“What?”
“You didn’t read it at all today.”
I looked down at her, at those sharp eyes that saw right through every defense I tried to put up. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
Because I was a fucking coward. Because I didn’t want to know what else Christina had done, what other choices she’d made that I’d have to reconcile with the woman I thought I’d known. Because every page I read felt like another nail in thecoffin of whatever illusion I’d been carrying around for the past thirty years.
But I couldn’t say any of that.
“Was too focused on you,” I said instead, which was also true. Just not the whole truth.
Trudy studied me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she sat up, pulling away from me just enough to turn and face me properly. “You need to finish it.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She reached out, her hand finding mine. “Because it seems like you’re avoiding it.”
I was. Of course I was. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to leave the past buried, to stop digging up bones that were better left in the ground. I’d already learned more than I wanted to know. Already had to tell Grace things that had broken her heart all over again.
How much more could there be? How many more secrets could one woman keep?
And did I really want to find out?
“Maybe some things are better left alone,” I said quietly.
Trudy’s grip on my hand tightened. “You don’t believe that.”
“Don’t I?”
“No.” Her voice was firm, certain. “If you did, you wouldn’t have opened it in the first place. You wouldn’t have told Grace what you found. You would’ve burned it and never looked back.”
She was right. Goddammit, she was right.
I’d opened that journal because I needed to know. Because Grace deserved to know. Because Christina had left it for me, and that meant something. It had to mean something.
But knowing came with a price. Every truth I uncovered felt like another piece of Christina slipping away, replaced by someone I didn’t recognize. Someone who’d done things I couldn’t reconcile with the woman I’d loved.
Or thought I’d loved.
Because that was the real question, wasn’t it? Had I ever really loved her at all?
“What if there’s more?” I asked, my voice rougher than I intended. “What if there’s something in there that changes everything? Something that makes it worse?”
“Worse than what you’ve already learned?”
I thought about Samuel. About Christina giving her body to men she didn’t want, making deals in the dark to keep her children safe. About Caroline holding a child hostage, about the plantation and the rescue and all the blood that had been spilled.
Could it get worse than that?
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’m not sure I want to find out.”
Trudy was quiet for a moment, her thumb brushing over my knuckles. When she spoke again, her voice was gentle. “What are you afraid of?”
Everything. I was afraid of everything.
I was afraid of learning something that would make me hate Christina. Afraid of finding out she’d done something unforgivable, something I couldn’t explain away or rationalize or understand. Afraid that the more I learned, the less I’d be able to hold onto whatever good memories I had left.
