Cursive - By Phoebe Lane Page 0,96

I think we both need it," he said as he poured an inch of the amber liquid into each glass.

Aislynn took a sip, painfully aware of how much her throat burned. She hadn't eaten anything in the last eighteen hours, and drinking too much was out of the question. She pulled her legs to her body and wrapped her arms around it, resting her chin on her knees.

"Jace?"

"I'm here," he said, gently running his fingers through the wet strands of her hair with his free hand.

"I…I haven't told anyone else about this. You’re the only one that knows," Aislynn finally said, her eyes locked on the bottle of scotch sitting before her. His hand abruptly stopped moving.

"What? Why haven’t you told anyone?" he said with curiosity, but without a hint of accusation in his voice.

"Because fuck him, that's why," she said with palpable anger. "He killed himself and then left me alone to deal with it all. He should've known how much losing him would hurt me, but most of all he should've know how this was going to mess with my head." Aislynn felt the anger rise up in her chest like boiling milk about to spill over.

"My brain can understand that he was sick, and that he wasn't in a place where he could process and reason logically, but my heart feels otherwise," she continued. "I couldn't mourn him properly. My pain went from being about his loss to being about the guilt.

"I only had two things in my life that had held me in Texas up to that point—my job and Christopher. He was dead, and it became painfully clear to me that I couldn't work anymore after that. I lost all confidence in my abilities as a doctor. There was no way in hell I was taking responsibility for my patients' lives when I couldn't even keep my fiancé alive."

"You keep saying that, babydoc, but you were his fiancée, not his psychiatrist. It wasn't your job to save him. Even if you had found out he was sick, you wouldn't have been able to treat him anyway, right? Isn't there a rule against treating family members?"

"You don't understand—I didn't even have a clue that he was going through something like that. Nothing. Not a single ounce of suspicion. It came out of nowhere. I should've…" she said but trailed off.

"Do you know what happened? Why he did it?" he asked softly.

Aislynn shook her head in response, trying not to think about the words on that letter. "He didn't give me an explanation. Looking back, I guess he had seemed a bit distant and preoccupied the last few weeks before he died, but I assumed it had to do with work. He had been traveling a lot, trying to get some projects completed before the wedding. I had been working a lot, too, and I...I didn't see it." She hated every single one of the tears that escaped her eyes. "I couldn't bear telling his parents the truth, or even Ellie. I didn't want them to feel the pain that I…"

Jace gave her time, and she appreciated it. Aislynn took another sip of her drink, hoping it would relax her some and allow her to continue talking. There were other important things she needed to address.

"I'm sorry about walking out on you this morning. You were right. I was putting a lot of this on you, and that's not fair. I just couldn't wrap my brain around seeing Chloe here. What exactly happened with her?" she asked, and Jace stood up to grab something from the kitchen counter.

"She showed up at my door drunk out of her mind last night. She actually drove here like that," Jace explained, handing her phone to her.

"Oh…wow," Aislynn said.

"I couldn't let her get behind the wheel again, so I let her pass out on the couch. I texted you right away and explained what had happened, but Chloe found your phone and texted me back, making me think you had gotten my message."

"That b—" Aislynn said, scrolling through her texts, multiple things finally clicking in her head. "Is she the one calling you in the middle of the night from a blocked number?"

"Yeah. She's been doing that for a few weeks now. I was very clear this morning about how things stood between us, and then I kicked her ass out. I'm hoping she won't be a problem anymore."

"I'm sorry about all this, Jace."

"I'm sorry, too."

After calling the office and making