Charlotte’s hand curled around the back of my neck, and her body came off the wall as she pressed into me. “Stop. I believe you.”
I shook my head and stared into her dark-brown eyes, confessing, “I never came back up, Charlotte. At least, not the man I was. That was the exact moment I saw my last ray of daylight.” My fingers bit into my palms as I fisted them against the wall, the depths of that river threatening to overtake me all over again.
Her hand cradled the back of my head, her fingers threading into my hair, and our bodies became flush, head to toe. “Stay out of the darkness, Porter.”
But there was no turning back. The truth fought to escape, causing my chest to heave, and with each inhale, her body curved around mine as if she were breathing for me. And maybe she was, because I somehow found the air to admit, “She fought me.”
Her arms convulsed, and I buried my face in the delicate curve of her neck.
“She’d dragged him back into the car. By the time I got to them, he was passed out and she was barely conscious, but she fucking fought me tooth and nail when I tried to get him out of there. My wife, the woman I’d sworn to love and protect, wanted to die, and she was hell-bent on taking my son with her.” My throat closed as the memories overwhelmed me, and my body sagged against hers. “I’ve never hit a woman in my life, Charlotte. But there was nothing I didn’t do to get him from her.”
Her fingernails bit into my scalp, the twinge of physical pain doing nothing to distract me from the blast of Catherine’s betrayal.
“She was my wife and I loved her. But, as she kicked and hit at me, clinging to the doors while my son floated lifelessly in her arms, the whole fucking car going down with all of us inside, a hate unlike anything I had ever experienced devoured me. Three years later, it still roars inside me.” Lifting my head, I cupped both sides of her face and rested my forehead on hers. “I was not playing you. I know the darkness, Charlotte. I don’t know why it lives inside you, but now, you know why it lives in me.”
It started in her eyes, slowly sifted through her features, and then fell down through her body. Brick by brick, her walls crumbled.
“I’m so sorry,” she choked out.
I brushed my lips with hers and implored her to believe me, “I didn’t ask you out so you’d treat my kid. Yes, I hoped it would happen, but that is not the why, okay?”
She nodded, tears filling her eyes. “Did your baby survive?”
“Yeah.” I swept my thumbs across her cheeks.
A strangled sigh of relief rushed from her parted lips. “And your wife?”
I swallowed hard and cut my gaze away. “No.”
After that, silence fell on the room, but we didn’t need any more words. We stood there, her back to the wall, her front plastered to mine, so close that not even the air divided us.
Two people alone in the darkness.
No questions.
No judgments.
No faking it.
Until she decided to turn on the lights.
“Losing your wife doesn’t count,” she said so quietly that I barely heard her.
“What?” I breathed, sliding my hand around her back and shifting her deeper into my curve.
“You chose to love her. You can choose to let her go.”
My hand spasmed on her lower back as my head popped up.
Those tears that had been filling her eyes finally spilled out the sides. “I never had a choice, Porter. He came out of me.”
My stomach knotted. “I didn’t tell you that so you’d open up. No questions, remember?”
She shook her head. “It was ingrained into me to love him. Morning, noon, and night And then…he was gone.” A horrible, soul-searing cry tore from her throat, slamming into me like a physical blow.
I rocked back onto my heels, but not before gathering her impossibly closer.
I held her as though I could put her back together. And, God, did I try as she sobbed in my arms.
“Lucas,” she choked out, her tears soaking the front of my shirt. “It was my fault. I left him alone at the park. It was only for a second, and someone took him. It’s been almost ten years, and I still don’t even know if he’s alive or not.”
“Oh God,” I breathed, pain gripping my chest.
“That kind of love doesn’t die, Porter. It grows in the darkness, and I can’t make it stop.”
“Okay. Okay. Shhh,” I urged, my mind barely able to formulate thoughts over the thundering of my heart. “I’ve got you.”
“You don’t understand!” she cried, attempting to push me away, but I refused to let her go.
“No. I don’t,” I assured.
She continued to writhe in my arms, but the way she gripped the back of my shirt made it clear she wasn’t trying to get away anymore. “No one fucking understands. The whole world just keeps going on without him. And I can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep up. I try. And I try. But I can’t do it anymore. I need it to stop, Porter.”
Cupping the back of her neck, I tucked her face against my shoulder and murmured, “I’ll stop with you. I swear to God, Charlotte. I’ll stop with you.”
She clung to me with frantic desperation. “I can’t treat your son.”
I screwed my eyes shut.
Fuck. She really couldn’t.
Shame corroded my insides. A part of me had still hoped she would.
But there were other doctors.
And only half of her.
“It’s okay,” I murmured into her hair.
“I want to. And I swear I would do it for you. But kids and me… We just don’t work. They’re all him. Every single one of them. Boy or girl, it doesn’t matter. They’re all him.”
I rubbed her back. “Shhh…okay.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.” I tipped my head back to stare at the ceiling. “Fuck. Me too, Charlotte.”
She continued to apologize, and I let her because it seemed to soothe her. She didn’t owe me those.
We stood there for a long time, our pounding hearts filling the drawn-out silences. Unwilling to sit—or, really, move at all—our bodies swayed as we did our best to balance as a single unit.
She held me.
I held her.
No questions.
No judgments.
No faking it.
But the longer we stood there, the more I realized that those three things were going to be our biggest problems. With her wrapped securely in my arms, soft admissions pouring from her mouth, reality crashed onto my shoulders like a ton of bricks. I was a single father chasing a woman who couldn’t handle being in the presence of a child.
I’d never even had her, yet when she finally stepped out of my arms, I knew I’d lost her all the same.
* * *
I’d never for the rest of my life forget those moments in my office with Porter Reese.
The ones where the world finally stopped—even as it kept turning.
I had patients waiting on me, but I couldn’t care less. I’d been waiting for over a decade to take a single breath that didn’t hurt. And, no matter how much I tried to deny it, nothing hurt with Porter, not even in the darkness.
How Porter gave that to me, I wasn’t sure. He didn’t understand my situation. But he didn’t pretend to. He didn’t offer any sage words of advice or try to give me a pep talk about moving on. He just listened and held me.
He’d spoken words, I was sure of it. But those moments were all about feelings.
There was something inherently freeing about telling him about Lucas. Our situations were different, but the same shade of black painted both of our souls.
But, as I clung to him, trying to perform the impossible task of collecting myself, it hit me that the darkness was all we’d ever have.
In the light, we lived on polar-opposite ends of the spectrum.
Porter had his children. His future was in ballet recitals and baseball games. And, after hearing his story, I was happy for him. Really, I was. But I couldn’t handle being a part of that.
That was his life. Not mine.
And, when he aimed a sad smile at me and used the pads of his thumbs to dry under my eyes, I knew he realized it too.
Leave it to me to connect with a single father. I mean, seriously. Karma was sadistic.