I’m standing at the front steps when Derek pulls up with her and drops her off. She looks good—better than I remember and that sucks. She’s wearing a loose fitting yellow sundress, which shouldn’t look sexy, yet somehow does. Her hair is down and has been brushed until it shines. She’s gained a little weight and it’s allowed her features to round out. I don’t think she’s ever looked prettier.

“You need to leave.”

“I will after I say what I came here to say.”

“We have nothing left to say to each other,” I answer, stubbornly—clinging to the small hope that if I can get her to leave quickly, I might survive this.

“Maybe you don’t, but I have things to say.”

“I don’t want to hear—”

“If you still want me to go when I’m finished, I’ll go. I’ll head back to Clancy and you’ll never see me again.”

“I can save you the time. I absolutely want you to go.”

“I see he’s back.”

“He?”

“The Aden who opened his mouth and the only thing that could be heard was anger.”

“You don’t get to pull that card, honey. You deserve everything I dish out at you and more.”

“Maybe, but the Aden I fell in love with would have at least given me the chance to talk.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. That Aden discovered the hard way what a lying, stealing, conniving little bitch you are.”

“You don’t really believe that,” she whispers, but finally I can see that she’s starting to face reality. Her face is white, her body shaking. Score one for me, I delivered the first blow and drew blood.

You would think I’d feel better about that.

“I don’t just believe it, I relive it, every damn day.”

“Then it’s over.”

“It was over two months ago when I walked out of that damn courthouse.”

“What about Jack?”

“What about him?”

“He misses you. We both do.”

“Jack doesn’t belong to me, and I sure as hell don’t want you.”

“You can just turn your back on Jack that easily?”

“I can,” I lie. I’m grieving after that little boy as much as I am his mother, there’s no way I’m telling Hope that, however.

“Then we both got fooled, because you really aren’t the man I loved.”

Loved. Past tense. Another fucking game? The truth? Does she even know the truth?

“Love. That’s rich coming out of your mouth. What would you know about love?”

“I know about the love of a parent, because I learned that from my father. I know about the love of being a mother, Jack taught me that and I learned what it meant to love another person so much that you ache when you are away from them. I know what it means to love someone so much that each breath you take is physically painful, because they aren’t there beside you. I learned that from you.”

“Just stop, Hope. You came here for nothing. Just turn around and leave.”

“I’ll leave as soon as I tell you what I came here to say.”

“If I let you say it, will you finally go and never come back?” I ask her, desperate to get her to go. She’s slowly killing me.

“Yes.”

“Then say it and get the hell out of here.”

“My aunt told me that people have a tendency to have scars when they’re hurt and those scars color how they react.”

I sigh loudly, hoping she’ll get the hint and just stop talking.

“Well, she said it more eloquently than I can. But, I was carrying scars that I didn’t even know were there. Scars left by my mother and losing my father—”

“Hope, I really don’t want to—”

“There were a lot of scars left behind by Jack’s father. I lost my Dad and my Mom was never much of a Mom. I took a chance… and I got burned… badly.”

“I don’t care, I just—”

“You said I could tell you what I came here to say. Please let me Aden. Please. It’s the last thing I will ever ask of you.”

“Finish,” I bark, mad at myself because I can’t shut her down.

“I devoted myself to Jack and that was good and bad. I was lonely, but those scars just kept growing inside of me—even if I didn’t know it at the time. So, by the time you came around, they were almost all I had left inside.”

“Hope—”

“I don’t know, but I suspect you had scars left on you. I don’t know who from, but just thinking back to the way you were, I figure your scars run as deep, if not deeper than mine, and I think maybe you’ve had yours a lot longer.”

I grunt. I can’t deny what she’s saying, but I can try and force her to either hurry and finish or fucking leave.

“When I first met you, I hated you.”

“Well congratulations, you proved that in spades.”

“You were mean, hateful, crude, and you reminded me of everything I hated about Jack’s father,” she says, and that gets my attention—even if I don’t want it to. “I was scared of you. Petrified really. I lashed back at you every time you delivered an attack, because I didn’t want to be the weak person I was with Jack’s father, but I was. Deep down, those scars were raw and you were hitting every single one of them with your attacks.”

“Perfect, so all this was my fault. Why doesn’t this surprise me? I’m going in, stay out here if you want, but I’m done.”

