A Missing Heart(53)

I open the door and step outside, placing my hand over her cheek. “Listen to me,” I say calmly. “We need to get you some help again, and you’re going to have to come clean about this in order to do that, Tori. It isn’t going to be easy but I can’t sit here, knowing what I now know, and take this path with you, keeping this secret from every doctor you see. No one can help you if they don’t know what’s wrong. Do you understand that?”

She shakes her head furiously. “I understand, but AJ,” she cries. “I don’t want to be around you anymore, and I shouldn’t be near Gavin either.”

“What are you saying?” I ask.

“I can’t do this anymore, AJ. I don’t know how many more times I have to say it before you understand. I don’t want to be married or have a child. I can’t be this person. I can’t.”

“Say goodbye to him, then,” I tell her, feeling various emotions punch me in the gut. I could make excuses for her words, assume she’s saying them out of distress, but she’s said them before, and I’ve convinced her things will get better and she’ll get better. I think the truth is speaking louder than anything I could ever reassure her with. I open the back door where Gavin is eagerly looking at her, urging her toward him. “Do it, Tori,” I snap. She quickly leans in and blows him a kiss. She doesn’t even make contact, and it kills me. He’s reaching for her, crying for her, and she won’t even touch him. At this very moment, I think I hate this woman. I hate her so f*cking much. This is not the woman I thought I married.

Tori has moved to the front step of the house, and she has her head buried in her lap. A paramedic has pulled in, and behind that vehicle is a police cruiser. This is turning into a living nightmare. Again.

The officer makes his way over to me and informs me there has been a disturbance report from a neighbor, as well as receiving my call. I can’t say I’m surprised by this after what has been going on for the past several hours. She has spent half of that time screaming at the top of her lungs and now brought it outside to continue it. “I think my wife is having a nervous breakdown, Officer. She has had two previous suicidal attempts. Based on her words and behavior, I believed she was about to try again, and I called 9-1-1.”

“The disturbances?” he presses.

“She was angry at me and wanted to let me know,” I inform him.

“Was there any violence?” he asks.

“No, sir.” The cop peers over into the car, next to where I’m standing. “I was trying to leave with our son. I wasn’t sure it was safe for him to be around her, and I felt he shouldn’t have to witness her behavior.” This is not sounding good. I’m making Tori sound like an unfit mother…and the worst part is, she is an unfit mother.

The officer looks distraught when he nods his head subtly. “Very well. You should get him somewhere safe for the evening.”

“Yes, sir.”

The paramedics are talking with Tori by the front step, and they’re helping her up to her feet. I watch quietly as they carefully guide her over to the ambulance in her bare feet and her vomit-covered shirt. I don’t have anything to say to her, and I feel guilty for that. I feel like a terrible person as I watch her climb into the ambulance, without me even offering her a word of sympathy or hope. I’m utterly speechless as she screams, “Do not follow me, AJ!” right as the ambulance door closes.

It’s only minutes before the ambulance takes off down the street and the cruiser follows, leaving Gavin and I here alone in the driveway—which right now feels more like a crossroads.

I look at him, and the scared look in his wondering eyes. “We’re going to be okay,” I tell him, placing the back of my hand softly against his small cheek.

Even knowing the house is empty, I can’t get myself to walk back inside. The place feels tainted with lies and realizations I’m not ready to face at this moment. We need to get out of here, and I need to figure out what happens next.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


I SHOULD HAVE just stayed at Hunter’s for the night, but instead, I asked him to watch Gavin so I can go finish what I started this morning. Cupcake and all.

In one day alone, my entire universe has flipped upside down, and the shock of it is making me feel exhausted and sick.

Whether this is right or wrong, I’m not sure I have the ability to care right now. I have done what’s right for two years. For the second time in my life, I got a woman pregnant, and this time, I really wanted to do the right thing, because I wasn’t going to allow another mistake again.

When Cammy got pregnant, I had no say over the end result. With Tori, I quickly realized that if I wanted any hope of having a say in the matter, I would need to make a drastic move. Tori could have changed her mind at any point during the pregnancy, and even though I convinced her to keep the baby, I wasn’t sure her decision was final. I even spoke with a lawyer. He told me I didn’t need to marry her in order to fight for full custody if it came down to it, but I wanted to make things work between us. I wanted to be a good husband and dad—show her our situation wasn’t as bad as she was making it out to be.

Everyone thought I was doing the “right thing” by marrying the woman I knocked up, and it was the right thing, but some of the reasons we were getting married always felt wrong, even though I tried to convince myself otherwise. I had fallen for Tori, and I loved her. We had a good thing going, but that spark—the one I always had with Cammy—hadn’t settled in my gut just yet. I was waiting for something inside of me to say, “She’s the one you can’t live without.” I had a rather bad track record of falling for the wrong women before Tori, and part of me wondered if it was because the one woman I was supposed to be with got away when I was only eighteen. If we’re only allowed one true love, which I think is bull, I guessed that for me it was Cammy.