know more.
“He got his baby. And I was fine with the fact that we weren’t going to have children that way. Apparently, he was not. And now I’m in my head, and I don’t know anything, and you’re here, and I’m telling you all of this, and we’re at the start of our relationship, and I’m just making things worse. But I can’t figure things out.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t about me.” My hands slid up her arms, and I cupped her face again. “It’s not about me,” I repeated, my voice soft.
“These are things that I should have told you when and if we became an actual couple with a label and everything. Not when we were canceling a date because of my drama.”
“I have drama, too. This isn’t just you.”
“You say that, and yet I feel like you’re breaking. Like nothing’s making sense.”
“Okay, what do you need to do to have it make sense?”
“I don’t know. Why did he have to cheat on me? Why couldn’t he just tell me it wasn’t working? That he loved her more. It would have hurt, but it wouldn’t have been lies. I hate the lies. Why wasn’t I good enough?” she asked, and my heart twisted for her. I couldn’t fix this. I couldn’t bring Marshall back in order to fix things and make her not feel as if she’d been broken. I couldn’t fix anything about the situation. But I could hold her. I could try.
And so, I did. I pulled her into my arms, and I held her. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out.”
“I almost wanted to get out of the car and scream at everybody for ruining so much. They’ve ruined the memory of him. I mean, Marshall and I didn’t always get along, but we had something. He was my husband. I grieved for him. The men in uniforms came to our house and told me he was gone, and I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t make it all go away. And yet somebody else was grieving for him. Another woman missed him. A little girl wouldn’t see her father again as she grew up.”
“That’s not on you.” “But it is on me. Because what should I do with all the money that I got?”
“You’re using it to buy a house so you can start this new life of yours.”
“Maybe that little girl needs it more. Gosh, I don’t know. It feels tainted now somehow. It’s not like I earned it. Sure, I was his wife, but he wasn’t faithful. I couldn’t give him what he wanted.”
“That’s not on you,” I growled out.
“But it feels like it’s on me. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to fix it.”
“You don’t.”
“What?”
“You don’t fix it. Not yet. You breathe. You move on with your life. You make a decision whether you want to help that little girl with money or whatever. But you don’t have to be a part of any of that life anymore. You have a huge family. Not just your brothers but the Montgomerys, too. We’ll be that future for you.”
As soon as I said it, I thought maybe it was too much. She and I weren’t there yet. I couldn’t be her future. We were only figuring out our present.
“When I watched Brian die, I thought that was it. Figured I would be next, and that I wouldn’t have a chance to make another choice. That I wouldn’t be able to change my future or my path. That every moment and choice I’d made to get to the point before the shelving fell on me, and people were screaming, and Brian was bleeding out, was because of all of those choices before. And maybe they were the wrong ones.
“I couldn’t change any of it, but I had to try. Only I hid. I buried myself and my issues and pretended that I was fine, even though I wasn’t. And I got called out on it.”
She reached out this time and slowly brushed her knuckles across my chin. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“I’m sorry I had to, too. And I’m sorry you’re going through your own hell.”
“It’s not fair what happened to Brian. It’s not fair that all of this shit happened, either. But we can’t go back in time and change any of it. But maybe we can try to fix it. At least, find out where to go from here.”
“I thought I was ready for this new me, but