Page 33 of Faking Forever
“Watch the road, Smith.” He glowered before his head swiveled back toward the road.
“Fear? What the fuck are you afraid of? I’m not some kind of monster. I’m damned sure I never gave you any reason to fear me, Kenna!”
“Of course, you’re not a monster, Smith. I didn’t fearyou. I was just so…” She rubbed her eyes tiredly. They were gritty and sore from the dust. “I was insecure. About you.Us. We went into this marriage for a reason that no longer exists. Before my miscarriage, I felt like something you had to endure to get what you really wanted. After…I expected you to leave. Not because I think you’re a bad guy, but because I always knew I wasn’t good enough for you.”
“This is…I don’t…” He kept his eyes fixed on the road, but the frustration she sensed in him mirrored her own. Admitting things out loud that she hadn’t even admitted to herself wasn’t easy for her. It was all coming as something of a surprise to her as well. “You’re not an insecure woman, Kenna. You’re confident. Accomplished. I’m having a hard time believing this.”
“I know this isn’t the time or place to talk about this. But I don’t think we’ll have another opportunity, so I just wanted to tell you that I know…” She paused and tried to gather her thoughts, so exhausted she could barely think straight. But right now, in this car was the last time she’d ever have the chance to talk to him like this. And she wanted to make it count. “I know I excluded you. I know I isolated myself from you at a time when weshouldhave been able to lean on each other for support. And I-I’m sorry.”
His mouth thinned and his hands clenched around the steering wheel, knuckles white.
“And what are you hoping to accomplish with this apology?”
“Nothing. I just…”
“What?” The word was delivered in such an abrasive tone that it scraped against her nerve endings. “You wanted to make yourself feel better? Is it working? Do you feel better?”
“Not really.”
“And why is that?”
“You still hate me.”
“Hate is such a strong word. I don’t hate you, Kenna. You have to give a fuck to hate someone. It’s as emotionally exhausting as love. And that’s justwaytoo much bandwidth to waste on you.”
The flat, emotionless delivery of those devastating words slammed into her with the force of a semi-truck. And there was simply no coming back from that.
“Okay,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and inaudible above the sound of the Land Rover’s engine. She cleared her throat and raised her voice to repeat the word.
“Okay. I—” She stopped talking. It didn’t matter that she had more to say. It didn’t matter how she felt. He didn’t care to hear it or know it. She lapsed into silence. , hands so tightly clasped in her lap, they were going numb.
They reached the turn back onto the asphalt road, and the sudden smoothness of the ride was jarring after the bone-rattling discomfort of the last twenty minutes.
“You reallycouldhave gotten into serious trouble back there.” Smith finally broke the silence after a few minutes on the asphalt.
“I could’ve died,” she intoned bleakly. “I only had one bottle of water.”
“Stop saying that,” he told her sharply. “You would have been a little uncomfortable for a day or so, but we would’ve found you.”
“No. I’d have wandered off looking for help and gotten myself eaten by a leopard. Or bitten by a snake.”
“Since when are you this fatalistic?” Now he sounded almost amused.
“Since always. My dad used to call me his little cloud of doom and gloom. I always wanted to be his—or anyone’s, really—ray of sunshine.” Her voice was starting to slur and she sounded distant even to herself. “But that’s not in me, I guess.”
Kenny yawned. She was so tired her eyelids felt weighted down and she was having a hard time focusing. She yawned again. She just needed to rest her eyes for a little bit and she’d feel much better, she was sure. More capable of dealing with Smith’s indifference.
Chapter
Seven
“Kenna!”Smith’s deep baritone snatched her out of an uncomfortable sleep and she snapped upright in the seat, gasping when the seatbelt pulled painfully taut against her chest.
“What?”
“We’re here.”
“Where? The hotel?” She unbuckled her seatbelt and craned her neck to get a look at her surroundings. She didn’t see a hotel, only a smallish cottage.
