Against All Odds (9 page)

“I don’t understand.” I pull my legs away from him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his face falling.

“I don’t understand,” I scream, on my way to a full meltdown. “What does that have to do with it, Cooper? We’ve never used a condom. Never. Not once since we’ve been together.”

My head can’t wrap around what he’s telling me. We’ve never, in all the years we’ve been together, used a condom. I’ve always been on birth control, until we decided to get pregnant. His sudden concern about condoms makes no sense. My mind is reeling, and my emotions are a mixture of overpowering hurt, rejection, and anger. All three course so thickly through my veins that I feel as if the blood flow to my heart will stop. I start to cry.

I don’t understand him. He’s hurting me. I grimace as I pull my legs tighter to my body, hiding my nakedness.

“Baby…” His voice breaks, and the pain in it pulls my eyes to his. “Don’t cry. Look, I know we haven’t used one before, but I can’t do it without one right now. I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”

“I don’t understand.” I sob, hurt pounding through me. “I don’t understand. Please, tell me the real reason. Tell me what’s going on. It’s more than condoms.”

I watch his face carefully, searching for anything that would indicate he’s lying. It can’t be condoms…

His eyes close. “I’m sorry, Ky. I can’t do it. I can’t take… I can’t take the risk of you getting pregnant.”

My pulse roars so ferociously that all I hear is a thick, fast whooshing in my ears. I look at him with tears falling down my face. “What did you just say? Please, tell me I didn’t hear what I think I did.”

I feel rejected. Unwanted. Unloved.

Part of me understands what he just said, but I can’t see it through the cloud of rejection. I don’t believe his excuse. He doesn’t understand that I need him. It’s more than sex. He’s pushing me away, and it’s killing me. He’s killing our marriage. I need more from him.

Suddenly, I’m so angry that I move off the sofa at lightning speed, grabbing my blouse and panties. Unfuckingbelievable.

“No! No! No, wait, Kylie.” Cooper gets off the sofa and comes after me.

I feel him grab my arm as I reach for my jeans. Anger thickens in my veins, licking the space around me. “Don’t!”

“Kylie,” he pleads, still grasping me.

“Don’t you Kylie me!” I whip around on him. “Don’t you dare, Cooper! You know I get the shot. This is just another shitty excuse to push me away.” I yank my arm from him, throwing on my jeans and buttoning them.

“Baby, Kylie, please. Don’t do this. My head, it’s fucked up. I’m fucked up. I need time. Just give me some time. It’s going to get better, I promise. Just a bit more time.” His voice cracks on every other word.

I can’t see anything but the haze of pain suffocating me. “So what? You can’t fuck your own wife without a condom now? Because, that, Cooper, is the lowest blow I have ever received. Do you hear me? Are you fucking hearing me?” I slam my fists against my chest. The girl I used to be is disappearing like vapor. I drop my hands and look at him, a desolate sob escaping my throat.

I see remorse and anguish on his face. I hate seeing him in pain. It cripples me. But I need more. He’s the other half to my soul, and I can’t live without him. I want to lash out. I need him to understand how deep my pain goes.

I whisper, letting my pent-up torment drip into every word, “Do you know what you just did to me? You just took your wife and broke her. You broke me, Cooper.” Tears drip down my nose, my breathing uncontrolled.

Cooper just stands there, his body tight with tension. The veins in his neck bulge as he tries to hold himself together.

He’s naked. Lost. Tortured. Broken.

My entire body screams for me to wrap my arms around him, to try to soothe him. But what he just did to me is choking out the beat of my heart, making it nonexistent. I can’t do this.

“I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been patient,” I say. “I screwed up. I didn’t go to her funeral. I know what that did to you. I get it, Cooper,” I cry, brokenly. “I get it. I fucking get it.”

“Kylie,” he says, “that’s not it.”

I shake my head and pin my gaze directly on his tortured eyes. “You can’t hold back from me. It’s killing me. You are killing me.”

“Baby,” he whispers, “please, I love you. It’s not you.”

“Stop. I need to say this and you need to hear it.” I pause, looking at him. “When we lost her… when she left my body, I was at my lowest. I was at the lowest point in my life. All I saw was her death, and I couldn’t comfort you. I had nothing left inside me to give you.” All my rage leaves me as I yearn for the child who was stolen from me. “She was everything to me. Without her I couldn’t breathe, my chest felt like it was going to catch on fire. I couldn’t eat, my insides felt like they were being pulled from my fucking guts. I couldn’t see, my eyes were swollen from crying so much. I couldn’t help it. Her loss devastated me. I lost my hope to go on.” My heart breaks. I feel shattered without my child, but without my husband, I feel completely lost. “Even though I was in pain, I loved you. I might not have shown it, but I did. I got through it because at the end of the day when I closed my eyes, I saw you. I can’t change the past, I can’t change what I did, but you held me together. Now I don’t know. I don’t know anything, anymore.”

I feel my body crumble. I slide to the floor and clutch my hands behind my head, pulling it down. I can’t breathe. I feel as though we’ve crossed another line. We’re further apart than we were this morning. My entire world, already demolished by the loss of my precious baby, is being crushed by the weight of life. It’s smothering me.

