NICE GIRL TO LOVE (THE COMPLETE THREE-BOOK COLLECTION)(81)

“No, of course not. You just take care of Abby.”

“Thanks.”

He quickly came to her side and wrapped an arm around her. “Abby, just let me explain when we get home,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t jump to any conclusions.”

Abby couldn’t hear him over the blood pounding in her ears. And all that kept reverberating in her head were Jen’s words: ‘fulfill your promise to Beth…stories you’d tell her about how you and Abby fell in love—.’

“Abby, honey. It’s not what you think.”

She had no idea what to think anymore.




Abby remained silent the entire car ride home, her brain, her heart too shattered for her to think straight.

The minute they walked into her house, however, she exploded. “So that’s all this is?” She gestured between the two of them. “You’re only with me because of some promise you made to Beth?!”

“No, Abby, listen.”

“Listen to what? There hasn’t been anything to listen to. You’ve never told me about any of this. I had to learn about it from your dead wife’s nurse!”

“Just let me explain.”

“Explain how you promised your dying wife that you’d hook up with me? Or are you going to explain the part about telling her lies about us falling in love? Which came first?”

“That’s not how it happened.”

“Which. Came. First?”

“The promise,” replied Brian quietly.

Suddenly, there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room to fill her lungs. “So first you made that promise to Beth, and then you started feeding her lies about us? Those stories Jen overheard about how we ‘fell in love,’ how long were you telling them to Beth?”

“Abby—”

“How long?!”

“For over a year.”

Oh my god. Her knees gave out and she crumbled to the ground. All this time. Nothing had been what it seemed. “None of this was real,” she whispered aloud.

“Don’t you dare say that! Everything between us has been real, Abby. Every single thing.” Brian went down on his knees and grabbed her hands. “I love you, Abby. Those stories, and even the promise, have nothing to do with what’s happening with us now.”

“How can you say that? They have everything to do with it. A year? For all you know, you could have brainwashed yourself into believing you were in love with me with all those stories you made up, or forced yourself there because of that promise. Why on earth would she make you promise something like that?” Abby pulled her hands away from him and covered her face. She’d been right all along. Beth had been haunting their relationship; she just never imagined it’d be to this degree.

“Abby, stop. Just calm down and listen. Please.” He grabbed hold of her shoulders. “You didn’t see all that went on. You have no idea what it was like. Beth’s mother died when she was young and her father could barely take care of himself, let alone Beth. So it was all up to me. I was twenty-four years old when I started having to take care of Beth’s every need around the clock. She couldn’t get around on her own, couldn’t bathe or use the bathroom, couldn’t even eat on her own. I can’t tell you how many times she almost choked to death right in front of me the worse things got...and that was just a normal day.”

Painful memories twisted his features, aged him right before her eyes. “But all of that was a piece of cake compared to how that damn disease started screwing with her thoughts and emotions. For a full year, I couldn’t go a week without Beth screaming for me to take Skylar and get the hell out. Without her physically trying to harm me and in turn constantly injuring herself. Without her begging me to let her die, begging me to do her a favor and kill her with my bare hands.”

Abby sat frozen, almost unable to take in all that she was hearing. He was right, while she’d read about the symptoms and seen maybe a fraction of it while she’d babysat Skylar, she hadn’t experienced any of it the way Brian had.

“Every day and every night, I had to find the strength not to break down or curl into a ball and cry my eyes out. I had to hold it together the day Beth bawled and told me she could no longer take care of her own baby. I had to put on a brave smile and tell her we’d figure out our own way of communicating when she began to lose the ability to speak. I had to not let her see it kill me when her limbs started twisting and turning to stone, when she could no longer go a day without pain and anguish being the only things I could see in her eyes.”

His voice grew ragged, haunted. “And this was all before I had to make the decision to put her in a 24-hr care center. It devastated me to have to do that—to desert my wife, pawn her off on a facility because I could no longer take care of her, keep her alive. And even then, I used to lie awake at night afraid that I’d get a call telling me ‘there was nothing they could do,’ that she’d pass away scared and alone because I’d made the decision to give up taking care of her.”

Eyes clenched tight, he took in a broken breath and fell back against the wall. “Then, after all of that, all that heartache, all that suffering, that’s when the disease began to steal her memories away. Soon, Skylar was no longer her daughter, and I was no longer her husband. You have no idea what’s it like, Abby, to love someone who simply isn’t there anymore, who doesn’t even know you anymore. On the days where her dementia was really bad, she’d be just plain terrified of me when I’d come to visit…and on even her best days, I was just a stranger she didn’t know. Didn’t love.”