I don’t know how long I stood there under the rain. I was soaked and cold. I could feel the numbing of my fingers slowly. I was shivering, but still I refused to turn back home, to take cover. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, mixing with the drops of heavy rain.
Then suddenly, the world started spinning. If I’d cared, I would have panicked. I knew that fatigue had won this time. And then everything started to turn dark…darker than it already was…
***
I was walking back home after the rain. I felt warm already. My clothes were dry. I don’t know why, but I felt very comfortable.
Suddenly, I realized that I wasn’t alone. Somebody was walking beside me. He was just as tall as I was. He was not muscular. He was wearing our school jacket, his strawberry-blond hair almost covering his eyes. He looked at me, and I recognized those familiar gray eyes, which were so much like mine. He smiled at me.
Tears filled my eyes. It’d been so long since I last saw him.
“Tom…” I whispered.
He smiled at me. “Everything is going to be okay, Brianne.”
At that instant, I thought I’d died. Right there in the graveyard. I must have fainted there, and nobody found me. Or I must have hit my head.
“Are you taking me with you?” I asked Tom. And somehow I realized that wouldn’t be so bad.
He shook his head.
“I love you, Brianne,” he said to me. “I promise you, you will be happy for the rest of your life.”
And he started walking faster than me. I tried to keep up with him, but somehow his strides were always longer than mine and I couldn’t keep up.
“Tom, wait for me!”
He turned toward me again and shook his head. “I’m always waiting. But you’re going to live a long, happy life, Brianne.”
“No! I can’t be happy! You saw what happened to me! I will never be happy anymore!”
He just gave me a sly smile. Then he shook his head. “I promise you, you will be. Wake up now, Brianne. And send my love to Travis, too.”
“Tom!” I called. But somehow, I was frozen in place. I couldn’t move my feet. I watched Thomas walk farther and farther away from me.
“No, Tom! Don’t leave me!”
He turned one last time and gave me a grin and a salute, and then he faded into the light.
“Tom!” I screamed.
I blinked, and then suddenly everything around me changed. I was no longer in the street. I felt comfortably warm, and I was lying down on something soft, with my head resting on something firm, warm and…familiar.
I started to get up, but strong arms were wrapped around me, keeping me still, preventing me from pulling away.
“Sssshhh…” I heard a soft, soothing voice whisper against my ear.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I tried to breathe steadily. I opened my eyes slowly, almost afraid of what I would see before me. My dream about Tom had seemed so real, I thought I had died and he’d come to get me. I wouldn’t have minded that. I missed him. Now, more than ever, I missed the brother who had always brought the sunshine with him. God knows I needed a ray of sunshine in my life right now.
But he wasn’t real. He was a dream. And in my dream, he promised I would live a long and happy life. So I couldn’t be dead. I was still breathing.
When reality finally dawned on me, I realized that I was in a huge, dark room. There was light coming from the fireplace. A storm was still raging outside. A bolt of lightning would sometimes illuminate the room, followed by a bellow of thunder. I shivered even though I felt warm. I almost felt scared. And then I remembered that I wasn’t alone.
I gently pulled away from the person holding me. The room that I was in was very unfamiliar to me. I hadn’t been there before.
I looked up to see the face of the person who was comforting me, making me feel warm and safe. The fire coming from the fireplace and the lightning outside gave very little light in the room. But it was enough for me recognize his face.
My heart pounded in my chest, and I forgot to breathe. I should have known. The warmth of his arms around me, the comfort that his body provided, and the intoxicating scent of his skin were all too familiar to me. So familiar, yet he seemed so unreal. He was so close, and yet he felt so far away.
“Travis…” I whispered his name. The feel of it on my lips brought up so many of the emotions I had been bottling up inside me. Pain. Anger. Love.
He didn’t say anything. He stared at me for a while, and then he pressed his palm against my forehead, feeling my temperature.
I pushed farther away from him. This time, he let me go, allowing me to put some distance between us. I sat up on the bed.
“Take it easy, Brianne,” he finally said to me.
I found that I was dressed in one of his pajama bottoms and shirts. They were too big for me, but they were enough to keep me comfortably warm.
I looked around the room. It was massive, with a matching couch and coffee table beside the fireplace. Were we in a hotel room again? How did I get here? And what was Travis doing here with me?
“Where are we?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
“In my room. In my grandparents’ house,” he replied.
“How…how did I get here?”
“You fainted yesterday,” he answered. “I was just right behind you. What were you doing bathing in the storm?”
I shook my head. I remembered flying home and walking toward Tom’s resting place. I remembered what I told Tom in the graveyard. I was setting Travis free…not only of the promises he’d made me, but also of the promises that he’d made my brother.
“I need to go home,” I said.
Travis took a deep breath. “You are home,” he said. His voice lacked the trace of anger or coldness. It was steady, and somehow there was a trace of anxiety.
I raised a brow at him.
“Remember, you’re still married to me. This is your home, too,” he said in a low voice.
