George

For the past year, I’d believed wholeheartedly that I could never feel worse than I had the day Silas kicked me out. I could never feel guiltier than I had ever since I’d cheated on him and ruined our relationship. From that day until now had been emotional rock bottom for me. Outside of someone close to me dying, it didn’t—and couldn’t—get worse.

Turned out I was wrong. Rock bottom had a fucking basement, and that basement was Silas’s pleading eyes and open arms, and that was why I’d had to bow out. The clinic didn’t expect me back until at least Friday. I’d just needed to get my head together.

I wanted to help him, but I needed to catch my breath. I was too much of a coward to admit that I just couldn’t be in the same room with him for a minute longer. Not while my conscience was this inflamed. And walking into that place where we’d lived, standing right there in the room where we’d reduced our relationship to ashes… I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.

Now, driving away from the condo we’d once shared, I wished the ground would open up and swallow me.

Jesus fuck, I was the worst person in the world.

I pressed my elbow beneath the window and rubbed the back of my neck as I drove on autopilot back to my apartment. All this time, I’d been sure that nothing could ever cut deeper than watching him go from concerned to angry to devastated. Watching him transform before my eyes from the man who loved me into someone who hated me and never wanted to see me again.

But today, we’d been standing on opposite ends of an awful year. I was raw and ragged from hating myself for what I did to him. He was still blissfully ignorant, looking at me with all that love I didn’t deserve. And then he’d asked if there was any going back.

“Goddammit,” I muttered at the steering wheel as I wiped my eyes. Of course I’d have taken him back in a heartbeat. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to be with Silas again. But he’d never take me back. Never in a million years. Right now, he couldn’t remember. Sooner or later, though, he’d either remember or he’d find out. He’d go through that avalanche of emotions all over again.

I wanted to fix this somehow, but I couldn’t. There was no going back and changing what I did in Toronto. There was no pretending I’d never told him about it, or that he’d never been crushed by it, or that both of our worlds hadn’t fallen apart that day. I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, hurt the man I loved more than anyone else on the planet, and there was nothing I could do to change that. Nothing.

Living with all that was hard enough. This? Knowing I couldn’t shield him from getting hurt a second time? I couldn’t even fit that into my head. For the past year, I’d wondered more than once if my conscience might eat me alive. Today, I kind of hoped it would.

I deserved it. I owned what I’d done and all the consequences that had come as a result. What absolutely killed me was how much it affected—and continued to affect—Silas. It utterly destroyed me to realize that Silas was eventually going to relive that gut punch all over again, and there was nothing I could do to shield him from it. Sooner or later, one way or another, he was going to find out the truth, and for the second time in his life, he’d go from someone who loved me to someone I’d broken.

That hurt so much I could barely breathe. There had to be something I could do. Some fucking thing to—

A horn blared. I swerved, narrowly missing the pickup that had almost T-boned me. Tires squealed, and we all stopped. For a couple of heartbeats, the intersection was still and silent, every vehicle frozen in place, having all just avoided swapping paint or worse.

Then a middle finger flew, tires squealed again, and the truck took off. All around me, the other cars eased into motion, and I managed to navigate through the rest of the intersection without incident.

As soon as I found a place to stop, I pulled over and put the car in Park. Then I closed my eyes and pressed back into the seat. Wiping a shaking hand over my face, I tried to catch my breath. Shit. I was so careful about not driving while I was distracted. Today… fuck. I couldn’t do anything without being distracted because my entire world was concentrated into one pinpoint of anxiety and regret.

Good thing I wasn’t treating any patients right then.

I opened my eyes and took a few more slow, ragged breaths as my heartbeat steadily came down. The adrenaline started to ebb, but I didn’t feel better. In fact, now that the shakiness and oh shit fear were backing down, all the other emotions from earlier came crashing in with a vengeance.

And I fucking cried.

I couldn’t stop the tears, and truthfully, I didn’t bother trying. Wasn’t like it was the first time I’d cried over the past year. Sure as shit wouldn’t be the last.

What could I do? I couldn’t keep this card out of Silas’s sight. He deserved to know. As much as I didn’t want to hurt him all over again, it wasn’t fair to keep pretending we were amicable exes. Yes, I wanted to help him sort out his situation, but what happened when his memory came back? At the same time, could he handle that truth on top of everything else he was dealing with right now? His entire world was on its ass. Wouldn’t I just be kicking him while I was down?

But I kept coming back to how betrayed he would feel when he found out. There was nothing I could do to stop him from hating me again. The least I could do was not give him a reason to think I’d been trying to use his amnesia to weasel back into his good graces. Because I was pretty sure that was how I would see it: if the roles were reversed, and I found out my ex had swooped in to save the day, I would seriously question his motives. Trying to win me back? Trying to butter me up so that when the truth finally did come out, I’d be more willing to give him another chance?

I couldn’t save him from this. The very fucking least I could do was be honest with him.