Don’t want you to tell me what I want to hear,” he snapped. “I just want the truth. However bad it is, just… tell me you hate me. Tell me you’ve moved on. Tell me what we’ve been doing these past few days means nothing. Whatever it is, Kels, just say it. We’ve already lost everything once. What’s left to lose?”
Everything, I wanted to scream. Because we’d found something in this blizzard. Something fragile and tentative, but real. And I was about to destroy it with the truth I’d been carrying like a stone in my chest since the night our son died.
“You want the truth?” I asked, hearing the hysteria bleeding into my voice. “Fine. You’re right. I pulled away. I shut you out. But it wasn’t because I blamed you.”
“Then why?—”
“Because I blamed myself!” The admission ripped from my throat, raw and ugly. “Because I was the one who was supposed to be watching him that night. I was the one who should have checked on him. Should have known something was wrong.”
Teddy’s face went pale. “Kels?—”
“No, you wanted honesty, and you’re gonna get it.” I was shaking now as if my body was revolting against my sudden decision to be transparent.
“I spent years being hypervigilant. Checking his meds, monitoring his moods, terrified that if I looked away for even a second—” A sob built in my throat, and I slapped my palm over my mouth, physically trying to hold back the confession. But it was too late. The truth I’d buried so deep was clawing its way out, demanding to be heard.
