“You can tell me, Luc,” she whispers reassuringly against my chest.
“I slept with her. I have no idea who she was or even what she looked like, but I had sex with her that night.” Lia’s only reaction to my admission is the slight stiffening of her body. Maybe she had hoped at the last minute I hadn’t gone through with it, but now she knows better. I’d screwed around on my pregnant fiancée. “Somehow, I made it back home later on. I remember Cassie being asleep on the sofa, which wasn’t unusual. She often did that when she was angry with me, which was most of the time by that point. I went to the bedroom and passed out. I woke to find Cassie on top of me. She had turned the light on, and I was struggling to see through the sudden glare. She was asking me if this was how I fucked that girl. I remember wondering how she could possibly know what I’d done. I told her I was sorry and she just looked down at me and laughed. The sound scared the hell out of me. Then before I could process what was happening, she got right in my face and said, ‘Don’t ever forget that you made me do this. This is all your fault.’ She kept chanting that over and over, ‘All your fault. All your fault.’”
Lia wrenched from my arms suddenly, jumping to her feet. She looks deathly pale. “Dear God, Luc, what did she do?” She raised a hand to rub her neck as if feeling the knife that penetrated my own. I wish my answer could be that obvious. Cassie tried to kill me, but I lived. Maybe Lia would even believe I deserved it after cheating on Cassie. A violent, but fitting type of justice. What I wouldn’t give to be the only victim that night.
I sit up, put my feet on the floor, and let my hands hang between my legs. My heart is racing and my palms are sweating. I make no move to pull Lia to me again. Maybe we both need space between us for the last part of my story.
“Before I knew what was happening, there was a searing pain in my neck, almost as if it was on fire. Then it seemed as if there was blood everywhere. Something was choking me. I couldn’t breathe. I saw the knife in her hand and…fuck. She was going to kill me. I just lay there, already accepting the inevitable when suddenly she raised the knife and smiled down at me before cutting one of her wrists—and then the other. I tried to stop her, but I was so sluggish. I could barely move. Then she raised the knife one last time and brought it down…” I feel the wetness dripping down my face and am surprised to realize I’m crying.
“She killed your baby,” Lia sobbed from somewhere beside me. She crawls between my knees and puts her head on my lap as she continues to cry. I stroke her hair, offering silent comfort as my tears fall to mingle with hers.
“Aidan found us,” I manage to get out. “I have no idea if he was already home that night and we woke him, or if he got home just in time. We would have both died without him, instead of just…the baby. I’ll never know what that must have done to him, finding us like that. We’ve never spoken of it—ever. I don’t have many memories of what happened after until I woke up in the hospital. Aidan was destroyed that he hadn’t come sooner, thinking he could have stopped what happened. I was too much of a fucking coward to tell him that I had caused her to snap by sleeping with someone else.”
“How could she have known about that?” Lia asks the question that I asked myself for months afterward. It’s a piece to the puzzle that never fit. After a while, I let it go. I was guilty, so what did the particulars matter?
“I don’t know. I’m guessing that a friend saw me and called her. It’s a moot point.” I feel the anguish I’d tried to bury for years rise up to choke me. “Because I couldn’t be faithful, my child never drew a breath. Do you have any idea how much I fucking hate myself for that?”
Lia is back in my arms again. Her legs wrap around my waist and her arms wrap around my neck. She whispers low words of comfort and love that I don’t deserve but desperately need. I soak up everything she is freely offering me, hoping that her love can cleanse the black from my soul.
“Shhh, I’ve got you, baby. I love you so much, Luc, and I’m not going anywhere.” She kisses the tears that slide down my face. When we have both calmed, she softly asks, “Where is Cassie now?”
I stroke my hand up and down her back. “She’s in a psychiatric hospital a few hours from here. I didn’t press charges against her and refused to answer any questions about that night. Cassie had some type of mental break so she was going to end up institutionalized anyway. I hated her for what she did, but I couldn’t completely turn my back on her since I set the events of that night into motion. I’m her legal guardian, although I’ve turned the decisions concerning her care over to Aidan and Max.”