I stare at myself in the mirror hanging over the dresser. Dark circles under my eyes are a great contrast with the redness left over from my shower-crying binge. Hopefully, my blue sundress will be a big enough distraction.
Gripping my suitcase by the side handle, I lift it onto the luggage stand and unzip it once more. Everything I packed is a crumpled mess, except for this wrinkle-free sundress. Normally, I do a little better than this because I’m used to living out of a suitcase. Dane, on the other hand, is already completely unpacked. In the reflection of the open closet, his linen shirts hang in a neat row, next to his pants and T-shirts. I know if I open the dresser, his shorts and swim trunks will be folded and put away.
He’s organized like that. Nothing out of place, if he can help it. I’ve always wondered if it’s OCD or just habits left over from his days in the military, but I’ve never asked.
Why didn’t I ask? I probably should have asked a lot more things.
Benjie’s warnings come back to me, and more than anything, I wish I could pick up the phone and call him for advice. He would never feed me a line of bullshit, just give it to me straight. It was a quality he and my mom shared. I can’t help but wonder what she would have said if she had still been here when I met Dane.
Would she have cautioned me against falling in love? I don’t think so. Even after everything that happened, I think she would have told me to go after happiness with everything I had, regardless of the risks.
Like always, thoughts of her bring an ache I can feel all the way to my bones. I move to the bed and sit, drawing up my knees and wrapping my arms around them.
She would be so disappointed in me.
The battle is not lost until your will is. I can almost hear her speaking the words.
The door to the bathroom opens, releasing a cloud of steam. Dane steps out, a towel wrapped low around his waist, just under those last two abs most men never achieve. But Dane seems superhuman in many ways.
He’s always been gorgeous, starting with that first day he walked out of the ocean like some kind of god from the sea. But that wasn’t why I fell in love with him.
Why did I fall in love with him?
Because he was another escape. Because he made me laugh. Because he made me happy at a time when I thought I would be pretending to smile for the rest of my life. Because instead of just faking living for the moment, he taught me how to do it for real, even though he didn’t know he was doing it.
He frowns when he sees me curled into a ball on the bed. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
That’s a loaded question. More like, what isn’t wrong?
Dane closes the distance between us and sits on the bed beside me, reaching out a hand to rest on my knee. “I’m sorry I was such a dick on the flight. This hasn’t been easy for me either. I just can’t keep going like we are, Kat. We’re better than this.”
I inhale, snuffling back the tears hovering just below the surface. “We probably could’ve been better than this, but I screwed everything up. It’s all my fault.”
He drops his head, and I lose sight of his eyes. “It’s not just your fault. This is on both of us.”
I shake my head, wiping away the tears that trickle over. God, who goes on vacation and wants to cry the whole time?
“There’s so much I haven’t told you.”
Dane’s chin lifts, his gaze intense when it meets mine again. “What do you mean?”
“I haven’t been honest since the beginning.”
*
Three and a half years ago
“I have to get back to work, but I’m going to talk to Dad so we can come up with a plan.”
I helped my mom into the house when we returned from an appointment with her doctor. I wanted to strangle my father for not making time to go with us so I wouldn’t have to repeat everything the doctor had told us this time.
With every appointment, they seemed to get worse. My mother, more stoic than any war hero, had taken the news without bursting into tears, which was more than I could say for myself. My tears didn’t burst, per se, but they tracked down my cheeks during the entire thirty-minute appointment.
Life as we knew it was over.
“Dad?” I called out as we entered the house.
The kitchen was quiet and his keys were gone. I’d have to check the garage to see if his car was missing too. Before I could go look, my mother laid a hand on my arm.
“He’s gone, Kat.” Her tone was quiet but certain.
It didn’t dawn on me what she meant.
“I don’t want to leave you alone right now. When do you think he’ll be back? I’ll make some coffee and work from here this afternoon.”
I moved toward the kitchen but my mom’s grip, already shaking, tightened.
In a voice that should be anything but calm, she told me, “He’s not coming back.”
“What?” My response came out incredulous, and I ditched my briefcase on the kitchen table before racing up the stairs to my parents’ bedroom. The bedroom where I’d stand outside the door on Christmas morning to wait for permission to go downstairs and stare at the tree in all its glory.
I shoved open the door and skidded to a halt inside. My father’s nightstand was devoid of his regular stack of books, one of which had been the Bible for as long as I could remember. I spun around to his dresser and yanked open the drawers.
Empty.
His closet.
Empty.
His bathroom drawers.
Empty.
After twenty-nine years of marriage, all he left behind was seventy-three cents in change, a few stray buttons, and a broken hanger.
My mother shuffled down the hallway, her movements already labored from the disease.
I lowered myself to sit on the perfectly made bed, pulled my knees up, and wrapped my arms around them. “How? Why?”
“Sometimes the men we think are the strongest aren’t capable of bearing the burdens set before them.”
I jerked up my head to stare at my mother. “You’re not a burden. How could he—”
“He told me last night that he wasn’t sure he could bear to see me when I wasn’t me.”