Page 138 of Faking Forever
“No.”
“I thought…I thought maybe after you disappeared that you’d informed your lawyer to go ahead with?—”
“No, sweetheart,” he moaned in anguish. “Fuck, Kenna, I signed those documents right after arriving in Riversend. I was in rough shape. Angry, unhappy, just so fuckingmiserable. I thought a divorce was the only solution for us. Your lawyerwas ill, apparently, which is why there was delay before you got it. Honestly, after you arrived in town, those damned papers were the last thing I was thinking about. You occupied every corner of my mind.”
“Why have you changed your mind about the divorce?” She tried to keep her crazily fluttering heart under strict control, refusing to allow herself to hope yet. “It is because you don’t like failure? You don’t like losing?”
“Kenna, the only thing I’m afraid of losing isyou.”
Chapter
Twenty-Six
The words were deliveredwith such aching tenderness it just about turned every one of her organs to mush.
“Smith, what are you doing?” Kenny moaned a little despairingly.
“I’m getting my wife back,” he informed her with a serious nod.
“We’re really terrible at being together,” she said in half-hearted protest.
“We’re evenworseat being apart. While I was up on that stupid mountain, I recognized that even when I’m in a place so still, so peaceful and beautiful, you’re always there.You’rethe stillness in my soul, Kenna. The peace in my heart, the beauty in my mind. You’re the joy in my life. And I carry you with me everywhere I go. It just took me a minute to cut through the noise and find my fundamental truth.”
Tears spilled from her eyes and streaked down her cheeks.
He slid to his knees in front of her to thumb away thosetears.
“No, my love, don’t cry.” His hands cradled her face and she dropped her forehead to his.
“I don’t know how to believe you. To believe in this. I’m still the same woman I was before coming to Riversend. The same woman you once said was impossible to love.”
He inhaled sharply at her words, his face spasming with grief and regret.
“Kenna,” he began, his voice rough. “I was angry when I said that. You know that. But I’m so goddamned sorry. I wish—God, with everything in me IwishI’d never said those words. Even as I said them I knew that they were unforgivable. And I know standing here now begging you to forgive them is a tough ask. But I wish…” His voice broke and his eyes shimmered. “With my whole, goddamned, useless heart, Iwishyou would forgive me for that lie. Because that’s what it was, Kenna. It was an ugly, cruel lie.”
He must have seen her hesitation, wariness, and doubt because the panicked sound he made was similar to a wounded animal’s.
“You’renotimpossible to love. Far from it. You own me. Heart and soul. You have since the moment I first laid eyes on you. Loving you is all I know how to do. It’s as essential and instinctive to me as breathing. I don’t…I don’t know how to function without you.”
“You managed just fine when you left me,” she reminded, feeling herself softening, but knowing that if she caved or accepted everything he said without question and this all fell apart again, she would have nobody to blame but herself. She needed to know that this was real.
“I didn’tmanage finewhen I left you,” he said with an incredulous, pained laugh that was devoid of anything resembling humor. “I was like a wounded animal. I don’t know how I managed the drive to Riversend safely. But when I got there…”
He shook his head, eyes tormented.
“I don’t even remember the first week. I was a wreck.” This time his eyes welled with remembered pain and his shook his head, dislodging a streak of moisture that slid down his cheek and disappeared into his beard. “I dragged myself to Harris and Tina’s place, sat down on their sofa, and didn’t get up again for a week.”
“What?” Her whisper was hushed, disbelieving. “I don’t understand.”
“Kenna, I stayed in our marriage as long as I did because I wanted so desperately to be with you. Only I wasn’twithyou. We were living separate lives, having terrible sex a few times a month, barely speaking… When you started going on trips without even telling me you were leaving, I recognized that we—I—couldn’t continue on like that.
“Then you came to me and spoke about having another baby when we never laughed, rarely touched, hardly spoke I couldn’t live like that. Not with you. It destroyed a little piece of my soul every day, being so close to you and never knowing you. So I left. And it fucking nearly killed me to do it. I didn’t speak for a week, didn’t shower, barely ate… Ididn’tmanage just fine without you, Kenna. I was fuckingbroken. I was onlybarelystarting to function again when you came to town.”
“Oh, my God, Smith. I didn’t…I didn’t know,” she whispered, her face wet with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“Loving you is simultaneously the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me, Kenna. But after our time in Riversend, I know that the best far,faroutweighs the bad. And if you’ll have me, Iknowthat I can make you happy.”
“I love you too, Smith. So much. But I need to know that it’smeyou want. Not some idealized, perfect version of me that you’ve created in my likeness.”