I glance up at him. We’re both too overcome by our own pain, problems, and grief to help each other. We’re fighting our own battles.

Cooper’s body trembles as he drops to his knees in the middle of the living room, and a cry explodes from his chest.

He’s struggling. Barely hanging on.

He swallows hard, bringing his eyes to mine. “Baby,” he chokes, hoarsely. “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you need. I want to. God, you have no idea how much it hurts me to see you like this. It’s just… I have some things going on that I can’t talk about right now. Please, just give us time.”

My eyes close as my heart rejects his words. I’m tired, but I want to feel him one last time before I leave. So I walk over to him and curl myself in his lap.

In his arms, I cry…

I cry for every moment of loss and pain. I cry for our child. The child who became the center of my world. The one I didn’t even get a minute to cherish. I cry for letting him down and the way our relationship now stands. I sob until the tears run out. Then I get up, my body exhausted, and turn to get my stuff and leave.

As I’m exiting the room, I glance back. “I’m sorry I let you down.” My voice is numb, my body detached. “I knew when you came home after the funeral that I was wrong. I knew I needed to fix things, but you’ve shut me out every day since. I love you with all my heart, with every bone in my body, but I won’t let you hurt us like this. I need you. I need something to ease this ache. I don’t know how to fix us. But something has to change. Maybe we need a break, I don’t know. Time to figure out how to heal, how to be with each other without breaking our hearts. You need time, and that’s fine. I need to figure myself out, so I guess I need time too.”

I walk out of the living room, not allowing him to respond, feeling as if I’ve left my heart behind. I enter the bedroom, slam the door, and sink to the floor. With no tears left in my body, I tremble violently as cold seeps into every part of my soul.

I hear Cooper sobbing. Then things break and glass shatters. A loud, dark bellow penetrates the air, so guttural and soul piercing that I begin to heave.

I know in this moment that we’re fucked. Our lives are fucked. We’re too tortured to face these problems. Our hearts aren’t just broken—they’re shattered, the splintered pieces never to be whole again.

Shaken up, I come back to reality and find that I am curled on the sofa with Grayson trying to console me. I’m sure he thinks I’ve lost my mind. He’s bundled me in a throw and is running his hand gently through my hair.

“What happened, Ky? You blanked and almost passed out.”

“I’m sorry,” I mummer, trying to regain my composure.

“What’s going on? You want to tell me what happened? The house is a wreck.”

“Not really,” I whisper.

He searches my face, as if contemplating whether to push the issue. I can tell he wants to dig deeper to make it go away. That’s just him. He’s a fixer. But I don’t want to talk. My stomach flips at the intensity with which he’s looking at me.

I noticed a change with Gray in Key West. He wants more, wants to
be
more, and that’s unnerving. Being here, in this house, reminds me of Cooper. I don’t want to damage my marriage any more than I already have. I love Gray, but I should be careful. I’m confused by him, by his willingness to hurt his best friend. Did something happen with him and Coop? Has their friendship taken a turn I don’t know about? Something feels
off
…

The light in his aqua eyes shows me his feelings run deeper than I care to see or even think about.

He smiles. “Okay, I won’t push. We can have this conversation later. Let’s just relax and have some fun. I want you to sit tight and let me clean up.”

“I’m sorry, Grayson,” I whisper. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. I don’t know what I was thinking. I assumed it would be cleaned up. We can just leave. Why don’t we go someplace else?”
God, I’m embarrassed.

“Kylie.”

The way he says my name—low, almost in warning—catches me off guard.

“Don’t do that. Don’t ever hide anything from me. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m all over the place. I don’t know anymore.” And I don’t.

I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. I feel as though I’m floating on a life raft, but the damn raft has sprung a leak. I’m sinking, desperately trying to scoop out water, but with every man and every day, I’m descending further.

Gray takes a deep breath and sits beside me. He grabs my hands and lays them on his chest. “Listen to me. You’ve been through so much shit. I know you’re trying to work it out, but I don’t want you holding back from me. Ever. We’re friends. I think what I said to you in the Keys has made you feel uncomfortable, maybe even a little unsure of us. But nothing has to change, sweet cheeks… unless you want it to. I don’t expect anything from you. I just want my open, candid Kylie back.”

A smile tugs at my lips. He’s always unconditional. He never makes me feel like less. He
always
tries to find ways to make me feel good and relaxed. I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him. “Thank you for always being here for me.”

“There’s nowhere else I want to be, Ky,” he murmurs into my hair. We hug for a minute, then he pulls back. “Okay, you rest.” He points at himself and grins. “And I’ll clean.”

I giggle at his goofball expression. “Well, that’s a first. You, cleaning…”

His eyes flash with mirth. “First and last.”

“I’m going to take a picture of this,” I taunt, laughing.

“I
love
that sound.” His face softens.

“What sound?”

“You laughing. It’s music to my ears.”

I avert my eyes and hear his soft chuckle as he walks into the kitchen. I lay back against the sofa, closing my eyes. I’ll use the time alone to purge the anxious thoughts that remain deep in my belly.
I just want to have fun.

Maybe, just for today, I should let go and just
be
. Maybe I can be happy and carefree without doing anything toxic. Just be
normal
for a day.