Seeing him surprised me.
His red-rimmed eyes and unshaven face combined with the disheveled suit he wore from last night was a painful sight. He let out a breath when he saw me. One that seemed to have been pent up for hours.
I stumbled back a few steps as my own tears blurred my vision.
“Thank God you’re OK.” His gravelly voice was low as he stood in the doorway.
Time stopped as I stood there, staring at the man I was falling for.
But was scared to talk to.
“Come in, it’s freezing out there and you don’t have a coat on,” I said.
The tentative steps he took once inside were unlike him. He was usually brazen in his approach to things, uncaring of the outcome.
This time, he seemed scared as well.
He followed me deeper into the house. Once we made it to the massive family room, I looked around, not sure where we should go or what we should do. Chase seemed distraught as he rubbed his face. I doubted he slept at all the night before.
That was on me.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked.
He shook his head slightly as he stumbled around the room. When he finally turned around, his broken look gutted me. His glassy, bloodshot eyes stared through me as he seemed to deflate into the chair behind him.
With his face in his hands, his words were mumbled, but I heard him.
“I spoke to my father.”
There was suddenly a lump in my throat the size of an apple, and I couldn’t breathe or swallow. My vision went blurry and my legs weak as I reached for the chair near me. The tears welled upof their own volition, spilling down my cheeks while I remained silent.
As we both sat there, two shattered versions of ourselves, I knew this was only the beginning.
The start of either our healing…or our end.
“Chase, I can explain…” But he didn’t let me.
“Mare, let me finish.” His words were short and gruff as he said them. A voice that was tired.
All I could do was nod.
“My father didn’t want to tell me. He knew it was something you’d prefer to do.” He paused and shook his head. “Although I’m not sure about that. I think you’ve been avoiding it since we’ve started seeing each other, am I right?” He waved his hand in the air and at me before getting up from the chair and moving to the window. “I’m sorry. I made a promise to myself and you, I wasn’t going to do that.”
He continued taking in the view. The sun was almost down, the reds and oranges like fire along the skyline.
“I had no idea salt water could freeze like that,” he said.
I went to stand next to him, sharing in the scene. “The Hudson is partially frozen, the bay and the river, so it does happen.”
His hands were in the pockets of his pants. Mine were wrapped around my middle. We stood side by side, each of us fearful of what was to come.
“Mare,” he said as he turned to look at me. The green of his eyes sparkled in the light from the window.
I made sure to look directly into them and give him my undivided attention.
“You need to finish what my father started. I need to know what happened.” He reached out, unwrapped my arm from my waist, and took my hand in his. “You also need to know I’m not here to judge you. And…” His words were choked on a sob. “Thatit hurt me…so much that…you couldn’t trust me enough to tell me any of this yourself.”
The sound of his cracked voice as he tried to talk destroyed me. My floodgates opened and the tears flowed freely.
