Their Second Chance Read Free Page B

their last conversation. They’d taunted him for the past six months. Day and night, they’d replayed in his head in a loop, like a bad bit from a song he hated but couldn’t drown out.
    She lifted her tear-soaked face, anguish visible in her hazel eyes. “You left me!” She screamed the words through her sobs, sobs that were tearing him to shreds all over again. The same way it had every time she’d gotten a negative result on a pregnancy test.
    He couldn’t stand it any longer. Listening to her cries was like having someone stab him in his heart. Over and over again. He couldn’t think past stopping her pain, so he acted. Grabbing her by her hands, he pulled her into his arms.
    “I didn’t leave you, Ari,” he whispered quietly. “You pushed me away.”
    She shook her head in the curve of his shoulder. The wetness from her tears soaked his T-shirt. “No, you stopped talking to me. I thought you were having an affair.” She hiccupped. “You stopped coming home.”
    Had he? Another round of agony lanced his chest, squeezing at his gut. He thought back to how much work he took on while they’d been trying to conceive. Remembered how badly he wanted to be out of the house so he wouldn’t hear the quiet sobs in the bathroom whenever she did a pregnancy test.  Oh, she’d tried to hide it. Quietly muffling her pain with a running shower, but he’d heard her. Then she’d come out red-eyed and act as if the negative had been no big deal.
    He knew better. Each time he saw one of those tests make an appearance, he wanted to destroy it. He wanted to tell her they didn’t need to keep doing that. That he loved her no matter what. He bit his tongue because he knew she was emotional due to all those hormones. The last thing he wanted was to add to her pain and insecurity at the time.
    It was like having a bucket of iced water thrown at him. His heart stopped with the realization that he’d failed her. In every sense of the word: as a husband, as a partner, and as a friend. When she’d needed him most, he’d turned away from her and took safety in his work. He’d left her alone instead of helping her find a way to cope with the multitude of negative results.
    Her sobs quieted. “I felt so low.” It was hard to make out what she said from the wobble in her words. “I wanted to be the perfect wife.” Her voice hitched again. “And you said you wanted us to have kids.”
    He tightened his hold on her, hugging her soft curves into his body. “Ari, look at me.”
    She glanced up, her red-rimmed eyes filled with pain. “I wanted to have babies for you.”
    He shook his head at how wrong that sounded. He thought she was set on having children because that’s what she wanted. “I did want kids. Just not at the expense of losing you.”
    She stepped out of his hold and sat down on one of the few office chairs not covered in dust. Emptiness filled him. Having her in his arms had been like going home. It had been the first time in so long that he had felt whole even if just for a second.  She swept her hair behind her ears and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. To watch any other woman’s face crease with so much sadness would’ve been tough to swallow, but to see the woman he loved with that expression was killing him slowly. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out a folded clean tissue and passed it to her.
    Slumping on a chair next to her, he watched her struggle to tamp down her tears.
    “I’m-I’m sorry.” What else could he say? His heart hammered in a sick tattoo of disgust. Anger with his own selfishness filled him. How did he explain that he’d been an idiot for the better part of a year and possibly turned what could’ve been a bump in their relationship into a full blown separation? Her fight with her body to have a baby had made him so insecure he didn’t know what to do. He’d thought to give her space to help her cope.  That was clearly the last thing she needed. His