She chuckles softly. "Words are just words, Nicholas. Your actions that night say otherwise."
"Let me prove it to you."
"How would you do that?" The tip of her index finger traces the outline of her earlobe. "You can't prove to me that you trust me."
"I'll bare my soul to you." I pat the center of my chest. "I know you have questions about me, about my life. Ask and I'll answer every single one with honesty."
Her eyes run over my face as she considers my offer. I know it's late. The thirty minutes she granted me ended ten minutes ago. This is when she'll flee and any chance I had of getting her back will disappear with her.
Her tongue slicks her bottom lip. "I do have a question. I want to know why that letter Briella wrote to you is covered in red specks of something that looks like…"
"Blood," I interrupt her. "That note Briella wrote me is covered in her blood. She wrote it just before her father walked into her bedroom and killed her and our unborn child."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sophia
"She was pregnant?"I try not to sound as shocked as I feel. Nicholas might have been a father right now if the mother of his child and his baby weren't taken from him. "I'm sorry."
"We had just found out that afternoon." He sits back in the chair. "We were two kids who didn't have two pennies to rub together, but we were excited."
"You didn't plan the baby?"
His mouth curves. "I was in college. Briella had just graduated high school the summer before. She was working to save for tuition. It was an accident."
I was an accident. My parents joked about it to some of their friends one night when they'd had too much wine. I heard the confession and the resulting laughs when I left my bedroom to get a snack. I wasn't more than ten-years-old at the time. I asked them about it the next day and as they both stuttered their way through an explanation about God's master plan for them, I knew from the expression on their faces that they were ashamed that I'd overheard.
"I asked her to marry me once we found out she was pregnant."
The confession stings even though it shouldn't. He loved her. He told me that weeks ago, and now that I know that there was a baby involved, it makes perfect sense why her picture is on display in his apartment. He lost what would have been his family that night.
"We didn't know how we'd make it happen," he continues, his voice cracking. "I was going to quit school and get a job. She thought she'd be able to take on more hours at the café she worked at. We were determined to make it all work."
"You would have made it work," I say with no hesitation. He's built an incredible life for himself. I don’t doubt that his talent for writing would have emerged back then too and his family would have been well provided for.
"I wanted to." He swallows what's left of the whiskey in his glass. "I said goodbye to Briella right after dinner that night and told her I'd have a surprise for her the next day."
The conversation feels intimate in a way that makes me long to hold him. He's in pain. It's a kind of pain I've never known. "What was the surprise?"
"I never played sports in high school, so my grandfather gave me his varsity ring before he died. He was the quarterback. Tough as nails on the outside, but the most loving guy you'd ever meet on the inside."
"He sounds amazing."
"He died a year after Briella did." His face softens. "But that night when I told him she was pregnant, he fished that ring out of a trunk in a closet. He gave it to me to give to her."
It's something my own grandfather would have done too. "That's a special ring."
"I have it in my pocket almost every day." He shifts in his seat as his hand dives into the front pocket of his pants. "It's a reminder of both of them."
I look down at the tarnished ring in his palm. Most people wouldn't see the beauty in it, but I do. It represents both love and loss to Nicholas. "You treasure it."
"With my life." His hand closes around it. "I couldn't wait to give it to her, so I went to her house."
I swallow. "What happened?"
He exhales heavily. "The front door was unlocked. I called out but no one answered, so I went in."
I want to stop him because I can't conceive the horror of what he must have witnessed in that house. "Were you there when he…"
