“Because if the light had been taken from your eyes, I wouldn’t have coped,” he says, his voice thick and slightly broken.
I don’t understand.
“You didn’t tell me so I wouldn’t get sad? So my eyes wouldn’t cry for you?”
He reaches up, taking my chin in his hands. “Your eyes are the only things I’ve had throughout all this. When you looked at me that day in the hospital, they were full of fear. Fear that whatever I had to tell you would destroy everything beautiful we’d ever created.”
“Max, no,” I say, feeling so hurt, so broken and so devastated that he’d think that.
“I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t look into your eyes and see pain that I’d created.”
“If that was the case, why did you push me away?” Tears are burning my eyes now, but I keep my eyes on his.
“Because what was inside me slowly ate me away until there was nothing fucking left. After that, I was numb. I thought I could handle it, thought I could keep it from you and go back to my life, but I couldn’t.”
“What happened out there?”
He lets me go and turns away, his whole body stiff. I step forward, putting my hand on his back. “Please.”
He keeps his back to me, but starts speaking in a cut-off voice, devoid of any emotion. That scares me, but I let him talk. I need him to talk, but most of all, he needs this.
“I was driving home, off in my own world. I heard the screeching of car tires and saw a car just launch off the road and down the side. I pulled over and got my flashlight, then ran over to help. I called for an ambulance when I saw the state of the car. It was wrapped around a tree, and so fucked . . .”
His voice trails off, but I say nothing. I just let him continue when he’s ready.
“I got into the driver’s side, and the person in there was . . . horrifically dead. I couldn’t see the person in the other side. I noticed blood on the hood, and followed it.”
My heart is so tight I can hardly breathe, but I let him speak.
“There was a child.” His voice hitches and pain tears through my body. “She was only about ten, maybe older. She had been . . . thrown from the car. She was in a bad way, but she was still alive.”
Oh no.
Please no.
“I lifted her into my arms and started talking to her, even though she was unconscious. She was a fucking mess.” He sounds angry now. “The parents hadn’t put her seatbelt on. They hadn’t . . .”
My heart breaks in two and the tears flow down my cheeks, as I realize the pain he had been living through.
“Why didn’t they put her fucking seatbelt on?” he roars, launching his fist out and hitting the wall.
I step closer and wrap an arm around him, feeling his panting. I press my cheek to his back. There’s not a damned thing I can do that would bring comfort right now, but I just want him to know I’m here for him. Always. That I’ll give him what I was too blind to see before.
“By the time the ambulance arrived, she had passed. They told me I did everything I could, but I didn’t, Blue Belle.”
His voice, God, the pain in his voice. I cry harder.
“I shouldn’t have touched her, should have called an ambulance sooner. I should have figured it out sooner . . .”
No. God no.
It wasn’t his fault.
“And she was dead, just like that. A life snuffed out by the careless act of her parents.”
“It’s not your fault,” I finally manage to say. “Max, you have to know it wasn’t your fault.”“I shouldn’t have moved her.”
“It probably wouldn’t have mattered even if you didn’t. Honey, you did all you could.”
He shoves my hands off him and storms forward, pacing the room, his body shaking.
“Don’t try to make it better, Anabelle, because it can’t be made fucking better. I’ve lived with what I did. I’ve accepted it, but don’t try and make it better. You know now, so let it go.”
“I let you down,” I say, standing, unmoving.
He stops and turns, looking over at me with bloodshot eyes.
“I let you suffer alone because I didn’t see that you were hurting. I didn’t figure out that something horrible had gone wrong. I thought . . . I didn’t even link the two.”
“And why would you?” he says, his voice icy. “I told you I was fine.”
“But you weren’t!” I scream. “And I should have known, Max.”
Now I’m panting. “I should have known the man I loved was breaking to pieces. I should have—”
“Don’t,” he grates out. “Don’t beat yourself up over something you had no control over.”
I look down at my hands and tears drip off the end of my nose. “It’s why you walked away from her, isn’t it? When you saw us in the store.”
I don’t look up, but I hear his sharp intake of breath. I’ve thought about what happened with Imogen in the store that day, so many times. I’ve wondered why he walked away, why he looked at her with so much pain in his eyes. Now he’s told me his story, it makes so much sense. He saw the little girl, and the pain in his heart probably came rushing back. Hell, he probably thinks he can’t be what Immy needs, because of the tragedy that night brought upon his life.
“I didn’t know how to handle it . . .her hair . . .”
I look up and the pain in his eyes nearly rips me in two.
“It was exactly the same shade . . .”
Oh God.
“I can’t destroy another life, Anabelle. I can’t be a dad. I’m . . . not worthy.”
I take a step towards him. “You’re wrong about that. I know it, because what you did was heroic. You tried to save a life, Max, and that wasn’t easy, especially considering the damage already done. You’re more than worthy of being her dad.”
His eyes flash and he stares at me. “What if I don’t want to be?”
That hurts, but I understand why he’s saying it. He looks at the wall to his left, his face hard. I have to fix this. It’s up to me now, to push past this wall he’s built up around himself and let him know that he can be what she needs. I understand why he doesn’t believe it, but I believe it and that’s enough. So I start talking, without even thinking.
“She was only five pounds born,” I say softly, my voice warm for my daughter. “So tiny, and yet she came into this world screaming, letting everyone know she had a place.”
His body flinches, but he doesn’t look at me.
“By the time she was one, she had everyone wrapped around her little finger. She was strong, and determined, and so damned happy you couldn’t not love her.”
He starts panting.
“When she turned three, she beat up the neighbor’s kid because he called her ugly.” I laugh at the memory of her punching into the little boy. Of course she got into trouble for it, but I was so proud of her. “Do you know what she said to him?”
Max looks over to me now.
“She said ‘Only an ugly person would say something like that’.”
Max’s lip twitches.
“I’d told her, even from a young age, that people that are horrible are the true ugly of the world, and I never thought she got it until that day.”