Chills exploded across my skin as my back shot ramrod straight. “You remember?”
She slapped a shaking hand over her mouth and repeated from behind it, “Real or not real?”
My pulse skyrocketed as I stared at her. “Real.”
She nodded. “And the hydrangeas. In your flowerbed. I planted those. Real or not real?”
My every muscle strained under the weight of this realization; my legs were no longer strong enough to support me. I stumbled back, finding the arm of the sofa before sinking down. “Real.”
“Oh my God.” A loud laugh bubbled from her throat, her smile wide and brilliantly white.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t find oxygen in my own damn house anymore. “How?”
She shook her head, and a tear rolled from the corner of her joy-filled eyes. “I don’t know. I thought they were just dreams. And…and… Okay, what about this one? I bought Preston the Charlie Chaplin dummy for his birthday. I found it online and Cassidy gave me shit about spending too much. You got him an iPod and filled it with jazz.”
All the blood from my face drained as I became lightheaded. It was one word, but it sounded as though it had traveled across broken glass. “Real.”
She laughed again, so much fucking happiness filling her words as they rushed from her lips. “Your mom said I could scandalize you by pinching your butt and Cassidy gagged because she said your dad liked it rough. And then Tyson came flying through the front door, telling everyone he was engaged.”
Shaking my head, I lifted a hand to stop her. “Wait, no. Not real. You weren’t there when Tyson got engaged.”
She frowned. “I remember it though. We were all standing around and he gave Preston a fistful of cash and apologized for ruining his birthday. He was so excited that he left Jared outside and had to go back to get him.”
I narrowed my eyes, more confused than ever. “Real. But, Remi, those were two different events. We were over at Cassidy’s for a family dinner the night you showed her the Charlie Chaplin dummy. Shortly after…” I paused with the truth lodged in my throat.
“Bowen,” she snapped, correctly reading my hesitance. But not for the reason she was assuming.
“No, I’m not trying to find a way to sugarcoat this. It’s just…hard. The night we went to have dinner with my family, you were in a bad place.” My lids fluttered shut as the past raked down my spine. “You were spiraling. You weren’t eating or sleeping anymore. You’d gone back to obsessing about the crying woman and all-around falling apart. We spent almost every night at your place because that was where you felt safest.”
I thrust a hand into the top of my sleep-mussed hair. “I wasn’t always as patient as I should’ve been with you back then. I tried. I fucking tried. But I’m not perfect. You were my fiancée, the woman I was planning a forever with, and we had no privacy because Mark and Aaron were always around. It got to me sometimes. And on that night, I wanted one dinner with my family so something—anything—could feel normal again.”
Her smile faded as she listened, but she kept her distance even as I longed for her physical touch to ground me in the present.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You went with me.”
She twisted her lips, thoroughly confused.
I drew in a shallow breath and expounded. “That’s what you did, Remi. You either threw things at me and told me I wasn’t the boss of you or you slapped on a smile and did whatever I asked. Those were the scariest of times. I lived for the arguments because it meant at least you were still fighting. When you’d get quiet and compliant, it was because you’d already planned another way out.”
“Oh, God,” she breathed.
“Yeah,” I croaked. “So we took the dummy over there for Preston’s birthday, which wasn’t for a few more weeks. You laughed and chatted with my mom and my sister. You played with the boys. You touched me every chance you got. And then when we left, you made a point to hug every single member of my family and tell them how much you loved them.” My voice broke. “I thought it was sweet. Until three days later, after I found you bloody on the bathroom floor. That was when I realized you’d been saying your goodbyes.”
“Noooo,” she whispered. Her legs closed the distance between us. Wrapping her hand around mine, she squatted in front of me. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I should have seen it. That was on me. But sometimes I think I ignored the signs because it gave me hope that maybe there was light at the end of the tunnel after all.”
“That’s a natural human response to trauma, Bowen. Trust me, I’ve been through enough therapy to know.”
