CHAPTER THREE

TYSON

A soft knock on my door wakes me from my slumbering sleep. Rubbing the back of my stiff neck and pushing up from the couch, I reach for the light on the table, flick it on, and let my eyes adjust.

“Goddamn, that burns.” I thunder out a few more explicit curse words and press the heels of my palms into my eyes. I need to focus. Remain sane and pull the knife out of my bleeding heart.

I remained on my deck for the longest time thinking and remembering for I don’t know how long, tossing back the golden-brown liquid until I grew tired, my heart aching as I allowed my mind to drift to my past, slamming time and time again to the ground below me. The air outside became so thick I could have vanished in it. My head ready to pop off my neck with all the stress on my troubled mind. All this wear and tear on my body has got to stop. Especially over her. A woman who didn’t love me enough to let me be the one to help her.

The knock comes again. Louder this time. I can feel their impatience with every throbbing thud on the thick piece of steel. Fucking Jude or Riddick. Those two need to back the hell off and give me the space I need. They left me alone while I was gone, but now they are climbing all over my ass. The unanswered text messages and voice messages over the past several hours are proof of it. “Well, get your shit together, asshole, and then they won’t,” I mumble, grab my t-shirt, and hoist myself up to answer the door.

“I’m coming, you motherfucker,” I grumble, swing open the door, and sober up instantly when I see who’s on the other side. A sharp jab of the knife pushes in further. I’m staring into a gaze that massacres me. Her expression is strong-minded. While mine, it has to be screaming with a vengeance shadowed in doubt. What in the hell is she doing here?

“Hello, Tyson,” Lynne says softly, her face a vision. I can’t seem to put my thoughts into words at how beautiful she is. They stumble around in my head, spin out of control, and I suck in a breath at the fact she is standing at my door. Her curvy, slender body delicate yet strong and powerful with the way she holds her head up high, her shoulders back, and those light green eyes she always claimed were darker than mine are seizing and swirling with a hundred different bleeding raw emotions. Anger compresses against my tongue. It sharpens, seizes hold, and breaks past my parched lips.

“What the fuck are you doing here? I thought I made myself clear when I said I wanted you gone and out of my life?” Slash. I hope that stung. Burned. Bled. It hurts, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what the hell I truly want right now. My mind is fucked up more than ever now that she’s here. This woman has me caught in a web. A deadly spider ready to bite, and here I stand welcoming the fucking venom to seep into my veins. Slam the Goddamn door in her face. I can’t.

“I promise I’ll stay as far away from you as I can if you’ll let me explain. You ran away from me on the beach. I’m begging you to hear me out. Please, Tyson.” Sweet God. Even with her face pinched up, her lips quivering, she is hands down the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen. I’m slowly dying. It’s painful, heartburning, and if I allow her into my home, only God knows what I will end up doing. You do nothing.

“Why in the ever-loving fuck would I listen to a word you have to say? You promised a lot of things you never followed through with, Lynne. Your word means shit to me,” I say on the fly. It’s the truth, and she knows it. How does it feel to have a knife plunged straight into your chest?

And quit fucking looking at me like that. Here gaze is traveling up and down my chest. Across my shoulders, my neck, and lands on my lips.

“I know I can’t ask you to forgive me. I’m asking you to try and understand.” Her voice creaks and agony spills from her mouth. God, I’m tired of this. The hurting, the hate. All the pain that dominates inside of my chest. I want it gone.

“Fuck,” I snarl out. Pull my shirt over my head and gesture for her to come in. I’m going to regret this. My past is at my door, assaulting me back to a time where I had my life together only to watch it be ruined in a matter of hours. I haven’t been the same man since.

Familiarity hits me when her smell assaults my nose. Slightly sharp, flowery, and sexy as fucking hell. She walks past me on those long, long legs to sit on the couch. My dick jumps. The poor bastard hasn’t seen any action since she waltzed into my life again, and up until now, I’ve refused to jack him off to her face, her body, her deliciously intoxicating mind that can’t seem to disconnect. Seeing her now with her tight ass, her tits, and her entire being in my space has me wishing to God I would have done something to ease the pain going down my spine. She’s fucking me every which she can except the one way my body craves her to.

I take her in while she studies my empty apartment. Sighing as she looks at the bare walls, the empty place I call home. She’s vague as she stares down my hollow home. Welcome to my fucking life, sweetheart. It’s all you’re doing. Dull. Dead. Empty.

“Could you sit down, please?” she asks, hands wringing in her lap.

“No, I won’t. This isn’t going to be one of your therapy sessions. I’m beyond getting anyone’s help.” Her lips tremble in a steady, fast beat before she bows her head with shame written all over it. Goddamn it. I should have never said that. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.

It’s obvious by the way her face has turned white she went to counseling after what happened to her. My heart swings back and forth regretfully in my chest. A slow and heavy pendulum. I do feel for her and everything she’s been through. I visualized it many times over the years in my head. The heartache and pain she must have endured. The probability of being alone in a fucked-up situation.

“Did you know that talking with my own therapist is what made the decision for me to become one? She helped me so much. Made me realize that what happened to me was out of my control. It was life’s plan for me all along. I want to do the same for others,” she murmurs, and fuck all if I don’t feel that tweak my heart. A pit of despair. For her. God help me.