I shook my head. “Not for long, Travis,” I said to him. “I’m sorry for all the trouble.” I took a deep breath and willed all my strength to be able to speak the next words that came out of my mouth. “You’re free of your promises to me or to Tom now. You can live your life as you please. It’s time you made your choices without considering any vow or promise you made my brother or me all these years. We haven’t been fair to you. It’s time to set you free.”
I slowly stood up from the bed.
“I’m not going to bother you anymore,” I said to him. “I will consult with a lawyer and file a divorce. Don’t worry—I will not take anything from you. I’m keeping my part of the bargain. I don’t want your money.”
He didn’t say anything. I had my back on him while I was saying those words. I was afraid to look at him. I was scared that I would lose my courage if I looked into his eyes.
“Th-thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Travis,” I said. “I want you to know, I will not hold any grudge against you…after all this ends.”
I bit my lip to keep from crying. “And I h-hope…someday…we can still be…friends…but I cannot keep holding you hostage to your promises, to your guilt, or your conscience…and likewise, I can’t allow myself to be hurt by you anymore…I think it has to end. Here. Now.”
There was silence. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I willed myself to be strong. I didn’t want him to see me cry. This was harder than I thought. But I knew that I was stronger than I gave myself credit for. I stood up on my own two feet those months that Travis wasn’t with me. I would be okay. And I’d always wish for Travis to be happy.
When I finally looked up at him, I found that he was sitting on the bed, his back on me. He was looking down at the floor, lost in his own thoughts, taking in every word that I’d just said to him.
I took a deep breath. “I was at Tom’s grave…to tell him that I was setting you free…of the promises that you made him before he died. You’ve fulfilled more than that already…it
’s time to let go, Travis. It’s time to move on. It’s time to unbind your fate from mine…so you can live your own life, the way you want it…the way you were supposed to live it.” God! I didn’t know where I’d gotten the courage to say those things without breaking down on his bedroom floor.
Then I remembered seeing Tom again…after many years. He was just as happy, just as positive as he was when he was alive. And he promised me that things were going to be okay. That I would be happy. I guessed I could hold on to that hope. After all, Tom was also one guy who could keep promises.
I stared at Travis’s finely sculpted back. He just sat there. He didn’t move…didn’t say a word.
After a couple minutes of silence, I turned to look at the couch, trying to see if my clothes and shoes were somewhere in the room.
I heard Travis’s sharp intake of breath. Then finally, he said in a sober voice, “You released me of my promises to take care of you…but don’t you remember? You promised to take care of me, too.”
I bit my lip. I remembered making that promise, too. But with Travis shutting me out of his world, I guessed that was impossible to keep. We were too broken. I’d hurt him deeply. I didn’t trust him completely when I thought I trusted him with my life. He hurt me terribly when I thought he’d betrayed my trust and when he said hurtful words to me. He risked our baby’s life, when I would have given everything to keep it safe. I wouldn’t be able to give him the family he wanted when I knew it was the only thing that could save him. I’d tried to fix us…but he didn’t give me a fighting chance.
How else could I keep my promise to save him? To take care of him? I know they were impossible now.
Finally, he stood up from the bed and faced me. His face was as dark as it was broken. “You can go now, Brianne,” he said in a low, sober voice. “But I promise you, no matter where you go, no matter where you run…I will find you. And you know that when I make a promise…I will die to keep it.” He took a deep breath. “Because while you released me from the vows I made to Tom, I will never release you from the promises that you made to me…if that’s the only way to keep you…to make you mine forever.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t try to hide them from him this time. I shook my head. “But you don’t want to keep me forever, Travis.”
Anger, pain, and desperation crossed his face. “Dammit, I do!” In a few strides, he was in front of me, snatching me to him, enveloping me in his warm embrace…crushing me against his bare chest.
“I…tried to see you. I called you about a hundred times,” I said to him. “You didn’t even want to see me or talk to me.”
He gave out a sigh of frustration but kept me prisoner in his arms. “I was afraid, Brianne!” he said. “I was afraid of what you were going to say to me…I wasn’t strong enough to hear you say the words you are saying to me now. No matter how much I pictured a happy ending for us, I couldn’t see you ever forgiving me. I knew you were going to ask me to set you free. I couldn’t think of any other reason why you would want to speak to me…except to say the words you just said to me now. I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear you say that it was over…so I avoided you instead. I stayed out of the country most of the time, because I was afraid that divorce papers were on their way. And I couldn’t face it.”
“But…that’s not why I wanted to talk to you, Travis.”
There was silence for a while. Travis kept his arms tight around me, refusing to let me go even for just a moment. Then he asked, “What were you going to say to me then?”
“I was…going to tell you that I remembered everything that happened that night. That I was sorry for hurting you, for calling you a beast! That…I wanted to try again.” Tears rolled down my cheeks, soaking Travis’s chest. “But I realized…in the end, it was better to let you go.”
I felt him shake his head. “Even if you let me go…I won’t let you go!” he said in a rough voice. “Remember I told you that you are the air that I breathe!?”
