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That was another reason to feel like shit.

I’d missed her graduation.

She didn’t know that I knew, but I had.

Or I’d mostly missed it.

I’d gotten there in time to see her walk halfway across the stage and accept her diploma.

“When you walked across that stage,” I said softly, “I’ve never been prouder. You did all that without any help whatsoever. I still can’t believe that you did it in such a short amount of time.”

Her breath hitched as she said, “You went to my graduation?”

I twisted to lie on my side, my stupid sweatpants getting caught up in the bedclothes.

I ignored them as I said, “I was there. I was able to get out of work in time to go. But I had to go right back. It was during my lunch break. And you know how my boss is.”

I heard her sniffle, and I stiffened. “Baby? Why are you crying?”

She kept sniffling, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for her and pulling her in close. “Dory…”

“You just made my day,” she whispered brokenly. “I thought nobody cared.”

CHAPTER 15

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any more passwords left in me.

-Bram to Dory

BRAM

I thought nobody cared.

Her words from last night played over and over in my head as I talked to the lady on the phone about renting her house out for the next six months.

Then, once I was done with that, I contacted some movers that were going to be here tomorrow to start packing up our house.

Tomorrow would be the last day we would live here for a while. Possibly forever.

But that didn’t bother me.

What bothered me was that she thought nobody cared. She thought that I didn’t care.

And that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I more than cared.

I cared too much.

I cared so much that I overthought everything there was to ever think about.

Which sucked because a lot of my thinking always centered around how much better off she would be if she wasn’t shackled to a man like me.

But that was a moot point now.

I would be fixing what I’d broken.

And that started with me getting us out of the city. Away from my family. To a place that she would be comfortable. To a place that she could heal from the wounds my family, and mostly I, had inflicted on her.