“I didn’t.” My answer is short, it’s harsh, and if she doesn’t get on with this, I’m asking her to leave. I can’t do this. I’m stroking out. Swimming in an endless sea, drifting further away from shore. My death.

“Right. Well, here goes. I woke up excited to be going to the doctor to get on the pill, as you were aware. No more condoms. It was going to be the perfect wedding night. Just me and you and nothing in between. Laney thought I was crazy for being all giddy over some strange woman looking at me. The doctor ran all kinds of tests. Gave me my pills and I left. Two days later, they called me back in. I had no idea what was going on or what to do, so I told my parents. They both insisted on going with me. I’ve regretted every day for not telling you first. For not having you go with me instead. Things may or may not be different if I did, I don’t know. The only thing I know for sure is, it would have saved you the pain from the lie I told. You would have known the truth and made the decision yourself.” She pauses, and I need a drink.

The problem with that is, I can’t move. Hearing this from her after all this time is going to dull the hate I have for her. It’s going to fuck me up and tear me down. A part of me wants to stop her, tell her I can’t hear anymore, while the other part, the one that’s beating sense into my head, is telling me she deserves to get this out. I see clearly the woman she is; she’s tough. Any woman who has been shredded raw the way she was at such a young age and still holds her head high is as strong as a person can be.

“Anyway, by the time we got there, the doctor’s office had been cleared out. No patients, no secretary. Just Doctor McGlone and her nurse. To this day, I think my father called and somehow found out before I did. I had cancer, Tyson. An eighteen-year-old woman diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I was devastated. All I kept thinking about was you and all the talks we had about how once we were settled in life that we would start a family. Those two weeks before our wedding left me wilting away, while my father, he demanded more tests. He hired specialists to come to our home. Snuck me into the hospital to see the best doctors, and each one of them told me the same thing. If I didn’t have a full hysterectomy, I would die. The cancer would spread and kill me. All I wanted to do was curl up in your arms and have you tell me everything would be alright. That you and I would make it through this.” I stand there. A stone-cold statue. Condensing everything she exposed into summarization while her misery covers me like a cape full of sharp-pointed daggers I never expected. It’s molding to my skin, squeezing my lungs, assaulting me, and awakening parts of my body that have been dead for years.

“You were young, naïve, and I’m sorry this happened to you. I truly am. You’re right in saying you took a choice away from me that was mine to make. A choice I’ll never get back. I loved you so much, and I know you loved me; you wouldn’t have shut me out the way you did if you weren’t convinced that I would have regretted it at some point. I would have stood by your side, held your hand, and we would have fought all of it together. Your parents took your illness and twisted it to their advantage, didn’t they? They talked you out of telling me. Convinced you to not follow through with a promise you made to be my wife. They hated me from day one. Constantly saying you were young, that you could do better, and that I wouldn’t be able to provide for you. To live up to their standards. Did you know I tore that town apart searching for you? I threatened your parents, your sisters. The staff. Everyone. You simply vanished, and they forced you to do it.” I point my finger in her direction out of the anger consuming me for her parents. They did this to us, and she let them.

She has no idea how much I want to jab my finger in her chest. To make her feel the agony forcing its way out from my shredded flesh. I breathe in deeply, my lungs expanding to full capacity over divulging this stored-up information. I’m barely breathing. Floating on wobbly legs to keep me from falling.

I lift my brows, leveling my eyes with hers in a hard challenge. I could stand here and tell her how her father had me cuffed and threatened to arrest me. I could tell her that her mother spit in my face. Told me that the entire time we were planning our small, intimate wedding, she was wearing a mask of happiness over her face. Pretending to be ecstatic for her daughter. Except I won’t do that to her. I’m a man of honor, not a callous fucker out to hurt her any more than she has been.

Lynne is a smart woman. Blinded by the control of an evil man and his corrupted wife. She knows they did, and I won’t consider trying to forgive her until she admits it.

“They’re the ones who talked me into going to Mercy Hospital in Baltimore for my surgery. I wanted to tell you. I swear I did.” My face is burning with anger. She’s poking around the truth. Not spilling out what I want to hear. What I deserve.

She hated them. The things I want to say to her about them she knew. We never kept a thing from each other, so why is she beating around a bush that’s been burned down for years?

“Goddamn it, Lynne. Quit protecting them. Jesus Christ. You’re not a young woman anymore. Tell me.” She jumps at my command. Her lips start trembling, and her body begins to shake. I should feel elated over making her feel whatever agony she is feeling. I don’t. Still, it’s something I have every right to hear from her. I’ll seek my revenge for them when I’m done untangling my emotions from her.

