Love's Suicide (Love's Suicide #1)(50)

This didn’t just happen for the next day or two. Weeks went by and my depression only got worse. By the time I’d gained enough courage to reach out, it was too late. I knew Brooks’ family would have already had some kind of memorial, besides, knowing I was the reason that he’d joined the military wouldn’t sit well with two parents who’d just lost their son.

With the help of the church and Bobby, I found a therapist who I started going to that was trying to help me cope. They didn’t just need to help me heal my broken heart. They needed to replace it completely. I was shattered, so much so that I felt like every day was like living in a parallel universe. I went about the motions, but never accomplished anything. I hardly ate and barely slept.

Night after night, I’d sit there reading my shoebox of letters, treasuring Brooks’ last words to me, as if we were meant to reconnect again, just to say goodbye.

Aside from my therapist, I’d finally decided that it was time to share my feelings with Bobby. After all, in the wake of losing Brooks, he’d been my rock and still was.

I’d asked him to give me a couple days to conjure up enough courage to talk about it. It used up my energy when all I could do was cry about it.

We sat down and I had the box of letters so that he could have the option of reading every one. If I wanted to move forward, he needed to know what I’d done behind his back. If he hated me for it, I would understand. I deserved it.

He wasn’t exactly a saint himself, and knowing that was the only reason that I’d decided to tell him the truth. I figured if I could forgive him for hitting me, he could forgive me, even though loving someone else may have seemed a bit different than a few slaps. After losing Brooks, I would have traded a lifetime of physical abuse for one more day with him.

Bobby sat there across from me, waiting.

I folded my hands together and started crying even before I could say two words. “I’m sorry. It’s harder than I thought.”

He reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight. “You sure you want to do this? I’m ain’t goin’ anywhere, Katy. I can wait until you’re able to do it.”

“No,” I shook my head. “I have to.”

Bobby waited for me to get myself together. “Baby, just breathe.”

I took a few deep breaths and looked right at him. “I told you the story about how my parents died and I had to go live with the Valentines. You know I was engaged to Branch and on the night before my wedding I slept with Brooks, and that was the reason that I left town and everyone behind. I couldn’t take the embarrassment of what I’d done. I couldn’t look them in the eyes, so I ran.”

“I remember you tellin’ me.”

“And then you remember when we met I told you that I wasn’t ready to move on, because my heart was broken?”



He pulled away and held up the palms of his hands. “That, my dear, is somethin’ I wouldn’t forget. It’s been hard knowing you’d never feel that way about me. Hell, I think it sent me over the edge several times. I never meant to hurt you, Katy. You have to know that.”

“Yeah, I do. Anyway, I swear to you that I never spoke to Brooks since the night before my wedding. He was in Afghanistan, and I was here with you. Then I got pregnant and we got married. I suppose if I was given the chance, I would have tried to reach out to him, but I never had the nerve, at least not until a few months ago. You see, I felt like things were going good and enough time had passed to ask him for closure. After getting his address from my old friend, I sent him one letter, asking exactly for that. I just wanted him to somehow tell me to move on, so that you and I could move forward. I didn’t know he would write me back. Not only did he tell me he’d never given up on me, but he talked about seeing me again someday.”

I waited for Bobby to yell or scream. He ran his hands over his face a couple times and tightened his lips, but didn’t say a word.

“Bobby, the letters continued. We wrote to each other almost every day until they just stopped.” I started crying again. “I think that’s when I knew he was gone.”

I sat there with my face covered sobbing. I could hear him opening the box and unfolding one the pieces of paper. The room got quiet and finally I looked up to see him reading it. I didn’t know which letter it was, or what it said exactly, not that it mattered. Bobby was getting the full truth, because he deserved it. I couldn’t live with the lie when he was offering me comfort without question. He needed to know that Brooks was my weakness, no matter what it did to our marriage.

Letter after letter, he read them, sitting there across from me in silence, until he was finished. He sat the last one down and looked at me with tears in his own eyes. “Katy, he never mentioned B.”

I shook my head and sobbed more. “Because I never told him.”

His concerned face turned to shock and all of the sudden it was like a light switch had gone off in his head. “Why would you do that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was scared of how he would react. I was scared of what it would do to you and your relationship with her.”

A tear fell down his face. “You thought about me?”

“Of course I did. Just because I have feelings for Brooks doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, Bobby.”

He covered his face again and I prepared for him to lash out. “I just have one question for you.”