“So you’re going to fight for her?” Nathaniel asked.
“Hell yeah,” he exclaimed. “I'm going to fight for her with everything I have, but I'm going to do it in the most respectful way I can. In the end, I wronged her, and what happens next has to be up to her. I just don’t know if I honestly stand a chance or if I'm hoping for something that’s never going to happen.”
“I think given enough time it’s going to happen,” Tobias said.
“Why?” That sounded a little desperate, but hewasa little desperate for some confidence that a future with Teresa could still be in the cards, and he’d take anything at all.
“Because she keeps glancing over at you,” Tobias replied. “I know the look. It’s the way Ava looks at Nathaniel, like she needs the reassurance of knowing he’s close by. The way Chelsea looks at Josiah, even though I doubt he’s ever going to notice that the woman is hopelessly in love with him. The way Isabella looks at me, making me feel grateful every day that she was strongenough to forgive me for my mistakes and shortcomings, and wants to be with me anyway.”
Did Teresa really look at him like that?
He felt her gaze on him, sure, and he could even buy that he made her feel safer. But making her feel safe and making her feel loved and supported were two completely different things.
Fighting for her was something he had to do, it was as important as breathing, but this couldn’t be a one-sided fight. The only way they could ever work was if they both were fighting for the same goal. And Micah couldn’t shake the fear that after what he’d done he wasn't worth fighting for.
CHAPTER 16
May6th
8:52 A.M.
“You look different today.”
Teresa startled at Chelsea’s words, wondering if the thoughts running through her mind had also been running across her face.
She’d tried to be careful, keep her expressions neutral, it was nobody else’s business what she and Micah had done yesterday afternoon, but there was every chance she could not think of sex without her face blushing, or her eyes darkening, or something else equally as obvious that would give her away.
“Uh, is that a good thing or a bad thing?” she asked, hoping that if she played it off right, then her friends would just think that it was everything going on with the trafficking ring that was weighing on her mind this morning.
And itwasweighing on her mind.
There was no feasible way to forget about the ring and what they’d done to her when most movements still caused a tug of pain across the wound on her stomach. It was getting better,the antibiotics were clearing away the infection, and in another few weeks, all that would be left was a scar that would forever remind her of her ordeal.
It would forever remind her of something else as well.
Micah.
Not just because he’d been kidnapped alongside her, but because that was where she’d learned the truth about the past.
Despite her offered forgiveness and what she’d asked him to help her with, lingering pain remained that he could think she would cheat on him and walk away with such apparent ease. Only the more time she spent with him, the more she realized it hadn't in fact been easy for him to walk away.
When he thought she wasn't paying attention, he cast her glances that were so full of pain and remorse that it made her eyes sting with tears of her own. Knowing he was truly sorry about his past choices helped a lot. As did trying to think about what she would have done if their positions had been reversed.
If she’d walked in on him having sex with four other women, would she have thought rape or cheating? Would she have stayed and confronted him? Would she have tucked tail and run?
It was easy to say she would have confronted him, but the truth was, they’d both been so young that maybe she wouldn't have made the wisest of choices.
Whatever the answer to that question, one thing she knew for certain.
Clinging to the pain wasn't worth it. It wasn't helpful. It was holding her back and keeping her present tied to her past. Her past would always be there, but it didn't have to be the central focus of her entire life.
Her future could be.
“Oh, it’s definitely a good thing,” Chelsea answered.
“A very good thing,” Ava added with an amused smile, like she knew exactly what game Teresa was trying to play and had no intention of letting her get away with it.
“I think what your friends are trying to not so subtly hint at is that they want the most current gossip,” Isabella explained.
