“I remember holding your hand and reading the bracelet. It still said your maiden name, and that wrecked me more than not being able to hear. I demanded Blackie get the priest, and I asked if you believed in signs,” he says, pausing to lift his eyes to mine. “And you know what you told me?”
I shake my head.
“You told me you believed in me.”
“You,” I whisper.
It’s more than a single word.
I’m just not sure why.
“Our wedding was ruined, we survived a blast that left me temporarily deaf and caused you to go into premature labor with our son and still, you married me. Right there, in an emergency room, you took my name. It was like I could do no wrong in your eyes,” he whispers. “I made a lot of bad decisions in my life. Some I regret, some I don’t. I was never going to be a nine to five, straight-laced guy. It’s just not in my DNA. I’ve lived on the wrong side of the law since I was a teenager and I’ve accumulated more enemies than I know what to do with. The point I’m trying to make is, I never hid that from you. Nor did I hide my illness or makes excuses for it. I never pretended to be something I wasn’t and by some miracle of God, despite it all, you chose to love me. You chose to have a life with me and when things got rough, when Satan knocked on our door, you didn’t run. You stood by my side and held my hand, consequences be damned. It wasn’t easy. I’m sure there were times you hated me, times when you wished you had fallen in love with a different man, but you never let on. Until the morning of your accident you never once showed any resentment for choosing me.”
Every word, all the truths, they confirm Jack and I weren’t just lovers. We were people put on this earth with a purpose. We were part of God’s plan for one another.
“You were mad at me,” he rasps, drawing my attention back to him. “The morning of the accident,” he clarifies. “I was due to surrender.”
“Surrender?”
“I cut a deal with the district attorney. I was scheduled to do a thirteen year bid.”
My eyebrows pinch together as I try to wrap my head around what he’s saying.
“You were going to prison?”
He nods.
“What did you do?”
He shakes his head and for a moment I think he’s done sharing.
“My meds weren’t working, Reina. The doctor switched them and I was becoming sick, so sick that there were nights you had to carry me to bed and wipe the vomit from my face. I couldn’t bear that. I couldn’t have you look at me like I was anything less than the man who fucked you senseless on your kitchen floor. I stopped taking the meds and ran away with my mind. I got reckless, real fucking reckless. I made decisions that weren’t in the best interest of my club or my family and for the first time in our marriage, I brought you into the darkness. I confided all my sins to you and told you I was going to take a deal with the district attorney. You should’ve walked. You should’ve fucking run. Instead, you took my hand once more and accepted you were going to lose me for thirteen years.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Thirteen years is a long time.
“How did I accept that?”
“How did you accept any of it?” he volleys.
“Life is short and thirteen years is such a long time,” I whisper.
“It wasn’t all bad, Reina,” he murmurs, releasing my hand. Figuring he’s going to retreat, he takes me by surprise when he leans forward and cups the back of my neck with his large hand. “Like I said, there was a lot of beautiful too.”
“Danny,” I reply.
“He’s a piece of that beautiful, yeah. A great big chunk but don’t think he’s the reason we stay married. We’re bigger than that,” he says with conviction, squeezing my neck gently. “The love we got for one another, that shit don’t die. It’s rooted deep in our souls. There’s a piece of you that lives inside of me and, a piece of me that lives inside of you.”
It’s not lost to me that he’s said almost the exact thoughts I was thinking earlier out loud but my mind is too scrambled to acknowledge the irony. I have so many questions and yet I can’t bring myself to ask a single one. Fear engulfs me and not because this broken man has laid all our scars at my feet. I can’t lose him.
Not for thirteen years.
Not ever.
He’s right.
A part of me lives within him.
The greatest part of me.
