His gaze shoots to mine, pleading. I know he wants me to talk, tell him everything I can in hopes it’ll unlock the vault, but he’s too kind to ask. Even now, Steven never asks me more than once to share. And as silly as this sounds, maybe that’s our problem. I can see the agony he feels when he wants to know, but some part of him isn’t willing to ask more than once. Like some part of him assumesif she wanted me to know, she’d tell me. I’m not that way. I need more convincing. I need to check behind the shower curtain twice before I believe there’s not a murderer back there.
I sigh shakily, letting his brown eyes settle the unease inside me. “I can’t promise I’ll be able to get through all of it.” I don’t clarify, but he nods as if he already knows. Fifteen years is a lot of life to cover, a lot of good and ugly to relive—some things I swore I never would. “But I can try.”
“Are you sure?” The hopefulness gleaming in his eyes makes my chest ache. It’s boyish and innocent and so him.
“Yes. It’s the least I can do.”
“Hey.” He grips my hand. “You’re already doing so much for me. I want you to be comfortable.”
I squeeze his hand, and he takes this as an invitation to scoot closer to me.
“You really are wonderful,” he says, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “I have a feeling I don’t tell you that enough.”
I swallow the pride that forms in the back of my throat. I want to shake him and scream YOU HAVEN’T BEEN AND LOOK AT US NOW. But of course, I don’t. I shove my own feelings, and the disruption they may cause, deep down and focus on what he needs. He needs information. He needs guidance. And even if it pains me to dig up the past, I’ve gotten through it before, and I know I can again.
He watches me patiently, grabbing my legs and pulling them across his. He rubs my calves tenderly, giving me the space to share. It’s the tender familiarity of this that unravels the knot in my chest, filling me with confidence to push forward.
“It all happened fast,” I begin. “Falling for each other. It was almost scary how head-over-heels in love we were.” I laugh, remembering the many conversations I had with my family. The recurrent“be carefuls” and “take your times”I endured.
“One day, we were just hanging out, eating pizza, and the next I was giving up everything to be with you. I didn’t mind it,” I quickly add when his eyebrows furrow. “Art was a pipe dream, anyway. The dream of becoming Mrs. Dr. Steven Jones was priority.”
He snorts. “What a mouthful.”
We both laugh. “So, we were all in, meeting and getting married all within a year.”
“Wow.”
“I know.” I shake my head at the wild ride that first year was, telling him about our wedding day, about our honeymoon to Kansas City—because it was all we could afford, about us moving in together, and him starting residency. “It was a whirlwind, but the best kind,” I say.
He smiles at this, giving my legs a giddy, double squeeze.
“We waited a while to have the boys,” I add. “Resident hours were brutal, and you wanted to be around to help.” His eyes spark with a twinge of that good-father hopefulness peeking through. “The newborn phase was hard for both of us, and my anxiety got worse. I needed medication.”
“How is it now?” he whispers, his hands slowing to a stop at my knee.
“I have good days and bad days. I think it’s something that will always be there.”
“Do I…” He clamps his mouth shut, cutting off the rest of his question. I know what he’s trying to ask, though. Does he make it worse? His gaze is pinned on my knee as he fiddles with his wedding ring. The gold has dulled over time, but it still shimmers against his dark skin, twinkling like a beacon of promise.
I press on, not wanting to break his heart just yet. Because I know that’s what will happen. If I tell him he’s one of the reasons for my anxiety, he’ll rip himself apart. There are just too many fragile parts to dig into right now.
“We got through the baby stage like champions eventually, found a happy rhythm again. Then the whole Liam thing happened.” Luckily, for my sake, Liam already filled him in on that.
He rubs at his brow, groaning at himself. “I can’t believe I did that.”
“I think your heart was in the right place.” I didn’t believe this back then, but over time, and with the help of Dr. Belo, I realized this was true. Steven really was trying to do what he thought was best.
He rolls his eyes, unconvinced.
“After that, things just kept getting worse.” My words come out heavy, ladened with the grief that clung to everything around me. More fights. More tears. More heartbreak. Everything closed in on us until I didn’t know if we could get back to one another. “And for some reason, we thought having another baby would fix things.”
“Ah,” he says gently, a wistful smile tugging at his mouth. “So Josie was our solution?”
My eyes burn, instantly brimming with tears. The truth lingers there, dark and painful, and holding so much power over me that I feel my fingers shake.
“No.”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
