He turns his body so that he is sitting completely on the dock before opening his arms; I climb in. “All these years, I was so mad at you and I held onto that anger so I wouldn’t feel the hurt. Fuck me, Izzy. I thought you were happy, that you had moved on without even a second thought. I don’t even know how to begin processing this. I don’t know how to grieve a child I never knew I almost had.” His words are soft above my head as we sit there looking across the water that is lapping up against the shore. We silently mourn the past that was taken from us without our knowledge.
“When I lost the baby, I wasn’t in a good place, Axel. It took me a while, a long while, before I started to feel human again. At that point, I thought you were gone, Ax . . . I thought you were lost to me forever, and when I lost that baby, it was like I lost the last part of love we had.” I turned to look at him. “When I met Brandon I was vulnerable. I wasn’t looking for someone, but he knew how to play the part and he made me need him. Looking back now, I know I never loved him. I needed the love that I thought he could bring me. I was so alone. I need you to know that I never once stopped loving you Axel. Please don’t take that on your shoulders.”
He looks at me like he is looking into my soul before placing a soft kiss against my forehead. “I know, Izzy. I don’t know all of the details to your marriage, but I know you, and I believe that.”
We sit down by the lake with the cold November breeze blowing and I tell him about meeting Brandon and the early years before the abuse. Axel handles it well, only tensing up a few times. When I start to get to the bad stuff, I can feel the rage building. I gloss over a lot of the bad stuff, but by the end, he knows everything. I think he is going to blow a gasket when I tell him about the letter from June.
“She fucking told you what?!” he yelled.
“Uh. She said that you were dead. I don’t know why I believed her. I really don’t. You have to know that I would never have given up on you and on us. But, Axel? She said you were dead and I had no other way of confirming if it was true or not. It was her way of making me think the worst, and I did.”
He looks mad. No, not mad. He looks bloodthirsty.
“I will kill that bitch,” he grinds out. His eyes are flashing and his nostrils are flaring with each rapid breath.
“Seriously, Ax, can we just look forward now? No one wants to see her get hers more than I do but look where we are. We won. You and I, we are finally back to where we are meant to be. Don’t let her win. Please.” It takes a while but he calms down. We sit there in silence while he takes in everything I just told him. I can see all the emotions, from anger to resolve, cross over his face.
“I wish I would have tried harder. I keep thinking if I would have approached you when I finally found you that things would be different now. We might have more kids; I would finally have my rings on your finger. It kills me, fucking kills me,” he says when I finish explaining everything the last twelve years has brought me.
“Stop it.” I get off his lap and kneel in front of his relaxed form leaning against one of the posts supporting the dock. Taking his face between my hands and leaning in close, before I finish. “You can’t sit here and play what-if. It has taken me a long time to realize that what-ifs will never change the past, Axel. Right here and right now, you have to promise me that we look forward. No more living with what we could have had. From this day on, we are the new Axel and Izzy.”
A small smile forms on his face and some of the sadness leaves his eyes. I lean in and kiss him quickly before releasing his face and sitting back down next to him.
“Axel and Izzy, huh? That mean you want to be my girlfriend or some shit?” He laughs and it sounds like music to my ears.
“No, I just want to be yours. That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” I answer, reaching over and linking our hands.
“Princess, you have always been mine. Always. I can promise you to try, but this shit will sit heavy. You have no idea what I want to do to that motherfucker.”
“I know, but can we try? Just try to take each day as the gift it is? I finally have you back, Axel, and for once in a long time, I feel like myself again. Baby, I feel strong.”
His eyes flare as he pulls me close and plasters a kiss so full of love on my lips that the cold around us has been forgotten.
“Let’s get inside. I’m suddenly starving,” he says with a wink. We stand up and walk back into the warmth of his empty house hand in hand.
Axel
I slowly shift from the bed for the second time this morning after wearing Izzy out. Goddamn, crawling back into her tight fucking pussy was like coming home all over again. My dick starts getting hard just thinking about how rough we came together. All the emotions hung thick between us, but knowing that she was finally—fucking finally—my girl again had me feeling like I needed to mark her.