Then I saw her wedding ring set on the dining room table, alongside two tall glasses of red, and…I knew.
Valencia’s face said it all.
The tears wouldn’t stop streaming down her cheeks and within that moment nothing would ever be the same. I was too late to fix everything between us, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t suspect it.
It was my fault. My lost ability to grasp hope and my screwed up reasoning that I couldn’t escape. I didn’t believe Addilyn was alive and I still don’t. Valencia does and ultimately it’s led us to a lack of communication and a lack of love. We could be in the same room together and not mutter a single word. Whenever we were forced to, our words soon turned to rage.
No words needed to be said that night as the roses fell by my derby shoes. It’s been that way ever since. We haven’t been the same people since our baby was taken from us. It’s destroyed me. Ruined me. Killed me.
That night…Dio.
My heart split in half and when she turned my way, one single glance was enough to bear witness to the strings in her own heart snap. Separation. Equal custody. We can’t do this anymore. They all meant the same thing in the end—a life without her. A life without us.
Neither of us wanted to do it but we couldn’t continue living like we were. It needed to be done for the greater good—our children. It was why I didn’t retaliate. Why after our decision I slipped off my own wedding band, along with the nearing seven years of our history.
A godforsaken silence emerged between us. I remember it feeling as though a wall had been raised between us. I couldn’t get through to her nor could she get through to me. Just like ghosts in the night, Valencia went off to our bedroom and I remember standing in the kitchen feeling everything and nothing.
I remember the first tear slip.
I remember throwing the rings against the wall in agony.
I recall the bourbon.
The sleepless nights.
My father’s voice ringing in my ears, telling me how weak I was. I couldn’t get him out of my mind, no matter how hard I tried and despite him being dead for almost eleven years.
Now, it’s my own children’s voices that call me. They tell me to unlock the doors because they can see their Aunt Helena and their two cousins, but my entire body is so tense that I can’t fucking reach the button. I’m engulfed in numbness. I cannot move.
My chest tightens and every breath seems like a year. When I glance down at the roses now, a knot lodges in my throat. One that can’t be freed no matter how hard I swallow. I see these roses and I’m the nine-year-old boy letting them fall loose over my mother’s casket. I’m the twenty-five-year-old groom with the flower neatly pinned to my suit pocket, prepared to devote my life to Valencia Leitner. I’m the thirty-two-year-old man honoring the abridged life of my dear Addilyn.
Gripping these roses, I’m lost.
Valencia
“When was the last time you felt alive?” Dr. Michael Eross asks, peering over at me.
His navy glasses are positioned on top of his salt and pepper comb back. There is a softness in his stare and I wonder if it’s because I broke down at his last question.
I wipe away the last of my tears. “I have no idea, Michael.”
“When tragedy strikes a part of the brain seeks to shelter and protect. We often forget all about the good and focus on desolation instead. But goodness is still there. Dig deep, Valencia.”
Dig deep.
That eerie night in March burns through the back of my head at its every memory. If I close my eyes hard enough, the embers are in sight. A glowing flash of auburn crosses in a millisecond. All the pain, glory, and fear is there. Rumbling. Set alight. Elusive. Then, just like that, the fire is replaced by pure darkness. Nothing but numbness overtakes my body. I cannot feel. I cannot breathe. I cannot simply be me.
“I feel alive when I’m with my children. But I haven’t felt…entirely alive since I had my entire family together.”
“Is Giulio included in that picture?”
My gaze falls to my left hand. Holy hell. I thought I could deal with this.
When I look up, my therapist fades and I have to blink twice to comprehend if this is reality or just another fantasy.
There he is.
The man who used to be my everything, Giulio Giannotti, sits adjacent to me. He leans back in the lavish jade armchair, his broad shoulders expanding as his forearms lean on the armrests. Giulio is irresistibly handsome with that slow, sexy smile and in that tailored navy suit, just like the one he wore when he proposed.
“Do you still want me, Valencia?” My name is pure velvet on his tongue.
This has to be a fantasy. Giulio cannot be crashing my therapy session!
My mouth parts to speak but there are no words. His alluring gray-blue eyes hold me in a trance, rendering me incapable of seeing anything else but him. The promise held within his eyes takes me back to a time where it was just us. Where we were wholesome and nothing could ever break us.
It’s not enough when Giulio kneels in front of me and his hands slither through my chestnut waves. A part of me wants more. Needs more. It yearns for him to scrunch up the ends of my hair
