Page 31 of Cakewalk

“I stumbled my way back to our flat sometime in the ungodly hours of the morning. My only concern was that I didn’t want to wake Hannah. That was until I walked down the hall to our condo and found the door wide open. I rushed inside, no idea what I was expecting to find, but whatever I thought, it wasn’t my wife lying in a pool of her own blood.” A sob escaped from Holden as he closed his eyes, turning to look away from her as he tried not to let the tears take over. Gigi could feel tears of her own starting to fall, watching him, trying to even begin to understand the pain. She wanted to tell him it was okay, that crying was okay, but she didn’t want to interrupt his story. “I rushed to her and tried to find a pulse, but couldn’t. There was so much blood everywhere. When the EMTs and everyone got there, they told me there was nothing they could do. She’d been dead for a couple of hours by that point.”

“Holden…”

“So while I was out celebrating a stupid championship, letting random people buy us drinks and congratulate us, my wife and daughter were at home, dying. Autopsy showed that she was stabbed three times in the abdomen and slowly bled to death. Her and the baby,” he continued, his voice breaking with emotion. He sucked in a long breath, seeming to hold it as he fought through the pain that was obviously tearing through him. Turning back to Gigi, he looked her in the eye, emotion written all over his face. “Hannah told me she was pregnant on Thanksgiving—her favorite holiday. Throughout her pregnancy, she talked about how she couldn’t wait for us to celebrate ‘as a family.’”

“So when…”

“So when I came downstairs and you were cooking, it brought it all back. Her announcement, her death, and how I wasn’t there to protect them. I swear I didn’t hear you say anything about it last week. I would have told you that I don’t do Thanksgiving had I heard you ask. It’s my fault for not protecting you from myself, just like I wasn’t there for Hannah.”

Gigi held her breath, taking in his words. “It’s my fault for not protecting you.” She’d spent the last two nights lying awake trying to figure out if Holden was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, just as her husband had been. But that one sentence told her that she’d been wrong for jumping to that conclusion. He was running from painful memories, just as she was—their ghosts simply haunted them a little differently.

She got up and moved over to the couch, still keeping a distance between them. His tears left streaks down his cheeks leading to his scruffy beard, and Gigi fought the urge to brush them away. As much as her body was craving him, she wasn’t quite ready for what touching him would mean. But maybe it was time for another type of intimacy. He’d come clean to her, maybe it was time she let him into her world as well.

“You weren’t the only one who lost something that night.”

* * *

Holden

"I don’t follow,” Holden said. He swiped away at the tears that were making their way down his face. Crying was one of those things that men never admitted to doing, yet in this moment he felt no embarrassment about crying in front of Gigi. He was still much more ashamed of his anger earlier.

“It sounds like you and Hannah were really, really happy. Which is not something I can say about Bradley and me. We started off that way, I think. Or at least, I did. But over time, things changed,” she said, looking away from him and into her lap. She picked at her fingernail, and Holden could feel the nerves radiating off of her. “I could do very little right in the eyes of my husband. I realize I’m not the smartest girl in the world, but I like to think I’m not a complete idiot. Except, to Bradley I was. Everything was my fault, even if I didn’t actually have anything to do with it. It started out with him telling me that I should just stick to what I’m good at, or that it was a good thing I’m pretty. That was one of his favorites, actually.”

“Did he…” Holden started, but then stopped himself. How exactly did one finish that sentence? Beat you? Abuse you? Either way, it sounded trite. He had no idea if she would confirm his suspicions, but if she did, he didn’t want her to think for a second that this was something he didn’t take to heart.

Gigi nodded, but didn’t look up at him, a heavy sigh escaping her lips. “He was okay if he was sober. Then the worst he would do was just yell. But mostly it was little digs here and there. If he had been drinking, however…well then, all bets were off. First time he did it was after a client dinner. He said I embarrassed him because I called the client’s wife Laura, and her name was Laurie. I told myself that it was just because he was stressed about landing this client, and really, I should have known the woman’s name. But then he did it again, and again. And I kept making excuses.”