“Yes, alright? Yes, they told me to walk away. They filled my head with lies. They told me it would be better for you and for me in the long run, to leave you before we were married. They said you wouldn’t look at me the same. That you would consider me half a woman and one day would run out on me. You would cheat and leave me because I couldn’t give you children. Is that what you want to hear? How my parents, the two people who never treated me as if I were their daughter because I hated how we lived, because I was the child who would much rather wear a pair of worn-out blue jeans and a ratted-up sweatshirt from a second-hand store instead of shopping on Rodeo Drive, or because I fell in love with a young man who lived in a foster home, deceived me? They tore my heart out right along with the parts of me that left me unable to become a mother, and I have hated them every day for it. What good is any of it going to do now, Tyson? None of it mattered when I could never give you something you wanted.” Jesus fucking Christ. There it is. The ice-cold truth. I’ve known it all along. Felt it deep. And I’m raging to yank the knife out of my chest and smash it into the black hole of the ones responsible for taking her away from me. For watching her sit here and tell me it was for my protection. What a crock of smelly bullshit.

“It matters to me. To me, Lynne. I am not your father. I would have never done what he did or still does. All I wanted was you. I should have been your shield. Me. The one who would have walked that road with you. Protected you from all the darkness. The pain, the hurt. I would have never walked away.” The urgent need to touch her has me moving forward to kneel down in front of her. I reach up and hold her tear-stained face in between my hands. I will never be able to take her pain away from her; she has to live with what she’s done. However, I can be a bigger man than her father ever will be and tell her the words she desperately wants to hear.

“I’m so sorry it has taken me this long to tell you, Tyson. You’ll never know how many times over the years I tried to gather the courage to find you and tell you that. The guilt has haunted me for years. After all this time, the cuts are still deep. I’ve bled for so long. I just…I can’t live with this anymore.” Christ, her tortured expression punctures my soul. It tears me right down the middle. Scattering parts of me everywhere.

“This is a lot to process for both of us. Give me some time. While doing that, you need to start forgiving yourself. It took bravery for you to come here and pour your heart out. To dig up old wounds and face me. Do you know how proud I am of you for that?” Her gasping wails echo around my apartment. They bleed into my walls, seep into my skin, and stop my heart. I’ve committed years to hating this woman for leaving me the way she did. For shutting me out from something no woman should have to choose to do. How can I hate her when it’s clearly written all over her that she hates herself?

“Oh, God. Please tell me you mean that? That you are not saying it to pacify me or to get me out of your life?” she stutters through her sobs.

“I’m a man of my word, Lynne. I don’t say anything I don’t mean,” I vow.

“You were always that way. So honest and trustworthy. Thank you,” she says as she extends her hands to wrap around mine. Her touch is excruciatingly familiar. I can’t stop my body from leaning into hers no matter how hard I try. The need to kiss her is stronger than the eagerness I had moments ago to touch her.

“Don’t cry anymore,” I say, my lips slowly getting closer. Her bloodshot eyes dart down to my mouth. The edges of her lips lift ever so slightly. God, her mouth was always the part of her that undid me. So many wonderful things have been spoken out of it. “It’s so hard not to want to kiss you right now.” I hope those words I said to her the first time I kissed her surface to the forefront of her memory. There’s no going back in time for Lynne and me. I’ll regret touching her, kissing her, and allowing my hands to feel her skin. So many unspoken words are still left to be said, and yet I find a hint of peace trying to surface. In time, maybe it will.

“You won’t be able to stop kissing me once you start.” I close my eyes at hearing her say what she said to me all those years ago.

“Probably not,” I repeat what I told her many full moons before.

My lips meet her cheek. Softly. Tentative at first. I’m dying here. A wish-fulfilled death to kiss her lips. I can’t go there. Not yet. Her lips burn like fire down my skin when I pull back slightly and she returns a kiss to my hand. I want her to feel the agony in my heart from missing her, losing her, and wanting badly to get to know her again. She didn’t put her trust in our love. I need time to adjust. To move past this and her lack of trust in what we had. The internal struggle of forgiveness.

I remember our first kiss as I stare into her shiny eyes. How it turned frantic, mouths pressing together, tongues entwined. She tasted as good as she felt. Sweet, loving and fuck, I couldn’t stop devouring her mouth. The beautiful girl who wanted me as much as I wanted her.

“You should go.” I release my hold on her face. I don’t miss the disappointment she’s trying to hide from me asking her to leave. “I’ll be in touch. I promise.” Those are the last words I say to her as I push myself up, watch her stand, and wipe the tears off her face.

“I’ll be waiting,” she says with a slight smile. I don’t regret her stopping by at all. The only thing I do regret is not going to her all those years ago when I first found out the truth. I wanted to so many times. Possibly more than she wanted to tell me. I fought it out of fear, further rejection, and for all the years she broke me. I wanted to die when I found out she had married. I became angry and bitter toward my best friends. Didn’t give two shits about anyone or anything after that. I became violent, out of control, and it turned into a habit I didn’t want to ignore.

Lynne was the only one in the world who made me feel as if I was good enough to accomplish anything. My grades perked up because of her. My desire to enlist and become a cop became a reality because of her, but Lynne, she turned our dreams into nightmares.

The irony of this situation isn’t lost on me that everywhere I went, every woman I fucked reminded me of her. It’s a sick feeling that twists my gut as I stand here staring at my closed door. When she left me, she took the important part of me with her. My heart. And now I see things clearly. She’s carried it with her all along.

We’ve never stopped loving each other.