She opens her mouth, runs her tongue along her bottom lip. I don’t know why I’m doing this to her now. Maybe I think that if I remind her of how much history we have, it’ll stir her to choose me.

“I didn’t have an abortion, Caleb,” she says. “I had a miscarriage. A goddamn miscarriage!”

She swims in and out of focus as I grasp her words.

“Why wouldn’t Cammie tell me?”

“I don’t know! To keep you away from me? She was right to! We are bad for each other!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it hurt! I tried to pretend it never happened.”

I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s like the whole world is determined to keep us apart. Even f**king Cammie who’d had a front row seat to our relationship for all these years. How could she? Olivia is struggling not to cry. Her lips move as she tries to form words.

“Look at me, Duchess.”

She can’t.

“What are you going to tell me?”

“You know…” she says softly.

“Don’t do this,” I say. “This is our last chance. You and I were made for each other.”

“I choose him, Caleb.”

Her words ignite anger — so much anger. I can barely look at her. I breathe through my nose, her announcement reverberating across my brain, burning my tear ducts and landing somewhere in my chest, causing such incredible heartache, I can’t see straight.

Through my crash, I lift my head to look at her. She’s pale; her eyes wide and panicked.

I nod … slowly. I’m still nodding ten seconds later. I’m calculating the rest of my life without her. I am contemplating strangling her. I am wondering if I did everything I could … if I could have tried harder.

There is one last thing I have to say. Something I said before and was so terribly wrong about.

“Olivia, I once told you that I would love again, and that you would hurt forever. Do you remember?”

She nods. It’s a painful memory for both of us.

“It was a lie. I knew it was a lie, even as I said it. I’ve never loved anyone after you. I never will.”

I walk out.

Walk away.

No more fighting — not for her, or with her, or with myself.

I am so sad.

How many times can a heart be broken before it is beyond mend? How many times can I wish to not be alive? How can one human being cause such a crack in my existence? I alternate between periods of numbness and inconceivable pain all in the span of — an hour? An hour feels like a day, a day feels like a week. I want to live, and then I want to die. I want to cry, and then I want to scream.

I want, I want, I want…

Olivia.

But, I don’t. I want her to suffer. I want her to be happy. I want to stop thinking altogether and be locked in a room without thoughts. Possibly for a year.

I run. I run so much that if the zombie apocalypse were to happen, they’d never be able to catch me. When I run I don’t feel anything but the burning in my lungs. I like the burn; it lets me know I can still feel when I’m having a numb day. When I am having a day of pain, I drink.

There is no cure.

One Month Gone

Two Months Gone

Three Months

Four

Estella isn’t mine. The paternity test comes back. Moira makes me come into her office to deliver the news. I stare at her blankly for five minutes while she explains the results — there is no way, no chance, no possibility that I am her biological father. I get up and leave without saying anything. I drive and don’t know where I am going. I land up at my house in Naples — our house in Naples. I haven’t been here since the issue with Dobson. I leave all the lights off and make some calls. First to London, then to my mother, then to a realtor. I fall asleep on the couch. When I wake up the next morning, I lock up the house, leaving a set of spare keys in the mailbox and drive back to my condo. I pack. I book a ticket. I fly. As I sit on my flight, I laugh to myself. I’ve become Olivia. I’m running away, and I just don’t give a f**k anymore. I trace the rim of my plastic cup with my fingertip. No. I’m starting over. I need it. If I can help it, I’m never going back there. I’m selling our house. After all these years. The house where we were supposed to have children and grow old together. It will sell fast. I’ve received offers for it over the years and there are always realtors leaving their cards with me in case I decide to sell. In the divorce I gave everything to Leah so long as she left the Naples house alone. She hadn’t put up much of a fight, and now I can see why. She had something much crueler planned for me. She wanted to give me back my daughter and then take her away again. I close my eyes. I just want to sleep forever.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Birthday parties made me uncomfortable. Who the hell even invented them? Balloons, presents you didn’t want … cake with all that fluffy, processed frosting. I was an ice cream kind of girl. Cherry Garcia. Cammie bought me a pint of that and handed it to me as soon as I blew out my candles.

“I know what you like,” she said, winking at me.

Thank God for best friends who make you feel known.

I ate my ice cream perched on a barstool in Cammie’s kitchen while everyone else ate my cake. There were people everywhere, but I felt alone. And every time I felt alone, I blamed it on him. I set my ice cream on the counter and wandered outside. The DJ was playing Keane — sad music! Why the hell was there sad music at my birthday party? I slumped in a lawn chair and listened, watching the balloons bob. Balloons were the worst part of parties. They were unpredictable; one minute they were happy little balls of emotion, the next they were exploding in your face. I had a love/hate relationship with unpredictability. He who must not be named was unpredictable. Unpredictable like a boss.

When I dutifully started opening presents, my husband standing to my left, my best friend jiggling her br**sts at the cute DJ — I was not expecting the blue packaged delivery.

I’d already opened twenty presents. Gift cards mostly — thank God! I loved gift cards. Don’t give me shit about gift cards not being personal. There’s nothing more personal than buying your own gift. I’d just put the last gift card I’d opened on the chair next to me, when Cammie took a break from flirting with the DJ to hand me the last of my presents. There was no card. Just a simply wrapped electric blue box. To tell you the truth, my mind didn’t even go there. If you work really hard at it, you can train your brain to ignore things. That shade of blue was one of them. I sliced the tape with my fingernail and pulled away the wrapping, balled it up and dropped it in the paper pile at my feet. People had started to drift away and talk, getting bored with the present unwrapping show, so when I opened the lid and stopped breathing, no one really noticed.