These were questions I’d been trying to answer since I left the hospital. Since I’d come home to Rosewood. I tried; I really did. I started my business; I spent time with friends.
But the pain was always there. A reminder of everything I’d lost overshadowing everything I was trying to build.
Because the truth was, Iwasliving in a fantasy. Just not the one I dreamed of as a child.
Chapter Five
Chasm
She was crying.
She sat in her car and cried.
I rubbed at my chest. At the scars that covered me, because being in an explosion, followed by months of healing from burns, didn’t hurt as much as watching her cry.
I knew what today was.
I’d been following Morgan around Rosewood for three days. Three days of watching her go to work, watching her have lunch with her mom, and watching her talk to men who had no business being anywhere near my wife.
She’s not your wife anymore.
She would always be mine; I just couldn’t have her anymore. She deserved better. She deserved a life that didn’t put her in danger. A life where she wouldn’t be always looking over her shoulder.
She deserved happiness.
I couldn’t give her that anymore.
All I’d ever given her was pain.
And that pain resurfaced every fucking year on this day.
No one knew I was here but my club. I’d asked King not to notify the Sons of Hell. I wouldn’t wear my colors here. I wasn’t a biker right now. I was a husband looking out for his wife. Making sure she was safe, happy.
Only, she wasn’t.
Because she was sitting in her car in front of a lake, sobbing on the anniversary of our son’s death.
Alone.
I wanted to walk over to her car and pull her out. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and grieve with her. But I didn’t have the right to grieve. Nor did I have the right to hold her anymore.
She wasn’t mine.
Not anymore.
I’d made sure of that when I didn’t come back. When I let everyone believe I was dead. When I let her believe I was dead. I was doing it for her; that’s what I told myself. That was how I alleviated the guilt of abandoning my wife.
Of letting her grieve our child alone.
It was time we’d never get back.
The only balm was that I’d been in no shape to go to her. For weeks I was sedated; for months I was hospitalized. For years I was healing from my own shit.
I couldn’t take on hers.
I understood it made me an asshole, but she was better off without me.
Only, watching her now, she wasn’t.