“There is no excuse for that, Gigi,” he told her. He wanted so badly to reach for her, pull her into his arms, or even just hold her hand. To let her know that someone else’s touch could be gentle and soothing.

“You’d be amazed what you can justify,” she whispered. “Something I’ve always wanted was to be a mom. I know that sounds cliché, but, I dunno, I’ve just always pictured myself with a little mini me. Playing dress-up, painting our nails, hanging out at the pool, that kind of thing. I know being a parent is more than that, but no one dreams of dirty diapers—just the fun stuff. Bradley and I had talked about starting a family, and he seemed excited about the idea. Even told me that I had finally done something right, preparing to give him an heir. You’d have thought it was the 1800s with the way he talked about it, but it was enough to curb his temper for a bit.” She paused again, as if she were trying to prepare herself. “A couple of months into trying, he was working on landing this major client, who it just so happened was a Brit, and was really, really into soccer. His team of choice was Liverpool. I don’t pretend to know anything about sports, but I do know that they lost the championship that year. I made the mistake of getting in Bradley’s way shortly after the game ended. He lost his temper, and I ended up at the bottom of the stairs.”

Gigi barely got the last words out before a sob wracked her body and she collapsed forward, her head falling into her hands as she cried. Holden felt his heart break into pieces, and he couldn’t hold back any longer. He rushed to her, kneeling down in front of her, placing his hands on her upper arms. He moved his hands up and down lightly, trying to comfort her as she cried. He didn’t take for granted the fact that she didn’t flinch under his touch. If anything, it just made his heart ache even more.

“Gigi…”

“That was the day I lost my hope. If I had been honest with myself, maybe I would have lost it sooner, or at least not held on to it so tightly. But there was a part of me that really thought that a baby would fix things. Like somehow if I gave him that heir, that it would be a turning point for us. But after that, I knew I couldn’t bring a baby into that house. I couldn’t do that to my child. So, I secretly got an IUD put in—that way he would never have to know I’d changed my mind and was working against it. After a few more months, our lack of success was just one more way I was a failure. I couldn’t even have a baby. ‘The most basic female function,’ as he put it. He started to spend a lot more nights out after that.”

“Was he unfaithful?”

“I had my suspicions, but the one time that I actually worked up the nerve to ask, he denied it. He threw me up against the wall, shoving the accusations back in my face. Because why would I think that unless I was sneaking around on him? The bruises he left on my arms that night meant I had to wear long-sleeved shirts for a week, in the July heat, just so no one would see. I knew better than to ask ever again.”

“Gigi, I’m so, so sorry. You didn’t deserve my temper the other day, and fuck…I must have scared you shitless when I threw the turkey. That’s all on me, sweetheart. I’m so, so sorry.”

“I was so afraid that you were just like him,” she said, looking up at him, tears still running down her face. Even with her tear-stained cheeks and red, puffy eyes, she was still beautiful. “But it’s my fault for not double-checking with you about the meal. It was stupid of me.”

“No, no, no. You’re not stupid. So far from it. I shouldn’t have said that. You are anything but stupid. None of it is your fault, Gigi. Real men don’t do that shit. It was his flaw, not yours,” he told her, hoping she heard his words. “And it’s on me for the way I reacted. You did nothing wrong. Not yesterday, not six years ago.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong either, Holden,” she said softly, looking into his eyes.

“I did a lot of things very wrong on Thursday, sweetheart.”

“No. Six years ago. You didn’t do anything wrong then. Hannah’s death isn’t your fault.”

Her eyes never left his as she said those words. They hit Holden like a truck, and he had to catch his breath. It wasn’t anything that his family, teammates, and even the therapists hadn’t been telling him for years. But for some reason, when Gigi said it, it was different. Like she had been sent to him by Hannah, just to make him believe it.

“I know,” he whispered in return, meaning it for the first time. “It’s just hard to accept.”

“I know.”