“You avoided me these past few months. And you breathed just the same.”
“No,” he said. “I died the moment I walked out the door of your apartment…that day you told me you were pregnant.”
I savored the feel of Travis’s arms around me. I felt home…I felt safe again. But I realized that, just the same, this did not change anything between us.
“We said hurtful words to each other…that destroyed us forever,” I said.
He shook his head. “No. It could never destroy us, Brianne. We’re stronger than you give us credit for.”
“How can it not destroy us, Travis?” I asked. “I called you a rapist, a beast! I accused you of raping me to get an heir to win your battles with your father.”
“And I forgive you. I know now that you didn’t mean those words. You were angry and hurt. And you were right—I did betray you…I should have told you what had happened between us before we got married. Damn! I shouldn’t even have left you in the room that night. I should have waited for you to wake up.”
He was right. He should have waited for me to wake up. But I understood now why he didn’t. He’d promised me over and over that he would protect me from himself. I was conscious that night, but I wasn’t entirely myself. He couldn’t forgive himself for letting go of his control. He felt angry with himself for slipping…even though I prevented him from making the right choice.
I remembered the most hurtful words he’d said to me that day while we were fighting. “You said…you shouldn’t have married me at all! You felt this was a mistake.”
He laughed bitterly. “No. That’s not what I meant at all. Marrying you was probably one of the few things I did right,” he said. “When I said that, I meant I shouldn’t have married you without laying all the cards on the table. I felt like I’d cheated you. I should have told you before the wedding…that we’d made love…that you’d told me you loved me…and that I loved you too. And when I married you, I no longer intended just to buy you time to find the man you were going to spend the rest of your life with…because I intended to let you spend the rest of it with me. You should have known all that before you married me…I should have left you with a choice.
“I knew you could still choose to marry me after knowing what I really felt…and what my new conditions were. But I realized that when you were sober, you hadn’t even figured out how you really felt about me. So I also knew there was a fifty percent chance that you would choose not to marry me at all. And I didn’t want to take that chance. So I chose not to tell you about that night. I married you…without telling you what you were binding yourself to.” He paused for a moment and then he said, “I felt that I had started our marriage with lies…and treachery. I was a manipulative man, Brianne…and I felt ashamed because I felt I’d manipulated you to get what I wanted…into the ending that only I might end up winning.”
I listened to his every word, trying to accept the apology behind them. His arms tightened around me once again. “But without all those complications in the way, Brianne…I would marry you over and over again. I’m sorry if I made it sound like I didn’t want to marry you at all. I think I’ve wanted to marry you since your sixteenth birthday…after I took you out on our first date. I’ve always known I wanted you…but I always told myself I was forbidden to have you. Maybe all these years, I was hoping you wouldn’t find another guy to settle down with. Because I knew that when the time came for you to call in my promise…it might be the only chance for us to belong together. And that night we made love, I realized why I was waiting for you…taking care of you all these years…why you meant the whole world to me…why for years you’d been the meaning of my life. It wasn’t just because of my promises to your brother, Brianne.”
I closed my eyes and more tears slid down my cheeks. Yesterday, I would have been jumping up and down to have Travis say those words to me. But today, I realized the intensity of the damage in our relationship. Apart from the night I thought he had betrayed me, a lot of things had hap
pened that could put a wedge between us forever. And I couldn’t take him back now…and risk losing him again in the future. I was stronger now, but I wouldn’t be able to recover from this the second time around. “I lost your child, Travis. You gave it up,” I said. “I wouldn’t have risked his life. I would have fought.”
“I know,” he replied. “But the choice was left up to me. And it killed me to make that decision. I loved you both. I knew you would fight for our baby’s life. But I chose to fight for yours.” I could hear the tears in his voice. He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to keep his voice steady. “It tore me apart to make that choice, Brianne,” he said. “That reduced me to the cold, ruthless devil I was before I married you. Because I would have to live with myself, knowing I had sacrificed our child…but I couldn’t bear to lose you, too…to not see you again…not see you smile again…even if I couldn’t have you…I still wouldn’t be able to live in a world where you did not exist. And I know you won’t be able to forgive me for that. But I’m really sorry, Brianne. I just love you too damn much—I just won’t live without you…regardless of whether we are together or not.”
I remembered waking up in the hospital that day. I wasn’t prepared for the pain that would greet me. I thought about our little angel once in a while. He would have been a couple of months old by now. I always wondered what he would have looked like and how he would be when he grew up. The biggest pain of losing a baby is confronting the hundreds of questions about what could have been if he or she had survived. Knowing that you will never know breaks your heart every time you think about it.
And I knew…just like losing Tom, the only other person who felt the exact same pain I felt when I lost my baby was Travis. And knowing him…he would deal with his pain on his own. I understood now why he ran away from me. Why he was not at the hospital when I woke up, even though I knew he’d held me during the times I was unconscious. He was broken because we’d lost our child. He was angry because it was his decision to risk it. He couldn’t face me because he knew I was blaming him for all of it.