Didn’t try hard enough.
Didn’t try to fit in.
Didn’t…
The thought dies halfway through.
Because Bex didn’t change, she never lied.
Not once.
She didn’t change overnight. If anything, I did. I changed when I met her, wanting to be the kind of man she would be with. Wanting togive her everything she could dream of. I sold her on a future that I never delivered. She told me exactly how she felt from the beginning.
She told me she hated the clubhouse. Told me she didn’t feel safe there. Told me she didn’t like the way the women were treated or how some of the men looked at her. She told me she didn’t want to live like that forever. And I stopped showing up.
When was the last time we did anything just the two of us? I can try to blame it on her picking up extra shifts, but that would be a lie, because that only started when I got so busy with club business. She only started pulling away when I stopped doing the things that made her fall in love with me in the first place.
I kept telling myself things would cool down, I thought I would have time to fix what was breaking between us. And instead of telling her I missed her I told her I had fucking options. And the look in her eye when I said it, it's like she believed I would do it.Cheat on her.I could never… I haven’t been interested in another woman since I met her. Since that first day at the hospital.
But I said it and the look in her eyes when I did…
She didn’t suddenly decide she was unhappy, she finally realized nothing was ever going to change. That the promises I kept making and breaking, would never come true. And then things got worse. I failed her.
I need to find my wife.
I push myself out of bed, and the room spins slightly. My body still feels wrecked from too little sleep and too much adrenaline. It takes me a minute for my brain to catch up to the fact that I am not at the clubhouse, but in one of Four and Dani’s spare rooms.
Then I drag a hand through my hair, step back with a sigh, and move into the bathroom. I need a shower, an ice cold one to get my head straight.
We drove around looking for any clue of where she might have gone last night, what might have happened. We didn’t find anything. No trace of her, almost like she disappeared from her car.
I close my eyes and let the icy water wash over me, hoping it clears away some of the pain weighing me down, but if anything it just makes things clearer.
She did try, at the beginning. When I convinced her to move in with me, she was friendly with some of the women like Dani and Meg. She got along great with Torch and some of the other brothers. She showed up to parties… But as time passed it was like instead of her warming up to being part of the club… She started closing herself off again.
It took me so long to get her to open up to me, then to get her to the club, to get her to wear my cut… But she was opening up… and then it was like she started to shrink into herself, started to pull away.
I can see it all so clearly now, how did I miss it before? Why didn’t I ask more questions or offer to move with her until we could build the house we always talked about.
I wanted her to see all the things I loved and she ended up seeing all the reasons why people fear us and this life.
That look in her eyes when she screamed at me to take her cut. Eyes that used to twinkle when she told me she loved me.
I slam my hand against the shower, needing the water to stop… needing this feeling to… I am breathing hard when I finally step out of the shower. The realization that I fucked up in a way I don’t know how to come back from.
I step out of the room into the hallway, and my phone buzzes in my pocket. I check it automatically, still nothing from Bex. No response to the text I sent before I passed out.
No missed calls. Just silence.
The new message is from Angel.My stomach twists again, a new experience I am not enjoying.
I shove the phone into my pocket without reading the message and head downstairs.
I hear voices coming from the backyard as I make my way through the house. My stomach feels worse the closer I get to the back door.
Four is the fucking Vice President of the Dawnbreakers, and he still managed to build Dani a house off compound. Somewhere safe.
Somewhere quiet, a place where a family could actually live.