Page 135 of PS: I Hate You
Wounds that Josh’s diagnosis might have reopened.
My urge is to hug him, but I wrap my arms around myself instead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I…” I dig my fingers into my sides and try to shove away the anger that still smolders alongside my sadness. “I was mad at you. But I never wanted something like that to happen. I’m sorry, Dom. I really, truly am.”
He dips his chin to his chest. “I shouldn’t have let things go on as long as they did with Rosaline. After the miscarriage, I think we just stayed together because it was comfortable. We both wanted something stable. It wasn’t until Josh told us he was dying that we truly looked at our marriage.”
Did they really look at it? Or did they make a rash decision to shake up their lives when reminded of their inevitable mortality?
“I knew I ruined things between us,” he confesses. “When you blocked my number and moved away. Knew you found out about the proposal before I could tell you.”
“I didn’t find out about it. Iheardit.”
Horror washes over Dom’s face. “You what?”
“I went over to your house that morning. Because…Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” My sympathy for his loss and grief doesn’tease the bitterness in my voice. “Hearing you propose to someone else or having you tell me later, it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters.”
“No, Dom. It doesn’t. What would have changed?” Furious, hurt words spill from my soul as I realize a clearer view of the past still ends with the same conclusion. “You didn’t hesitate. Didn’t pause a moment to come up with any other ideas. Didn’t wait a single day to at least tell the girl you gave her first orgasm thenight before, ‘Hey, this can’t go anywhere because I decided that I live in the nineteen-fifties when finding out my high school sweetheart is knocked up requires a proposal.’ ” I’m panting now, my cheeks flushed with humiliation I’d convinced myself I’d moved past.
Dom stares at me, eyes wide. “Your first—”
“Me not being your priority with a baby on the way would’ve made sense, you know,” I speak over him. “Things would’ve been messy and awkward, but if you’d talked to meat allbefore you made that decision, I would’ve at least known you cared. That I meantsomethingto you, even if we couldn’t have been what I wanted.” My arms are in a vise grip around my waist, holding myself together as best I can. “But you didn’t just choose being a father over starting something with me. You chose being Rosaline’shusband. Rosaline needed you. And you forgot about me. You left me. Just for a different reason than I thought.” I shake my head, almost tempted to laugh. “Not for love. For responsibility.” My heart wants to stop talking, but my mouth keeps spitting words, seeping my pain like an infected wound refusing to close. “I was so upset, I couldn’t even remember if you enjoyed what we did.” I turn away from him, pacing around my kitchen. Dom watches every movement I make. “It’s not like you got off. It was just me. You did a favor for the girl who helped your family out.”
“Tell me you didn’t think that.” He says the command quietly. Carefully.
“I still do,” I volley back. “I was your best friend’s little sister with a silly crush. You gave me one amazing night as a thank-you for helping your family.” Whirling to face him, I plan on glaring into his eyes but only make it to the hollow of his throat because I’m a coward. “You took care of me. That’s what you do. But…fucking hell.” My eyes feel gritty as if I’ve been crying, and yet even now the tears don’t come. “When you leave me in the end, it all just feels like pity.”
“It wasn’t pity. It was perfection!” Dom thunders. “Touching you like that was perfection.” His body gives off too much heat as he moves into my space again. “Andthat’swhy Josh refused to talk to me for weeks. He was furious because I told him I married Rosaline because of the pregnancy and not because of love. That I couldn’t feel that way about her. Not after falling in love with you.”
The world goes wonky on me, and I grab the kitchen counter to keep myself steady.
“You loved me?” That’s big enough on its own, but add in the other part? “You told Josh you were in love with me?”
Fucking hell.
I thought I knew what Josh wanted. What these trips were all about. Have his best friend take care of his little sister. Or maybe have me show his taciturn buddy that life isn’t all schedules and to-do lists.
But what if my brother had a different goal?
Josh knew that Dom loved me.
“Did you know he was planning these trips?” I throw the accusation at Dom. He’d seemed surprised at the funeral, or so I thought. That was a mess of a day for me, and I don’t know what to believe anymore. “Was all of this some kind of…matchmaking from the grave?”
Dom shakes his head. “I don’t know what Josh was thinking. Don’t know what he wanted. And no, he didn’t tell me about the trips. All I know is after going radio silent on me, he suddenly calledme one day a couple months later. He apologized for getting angry. He said…” Dom clears his throat. “He said he could never be mad at someone for loving you. And I do, Maddie. I love you. I did then, too.”
The words from our car ride through South Dakota come back to me.
“When I could breathe, I could see you.”
So what? That summer Dom finally saw me and then fell for me?
There’s no relief at his revelation. No sense of peace or vindication.
There’s only panic.
“That’s not the flex you think it is,” I snap, shuffling away, seeking distance from his intensity that refuses to dial down a single notch. “You fell for me? So what? Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because all I’m hearing is that you thought you loved me, and you still left me. Whatever you felt for me wasn’t enough.”
“I made the wrong choice.” His jaw is rigid as he grits his teeth. “Leaving you was a mistake.”