That sounded promising.
Or was he reading too much into what she hadn't said yet?
“Of course, you hated me. You should hate me forever,” he told her, meaning every word. Why should she ever forgive him? He hadn't even cared enough to find out the truth. His pride had been wounded, and he’d tucked tail and run, completely blocking her from his life.
Would it really have been so terrible to confront her with what he thought he knew and go from there?
The answer to that was easy.
It would have been so easy to go to her and talk it through, but he’d been a coward. A coward then and a coward every day since. Every day had been a new one, one he could have reached out to her. One he could have opened that letter and found out the truth within its pages.
“You didn't know,” she said the words like she had to force them out.
“That doesn’t change anything.”
Teresa nodded, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes that said maybe she wasn't so sure about that. Was that too much to dare to hope for?
“I still have the letter,” he blurted out. Did that matter? He wasn't sure. It could make her more upset to know he had it but hadn't read it, or it could soften her a little by showing her that he’d never completely let her go despite what he thought she’d done.
At that revelation, she startled. Then her cheeks went bright red, standing out in stark contrast to her otherwise pasty complexion. “You should throw it out,” she whispered.
“No way,” he exclaimed. The first thing he was going to do when he got back home was open that letter and read it.
“It’s no longer relevant.”
Micah very much doubted that.
In fact, he’d say the opposite was true.
If he wanted to know every drop of the storm of emotions Teresa had been battling in the aftermath of her assault, then those words would tell him all of it. It would be unfiltered, no doubt full of the rage she’d felt back then, the helplessness and sense of unfairness, all of it would be there for him to see, read, and experience.
“There is stuff in there I don’t want you to read now,” she told him, her gaze imploring. “When I wrote it, I was angry. You blocked me, and I didn't understand how the boy I loved could do that to me. I wasn't kind in what I said. Not even a little bit. But now that we’ve talked, and you know the truth, and I know why you left, there’s no need for you to read it. You should just throw it away.”
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her further, make her feel embarrassed or uncomfortable about expressing herself any way she needed to, but he also had to read those words, absorb her pain however he could.
“I deserve every harsh word you said, Teresa. I deserve it all. I deserve your anger and your hatred. I have so many wishes, so many things I want to change, to go back and redo, it kills me that I can't. Even if you stop hating me, you’ll never trust me again. This will always be between us. I know there is nothing I can do or say that can ever make up for what I did to you, what I put you through, but I am damn sure going to take care of you now. I never want to let you down again.”
The problem was, he felt like whatever he did, he was letting her down. It was clear she didn't want him hanging around, so staying to take care of her would cause her pain. But if he didn't stay and do what he should have done last time, then he was causing her more pain because she would know for sure that he was never going to be someone she could depend on.
All he knew with absolute certainty was that his place was at Teresa’s side.
So for now, that was where he intended to be, and if after she was safe and the organ trafficking ring was dismantled, she sent him away, he was going to have to find a way to live with that the same way she’d had to find a way to live without him when he abandoned her.
CHAPTER 11
May2nd
7:13 P.M.
Finally.
Home.
Teresa let out a breath as she stepped inside her apartment. It didn't matter that the place had been trashed, her peaceful little home forever tainted. Didn't matter that most of the ruined furniture had been removed, and that the carpet had been ripped up since she’d last been there, the floor underneath rough and ugly.
It didn't even matter that Micah was with her, and he sent her world into a tailspin.
This was still home.