“I didn’t have much in life. I had Jack and I had the motel. I was barely hanging on to it, but if something happened and you took it away that would mean I had failed Jack in every way possible as a parent—as someone whose duty in life was to provide for and protect him. I was petrified you were going to sue me. It’s not an excuse, it’s not even an explanation. I just wanted you to know what was going through my mind. The paramedics assumed I was your wife and the hospital wouldn’t let me check on you—they wouldn’t even tell me how you were.”

“Like you cared. You were only concerned about being sued.”

“You’re right, I was,” she says, and that feels like a death punch. If I didn’t have so much anger inside of me, it quite literally, would have brought me to my knees.

“Because back then, you hadn’t let me in, Aden. I didn’t know you.”

“You still don’t. I became someone you invented in your sick little game.”

“Bullshit. You were real. I don’t care what you say, you’ll never convince me otherwise,” she says. Her body is shaking with conviction, as she tries to deny my words.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Hope. We never knew each other at all. You didn’t give us that chance.”

“Is that how you really feel? You don’t think anything we shared was real?” she whispers, and somehow I think it was me this time that delivered a death punch.

“Yes,” I answer, and I swear I’m so fucked-up in the head right now I don’t know if I’m telling the truth or lying. I thought it was the truth, but she’s standing in front of me and she’s the Hope I remember in my dreams. The one who laughs with me late in the night, while her body is wrapped around me. The one who plays with her son and looks over at me with love shining in her eyes.

I feel raw on the inside. Seeing her only makes that worse.

“Okay, Aden. I’ll leave,” she says, answering my silent prayer. Strange thing about that is, I feel panicked at the thought of her leaving. I beat down that feeling, she’s just messing with my head again.

She takes an envelope out of the purse on her shoulder and holds it out to me.

“What’s this?” I ask, staring at it like a three-headed snake that might strike at any time. In my experience, a woman handing you papers is never a good thing. It usually involves them demanding money.

“I thought White and your friend Gavin were insane, but now I realize they do know you better than I do.”

“You’ve talked to Gavin?”

“Briefly with White. I’m… He’s protective over you and I don’t think he trusts me.”

“Gee, I wonder why.”

“I had my attorney draw them up,” she whispers. She takes a step toward me. I back away. She looks at me and I see it. I see it, because it’s the same look that stares back at me every morning. She’s broken. She’s suffering. She feels empty.

She places the papers on the step, when it becomes clear I’m not going to take them from her.

“You may not believe me, Aden. I know what I did was horrible, I do. I was just so afraid…” she whispers.

“You should have been. You should be now!” I growl, angry at her for being here. “I should sue you and bring you to your knees for what you’ve done. No one should play God with another person. You made me into your fucking puppet.”

“Is that how you remember our time together?”

I don’t answer her. I don’t think I have an answer.

“Because I remember it as the best time in my life.”

“Get the fuck away from me, Hope,” I growl, my voice hoarse.

“I’m going. Can I ask you one question?”

“You can ask. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to answer.”

Her eyes close as she takes that from me, when they open back up I can see tears shining in them. Is this her game now?

Is she trying for sympathy?

“How can you not expect me to be terrified of losing everything, when even now your first response is to sue me? I don’t live in your world, but—”

“That’s right, you don’t,” I snarl.

“I don’t think I’d want to live where there’s so much hate that money is the only thing on your mind.”

“Just fucking leave me alone. Go!”

“My Aden wouldn’t be happy in this fancy house.”

“You never had an Aden,” I tell her, ignoring that she’s right.

“My Aden would waste away in this cold world. He laughed, he…loved.”

“Get the fuck away!” I yell, again.

“I’m going, Aden. I won’t bother you again,” she whispers, as she walks up beside me before she leaves. She doesn’t touch me, but she stands right beside me, staring straight ahead—not at me.

“You need to know,” she whispers. “The reason I kept the truth from you for so long might have started because I was afraid you were going to sue me. It quickly changed into fear that I would lose you, though. I couldn’t imagine not having you in my life. I knew it would destroy me and… I was right,” she finally whispers.

I was wrong. That’s the death punch. That’s the punch that kills and it does it so swiftly, so direct that I have to brace my feet, because it makes me stagger under the pain.

“Leave,” I order her, looking down at the ground.

She walks back toward the golf cart and I can’t breathe. My heart, my head, my fucking soul is choking on the scent of vanilla.

“I’ll walk. I can call a cab on the trip back down,” she tells Derek, and then she starts walking.

I hear the click of her shoes against the pavement. Each sound taking her further away. Each click ripping my heart open and leaving me to die.