“My family took me back to Ireland,” she says, wiping her face with shaking hands. “They protected me. They protected Riley. And after I gave birth, they told everyone she was theirs, that she was my little sister.”
I can picture it, Aisling alone, scared, carrying my child while I was halfway across the world, convincing myself that cutting her from my life was for the best. My stomach churns.
“I didn’t have time or space for another man,” she says. “I didn’t want one. My parents let me raise Riley in the privacy of our family home—as her sister, not her mother, yes, but I built my life around her.”
She looks at me then, eyes blazing. “I never married because it would have meant leaving Riley, giving her up. And I’m fortunate enough to have a family that loves me. That would never cast me out. I only agreed to marryyoubecause I knew it would be temporary. Because my family needed this alliance. I never planned to leave her for long—only until we both got what we wanted from the deal.”
I rake a hand over my face, breathing hard. “So you married me,” I say bitterly, “without any intention of ever letting me know my own child.”
Her voice breaks. “I didn’t think you’d look at her the way you do.”
Something cracks open in my chest at that.
“I didn’t think this would happen,” she whispers. “I never dreamed that you would care about her. Never dreamed that I could care aboutyouagain.”
The room feels too small. The anger burns hot and reckless, drowning out reason.
“You stole four years from me,” I say. “Four years I can never get back.”
Her eyes flash. “You threw them away when you said you wanted nothing to do with me.”
I turn away, fists clenched, breathing hard. Grabbing my clothes, I pull them on with shaking hands, unable to stay here another second. “I need air.”
“Raf, wait,” Aisling says, panic creeping into her voice. “Please don’t go like this.”
I don’t trust myself to answer. I leave the room and shut the door behind me, the sound echoing too loudly in the hall. I walk until I’m outside, the night air slamming into me like a wall.
Silence surrounds me. And in it, the dark, ugly truth finally lands.
Aisling’s right. I did do this.
I walked out on her when she was young and innocent and needed me. I broke her heart, convinced myself it was for the right reasons, and it cost me everything.
It cost me four years of bedtime stories and scraped knees and first words. It cost me my daughter.
The anger drains, leaving something worse in its wake.
Regret.
I stand there alone with it, knowing I’ll have to live with the knowledge that I ruined our chances of being happy together—probably more thoroughly than Aisling ever could.
33
AISLING
Morning comes like a punishment. I wake to a hollow ache behind my eyes and the taste of last night still clinging to the back of my throat.
The room is quiet in a way that feels deliberate, like the house itself has decided to hold its breath. Raf’s side of the bed is cold, untouched.
He didn’t come back.
For years, I imagined how it would feel if we ever truly fought. I imagined anger, maybe even vindication.
I never imagined this crushing, nauseating guilt that coils in my stomach and refuses to let go.
I stare at the ceiling and try to remind myself why I did what I did.
I was eighteen, pregnant, unmarried, in love with a man who had just told me there was no future for us—a man who walked away without looking back. I did what I thought was right.
