“By ghosting me? By making me think you’d died alongside my brother?”
“By not doing anything that would bring an ounce more of pain into your life. I break everything and everyone, Ella. That’s why they call me Chaos. It was given to me long before the military, and once I came to your brother’s defense in a bar fight and the nickname came to light, it stuck there, too. Rightfully so. I bring destruction everywhere I go. I hadn’t even met you yet, and I’d already cost you Ryan. The last surviving member of your immediate family died because I couldn’t get my shit together long enough to do my mission. I am the reason he’s dead. Did you want to keep writing to the man who got your brother killed? Should I have lied to you then, instead? You don’t give second chances when it comes to your family, remember? Even if I told you the truth, and you somehow forgave me, then keeping up with our letters, knowing I had caused his death, and that I might be the next notification you got? I couldn’t do it. You deserved to cauterize that wound and move on.”
“Move on?” I paced back and forth along the end of the table, my energy suddenly too much to contain standing. “My daughter had just been diagnosed with cancer, my brother was dead, and I had no one. Ryan left me because he had to. You chose to.”
“It was far better for you to think I died than to know the man you’d been so kind to befriend was responsible for Ryan’s death.”
“Go to hell.” I turned and headed toward the door, only to stop before I made it out of the great room. “When did you decide to come here? To carry on the lie?”
“Donahue gave me Ryan’s letter right before I was due to get out. He keeps all of our last letters. I had already chosen to stay in—there was nothing else for me. But I read the letter, and I knew I had to come. Even if it shredded my soul to be this close to you and never tell you who I was, or that I loved you, I had to come. I was the reason he was dead. I couldn’t very well deny my best friend the only thing he ever asked of me.”
“So you decided to lie.” He’d invaded my life, my heart, every molecule of my existence under false pretense. “Knowing what my father had done, what Jeff did, you still chose to lie to me.”
“I did.”
I leaned against the wall, my heart demanding I walk out the door and save whatever was left of it, while my brain fought to get every answer I could before the heartbreak consumed me. Even Jeff walking out hadn’t hurt this bad, because I hadn’t loved him like this.
I loved Beckett to the depths of my soul, in a way that consumed even the smallest bits and shadowed places I’d kept hidden from everyone else. Even the love I had for my kids connected to the way I loved Beckett, because he loved them, too.
“Did you ever think about telling me?” I turned my head slowly, somehow finding the strength to look at him.
“From the first moment I saw you,” he admitted, having moved to lean against the end of the kitchen counter, the same one we’d made love on for the first time. “It was always on the tip of my tongue, especially when you asked about Chaos. I saw the pain you were in, and part of me wondered if maybe you’d fallen for him the same way I had for you.”
“And still you let me believe he—you were dead.” I didn’t answer the implied question.
“I would get so jealous of myself, wondering why you had opened up to me when I was just a letter, but the real me had no chance. I knew from the beginning that telling you would lead to the moment we’re having right now, when you would inevitably kick me out of your life, and that meant I couldn’t do what Ryan asked and what you needed. The lie was the only way to help you. So I accepted that I would never be more to you than the guy your brother sent.”
“And then I fell in love with you.” Foolish, stupid, naive heart.
“You gave me a glimpse of the life I never thought I could have. You showed me what it meant to have a family and people who show up, and I did my best to show up for you. I can’t thank you enough for the last eleven months, and I can’t begin to explain how immeasurably sorry I am for what I’ve done to you, and what I’ve cost you. Ella, you’re the last person I would ever want to hurt.”
“But you did.” That hurt was an avalanche headed my way. I felt the rumble in my soul, saw the chilled powder descend over my common sense, even heard the warning sirens in my head. I’d fallen in love with this man, and he’d lied to me every day for the last eleven months.
Jeff promised he’d love me forever. He pretended to be something he wasn’t, and then he walked out.
Ryan promised me we’d always take care of each other. He joined the military and came home in a box.
My father promised he was just going TDY for a week or two…and never looked back. Never even asked for visitation.
Beckett…Chaos. What else had he lied about? Could I believe anything he’d said in the last year? Had he lied to the kids? Was he even telling me the truth now? Or just what he thought might earn him my mercy? Could I believe anything he’d ever tell me again?
“I am so very sorry. Forgiveness, or even understanding, isn’t something I’m expecting from you. I’m in no way worthy of it, or you. I never was.”
My heart started screaming. I was near the end of whatever strength I had and needed to get out of here before I had a complete breakdown. The look in his eyes kept my feet glued to the floor. There was no plea, no terror over what was happening to us, just sorrowful acceptance. He’d always known we would end up here. He put us through it anyway.
Was there any way to come back from this? I loved this man, and he loved me. That was worth fighting for, right? But how toxic would we be if we ever found a way past it? I would never forget what he’d done—it would always linger over us like an ominous cloud, raining down poison.
“I need to ask you one last question.”
“Anything,” he answered. How could a face so beautiful mask so much deception?
“Everything you did—the adoption, our relationship, Maisie’s graduation, Colt’s tree house—was that because of Ryan’s letter?” My breath caught in my chest, waiting for his answer. As much as he’d hurt me, I needed to know that we were real, that I hadn’t been that stupid.
“No. Ryan’s letter got me here. I wouldn’t have come without it. But the rest, Ella, that was all because I love you. Because I love Colt and Maisie. Because for this brief, shining moment, you were my family, my future, and it looked a lot like forever. I didn’t do all of that for Ryan. I did it for you. For me.”
The ten feet between us stretched endlessly and yet felt like nothing as I debated my next move. There were equal parts of love and lies between us, but my anger over his betrayal overshadowed it all.
I still loved him—both sides of him—but I’d never be capable of trusting him again. Without trust, what good was love? How could you build a life with someone if you had to question the truthfulness of everything they said and did?
“It’s not enough.” Once the words were spoken, I felt their truth ring in my soul. “You’ve looked me in the eye for nearly a year and lied to me. I shared everything I had with you—my heart, my soul, my body, and even my family—and you couldn’t even be truthful about who you are. I don’t know how to even process that. I don’t know what parts of you—parts of us—are lies or truths. I want to be strong and say that we’ll get past it, because we love each other so much, but I don’t think that’s possible. Not now, anyway. I don’t have enough strength left in me for this. Ryan’s death took it. Maisie’s diagnosis took it. I should have known you’d take it, too, but I trusted you, and now I don’t have anything left to give.”