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“Are you doing all of this to mess with my life? To remind me of how badly I messed up yours? Not that I’d blame you for hating me,” she says before pressing her teeth to her lower lip. Her body is practically shaking with the effort to retain her composure. She stands and begins to pace.
Fuck. The problem with being shit with words is that by the time you’re forced to explain yourself, the damage is done.
“You didn’t ruin anything, Ana. I didn’t stay away because I hated you. Hating you is impossible.”
“Stay away? You pushed me away.” Her eyes turn glassy before she quickly wipes her cheek of a stray tear. She stops moving, turned away from me.
“I couldn’t let you see me while I was barely myself. Down to nothing.” I stand, needing to be closer.
“You wouldn’t even let me apologize, Bryce. Do you know what that feels like? Shit,” she spits the word while refusing to face me. “It feels like shit.”
A choked sob passes her lips, but no words. The soothing hum of the gas fireplace is the only sound in the room. We’re both holding our breath.
“Please believe me when I say I could never hate you. But yes, you’re right. I pushed you away.”
Ana finally turns, her teeth bared and face flushed. “Why are you really here, Bryce?” Her voice cracks the silence like a whip. Hands are fisted by her side so severely, I actually see the tension all the way to her neck. “After all these years, why the fuck are you pretending to care!”
Her volume increases, and when she says “you pretending to care” she points at me accusingly. One finger nearly pokes me in the eye, and she steps back in shock at her own physical outburst. Ana wraps her stray arms across her chest, each hand clinging to the opposite elbow like a brace.
“I’ve always cared. When it came to you, I’ve always cared too fucking much.”
“Bullshit!” she bellows fervently. “You didn’t even look at me in that courtroom. I was desperate to ask for your forgiveness—”
“There was nothing to forgive, Ana,” I say softly, desperate to comfort her. To hold her.
“I wanted to support you while you went through that nightmare.” As if sensing my intention, she steps back and pierces me with a harsh glare. “But instead of letting me be there for you, you rejected every single one of my attempts.”
“Ana, you were refusing to go to college out of some misplaced obligation to, what, bear witness to my house arrest? I couldn’t let that happen.” My palms are up like I have an offering. But they’re empty and my explanation falls flat.
“You wouldn’t even look at me, Bryce,” she says with a sardonic laugh, lacking all humor.
“It hurt too much to look at you.” That admission barely scratches the surface of the shame and horror I felt at the time.
Ironically, Philip’s pre-existing respiratory condition, which was a major contribution to why he remained hospitalized for weeks, lessened my charge from aggravated assault to misdemeanor assault. With Sergei’s help, my family hired a good lawyer. Ana’s testimony convinced the judge that I acted in defense of another, lowering my charge further. And because I had no prior record, my punishment was scaled down to six months of house arrest, one year probation, and community service hours.
The biggest hit was losing my job and being disqualified from working for any government agency that would support my line of research. I dodged a five-year sentence but was left with nothing to show for myself. No job, no prospects, no plan. Returning to graduate school wasn’t a possibility, not when I could barely face anyone I knew.
Worst of all, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t see beyond my circumstances. So, yeah, I shut her out. I shut everyone out.
“You were in my arms that night,” I begin, throat as dry as desert sand. “Everything I ever wanted right in front of me. You and the promise that I could be somebody for you. And then, in the blink of an eye, everything was snatched away. I was in a dark place. I was nothing.”
“Philip was the attacker. You were being punished for something you did to save me. How can you say that about yourself?” Ana’s cheeks are glowing, her face gorgeous and tortured.
“I had fallen so low,” I venture to answer. “At the time, I could barely fathom where or how to begin. What could I bring to you that was worthy? Not a career, not a reputation, not money. Nothing. I had nothing to deserve you.”
“Deserve me? You already had me, Bryce.” Ana’s voice cracks and so does my heart. She walks to the fireplace, amber outlining her curves and reddening her dark hair.
I close our distance but dare not touch. She glances over her shoulder and wobbles slightly. The pain I feel is reflected back at me.
The hurt I associate with Ana has always been complicated. It’s not a simple matter of harrowing memories or pangs of regret. In a sick way, I relished the agony of thinking of Ana all these years.
Pain was a connection to the only woman I ever truly wanted. My constant, aching need for her is a reminder that I touched and kissed her once. The sting of loss means I had her once. My anguish proved that out there, across the globe or in the same room but out of my reach, there is a person I will always belong to.
“You wouldn’t let me visit you.” Her voice deflates, like all emotions have been spent and the only thing left are wounding words.
“How could I face your family?” she continues. “Not your parents, not Declan. How can I be in front of all those people who love you, when you didn’t forgive me for what happened? Did you even read my letters, Bryce?”
Of course I read them. Again and again; they were imprinted in my soul. Those words pulled me out of the darkness, every letter promising salvation I had yet to earn.
