"Library," I finally answered, my voice breaking.
His reassuring footsteps preceded him. His heavy tread beautifully familiar. The world may be different, his face may be slightly older, and his hair now starting to show grey. My body may be unfamiliar, our house completely unlike our former home. But Cal's footsteps, his even, solid, heavy gait made me feel warm and reassured. Comforted that my man was here.
"Oh, Pretty Eyes." He stood at the door surveying the damage. The remains of the white paper I'd torn from the books littered the floor. Piles of diaries sat on either side.
"Emily.” He walked to me, crouching down, not touching me just yet. "What happened?"
I swallowed, desperate to bring moisture to my mouth. Desperate to admit the truth.
"I discovered who I am now," I whispered, unable to look him in the eye. "And I hate her."
6
Calvin
Ipulled a weeping Emily into my arms.
She found the diaries.
I hated this. Hated she'd discovered the items I'd locked away.
I’d found the hateful things the day after her accident. I’d returned to our house for the first time in months to pack her a bag. In our bedroom, I’d found the diaries spilled out across our bed.
Reading the despair on each page, I’d been struck by how our miscommunication had escalated to this point.
I'd hidden them, wanting to shield this from her. To keep her protected from what had been our reality for as long as possible.
Fear stabbed my gut, my body turning to ice.
Would she change again?
"That's it," I whispered, rocking her gently as she sobbed. "I've got you, baby. You just let all that out. Let go of it all. There's no need to hate yourself because I love you. Collins loves you. Nick loves you. We all love you."
She cried harder at my words, her voice broken and muffled as she said something against my chest.
"What?" I asked, still rocking her. "I can't hear you, Pretty Eyes."
She tilted her head back, watching me with a sad, broken gaze. "How can you love me? I'm a monster."
I pulled her back in, allowing her to cry as I tried to process, trying to capture the right words to reassure her.
As she settled, her cries lessening, I seized my chance.
"I hid your diaries after the accident. I hid them after reading them. I hid them knowing they would fill the gaps in your memory, but also knowing the words weren't worth the paper they were written on."
I blew out a long breath, continuing to rock her, feeling her still, knowing she was listening. "If you're a monster, I'm the devil. Because I never fucking knew. Not until the accident. I never even questioned why you were doing things like fad diets and personal shopping. Just thought it was making you happy." I finally looked down at her. "I slept beside you for five years, Emily, and never once knew you hated our life. Never even fucking suspected it. It took a man in a coat after you passed out and crashed your car to tell me what was before my own eyes."
I shook my head. "You passed out, baby. Passed out on an icy patch of road and ran straight into a tree. How the fuck am I the kind of man you deserve when I never even saw how much you were hurting?"
She shuddered under my hands, pressing herself close. "I don't remember, Cal. I still can't remember any of it. This life, that time, all the things I said. I thought maybe I would. Maybe something would prompt it. But…."
"It's gone."
She nodded. "All of it. And I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse."
I didn't either. Because as much as I loved my wife, as much as I loved that I had the woman I'd fallen in love with back, I was fucking angry. Angry that she had no memory of our life together. Angry at myself for being a selfish dick who'd retreated into work rather than support my wife when she needed me. Angry I'd allowed this to happen. Angry, I'd stepped away from being the man she'd fallen in love with.
Fuck, I was angry that I thought I even had a right to be angry.
