Page 119 of Never After Us
My voice falters.My chest tightens in that awful, too-familiar way, and the fear spills out before I can catch it.
“What if I pushed him?What if I killed him?”
“Mara,” he says quietly, “you don’t actually believe that.”
“I do,” I whisper.“I tried to make him change, to be present, to show up for us.And that day—if I hadn’t pushed him—he’d still be here.Mila would have her father.I would have?—”
“You could talk about him more often,” he suggests, then adds, “But I’m thinking you can’t because there’s so much anger inside you that you?—”
“I could tell her the good things, but I’m afraid the bad will slip out,” I say, the words sagging out of me like they’ve been waiting too long.“What kind of person would I be if I told that sweet girl her father didn’t give two shits about us almost right after she was born?”
Alec’s eyes soften.It’s as if he’s listening for the truth under everything I’m trying not to admit.“It won’t be easy,” he says quietly.“But there’s a difference between being a good father and a good husband.We talk to her about the father.You don’t have to bring up the husband.And if it’s easier to say it with someone in the room to remind you who you’re talking about, then do that.Therapy for both of you could help.I never grieved my own losses, and by the age of eighteen, I was an angry ball of fists that spat fire and punched whatever or whomever pissed me off.”
He’s right—pain doesn’t evaporate just because you tried to outrun it.It grows roots when you ignore it.I glance at my aunt’s letters spread across the coffee table.Realizing, with a quiet punch of truth, that I’ve spent more time grieving her heartbreak within the past few days than facing my own.Her story pierced through me in places I didn’t even realize were hollow.My own wounds?Those I’ve tiptoed around.
It probably isn’t simple.But maybe it doesn’t have to be complicated either.Maybe it’s just time.
Alec reaches for my hand, carefully in a way I feel all the way up my arm.He lifts it, slow enough that I could pull away, but I don’t.And when he presses his lips to my knuckles, barely there, something inside me stilling and surging at the same time.
“I know it’ll hurt,” he murmurs against my skin.“But ignoring it hurts worse.You don’t want all that buried inside you.It’ll keep scraping at you every time life shifts.”
My breath wavers from the way he’s holding my hand like he’s memorizing it.
“Why do you care?”I whisper.
His gaze lifts to mine, and something bare flickers across his face.“I don’t know the full answer,” he says quietly.“But I don’t like when you hurt.”
The words undo me a little.Make me fall a little more.
Usually, I’d pull away.Deflect.Run.I’ve built a life around not needing anyone.But his hand is in mine, and—for once—I don’t want to let go.Even if this whole thing terrifies me.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper.
“Me neither.”He shrugs.“But we can learn.To heal.To love.Maybe even to find a forever.”
ChapterThirty-Eight
Mara
Since I can’t sit in a therapist’s office tonight and unpack my every emotional skeleton I have in alphabetical order, I go with the next most terrifying option—my aunt’s journals and letters.
Alec is helping.
We brew a pot of coffee strong enough to keep us awake, knowing full well I’ll regret it around seven in the morning when Mila wants pancakes and an existential conversation about frogs or hopefully something new because I’m running out of green material.I can now relate to the whole, ‘it’s not that easy being green.’
But if not now, when will I finish finding the key to ...Lina’s little vengance?
“I feel weird going through her stuff,” he mutters, flipping a page like it might leak secrets and curse him.“It’s like I’m invading her space.”
“You don’t have to,” I say automatically, even though part of me hopes he will.Being alone with these boxes feels like being handed a detonator.
“No.”He shakes his head.“It’s easier if we do this together.We can find what matters and what’s ...blah.Like this one.”He squints at a page.“‘Laura sucks.’That’s her entire entry for the day.Iconic, maybe innovating.”
I wonder what my mom did to deserve it—then realize I probably don’t want to know.
I pull a journal from the pile and open to a random page.I hate oatmeal but Mom made me eat it anyway.I scrunch my nose.I also hate oatmeal.
“What’s that?”Alec asks, narrowing his gaze.“You didn’t like something you read.Is it bad?”
