Page 109 of Take Her

She blinked like she couldn’t believe me. “You’re not fine—you look like a crime scene—you—” she said, and then stopped. “Baby, what did you do?”

“Nothing.” I brushed by her, careful not to stain her with anything else, heading to the bathroom.

“This isn’t nothing!” she said, holding up her blood-stained hand. I took it, and dragged her into the bathroom with me, putting it underneath cold water in the sink, taking a bar of soap to scrub it clean.

“What the fuck, Rhaim?—”

“You’re going to be fine,” I told her, with an air of finality.

“No I’m not!” she shouted, looking at me, as I started the shower and taking my clothes off. “I—I just want you to talk to me.”

I moved to hold her shoulders with freshly cleaned hands. “I’ve had a long night. I hit a deer. I dragged it off to the side of the road. That’s it,” and as I said the words, I willed her to let it go.

To just be happy.

But she couldn’t—not after the next morning, when she’d gone out to inspect my truck and hadn’t found a single dent or scratch.

And then, even though I didn’t know it, it became too late.

Every time I stayed late at work she would call incessantly, and demanded we Facetime to prove where I was. I tried to blame it on pregnancy hormones, but I was afraid I knew the truth.

I was afraid both of us did.

So I kept my nose clean. I wouldn’t let Nero send me out, not even on legitimate business, and because Isabelle was pregnant, he understood.

But after months of good behavior on my part—past that homicide—I decided we had to talk.

“Therapy?” Her voice rose in an angry arc. “You think I need therapy?”

I slowly lowered my hands in front of her like I was trying to calm a horse. “You called me ten times yesterday, Issy.”

“Is a therapist going to fix you lying to me?”

“I didn’t lie to you.” I managed to say it with a completely straight face. I’d had so much practice at lying, it was sometimes hard to remember what was the truth.

The only things I knew were certain was that I loved her and our unborn child with all of the damaged organ I called a heart—and I would’ve given anything to turn back time.

“This was why I didn’t want to have a baby with you!” Her words shot me and rattled around my entire being, hurting me worse than a hollow-point bullet could. But before I could respond she went on. “I can’t live like this, Rhaim. I don’t know how other people do.” And then more quietly, “My mother told me not to marry you.”

It felt like my entire life was cracking like a bat-crushed skull, and everything that had been good in it was draining out.

“I love you, Issy.” I said it from my heart, from my chest, hoping she would listen. “And the baby. That’s real. And you know it.”

Tears were streaming down her face. “I love you, too.”

I dared to step near her and take her hands. “Then just trust me. And stop asking questions.”

“I’m a journalist.”

I squeezed her hands in mine. “You’re a wedding columnist,” I corrected her, as a tease.

And as she pulled her hands away from mine, I realized it’d been the exact wrong thing to say.

I treasured her skill with words and feelings, because of my own lack. I knew that writing about everyone else’s magnificent love stories was what had given her the faith to believe in us—that her writing that column was the only reason I had her in my life.

Because I always knew her mother was right.

“I need to go to my appointment. I’m going to be late,” she said, and then took a deep breath. “And I’m going alone.”