My stomach dropped as I asked, "What happened?"
The smile he gave me was full of pain. "Two years into our marriage, she got pregnant. Didn't think I could be any fucking happier than when I saw those two pink lines, man." He laughed lightheartedly at the memory, and I found myself smiling along with him. And then the memory appeared to turn bad, because the happiness disappeared as he continued. "It was a rough pregnancy, but we were just so excited to finally meet our baby that we didn't let it get to us, you know?"
"I know," I said softly.
"She was already in her ninth month when she woke up bleeding one night. I rushed her to the hospital, but the placenta had torn, and she was bleeding so goddamned much … " He stopped for a while and breathed deeply, dropping his head in an attempt to compose himself. It took a few minutes, but I let him be, gave him the silence he needed to get himself to a better place. When he was ready to finish his story, he looked up. "I lost them both that night. My wife and my son."
"Christ," I breathed as my chest squeezed to an almost painful level. "Tony, fuck, I'm so sorry, man."
I couldn't imagine going through the same loss Tony had. If it hadn't been for Sophia, I don't think I would have made it. But he lost both of them. The fact that he was able to move on from that spoke to the character of the man, and I had an entirely new level of respect for him. "I didn't tell you my story because I wanted you to feel sorry for me. I told you because I get it. I know what you're struggling with right now, Quinn. When I first met Sarah, I couldn't imagine giving her that piece of myself that had belonged to Connie. It felt wrong. I felt like I was betraying her for falling for another woman. So I get what you're going through.
"But having been in your shoes, I have a perspective on the situation that you can't see yet. And if telling my story can help you move past this, I want to do that. I was just as broken as you are now, but falling for Sarah when I was at my lowest was the smartest fucking thing I've ever done. After I lost Connie and our son, I was barely living. I didn't want to feel for Sarah the way I did, but she'd gotten under my skin. She burrowed deep and wouldn't let go." He gave a little chuckle before going on. "She saw the pain I was in and she wanted to help me. It didn't start out as something romantic, it was just her wanting to be a friend."
Christ, what he was saying was so much like what I'd gone through with Lilly. There'd been an attraction between us from the start, but it took a while for us to come to terms and act on it. We'd gotten to know each other on a totally different level first. We became friends. Best friends. She'd been what I hadn't even realized I needed.
"That friendship grew into something else, and that scared the shit out of me," Tony expressed. "I was where you are now. I fucked it up and almost lost her for good. But it took doing that for me to open my eyes and realize something. Loving Sarah didn't mean what I had with Connie was any less important. Connie was everything I needed back then. I became an adult with her, learned responsibility, learned what it meant to be a real man and put someone else's needs and wants above my own. She helped me grow into the man that was worthy of a woman like Sarah. She gave me exactly what I needed when I had her, and being with her taught me how to give Sarah exactly what she needs now. I don't think I'd be where I am today without the lessons I learned with Connie.
"Some people aren't lucky enough to find the love I had with Connie once in their lives. I was lucky enough to find that twice. How can that possibly be bad? If what you feel for Lilly is even a fraction of what I felt when I met Sarah, you need to grab hold of that, brother. Because I can promise you, Addy would want you to be happy. She'd want you to find a good woman who can take care of you and Sophia. If that woman is Lilly, don't fuck it up and lose it because you're scared. Every goddamned thing that matters in life is scary. Nothing worth having ever came easy. You and I learned that the hard way. But falling in love a second time doesn't mean you're devaluing the memory of your wife. It just means you're one lucky bastard. Take all those lessons Addy taught you in the past and be the man Lilly needs today and every day in the future."
I felt like I'd just taken a fist to the gut. It hurt to breathe as I admitted, "I think I might be too late on that, man. I hurt her. I fucking hurt her too many times. She's done with me." Christ, saying that out loud burned something fierce.
"She's not done, Quinn."
I looked over at him, my heart aching with each beat in my chest. "She is. She told me we weren't good for each other."