CHAPTER 23
SARAH’S SOFT WORDS HIT ABE HARD, drawing blood. He knew that hadn’t been her intent. Sarah had always had a heart of pure mush. “I’m sorry,” he began, because it was time to stop being a coward, to man up and admit his terror.
“It’s all right, Abe.” A sad smile, her fingers brushing his lips. “You can’t force love. I don’t expect it, wasn’t trying to guilt you into a false confession.”
No, he would not let this bullshit stand. “That man you knew during most of our marriage?” he said, tugging away her hand and pressing it against his heart. “He wasn’t Abe. Or he was a fucked-up version of me.” The music had survived his addiction, but the drugs had damaged everything else. “But I was stone-cold sober the night I met you and I’m stone-cold sober now—and no woman, no woman, does to me what you do. I fucking love you. Always have, always will.”
Sarah’s throat moved as she swallowed, the thickness of her lashes coming down over the dark of her eyes for a long, still moment. “The physical connection isn’t enough,” she said, and he knew she didn’t believe him.
His world threatened to shatter.
But then he realized: words were easy. It was the doing that was hard.
He’d have to do. He’d have to love her until she had no choice but to trust in his love.
Cupping the side of her face, he slit open his veins. “I’m a coward, Sarah. So scared of losing you like I lost Tessie¸ so terrified of having my heart torn out of my chest that I tried to push you away, deny my love.” Abe felt as if he was fighting for his life. “But you’re it for me, Sarah. The only woman I will ever love.”
He and Noah, they’d had a conversation about love not long ago where he’d told Noah something his mom had asked him before his and Sarah’s wedding: Was Sarah a woman he’d have run off with if given the chance? When Noah repeated Abe’s mother’s question, Abe had hesitated, said he wasn’t sure.
What a load of fucking horseshit.
All it would take was the slightest encouragement and he’d have her in front of a justice of the peace so fast she wouldn’t even have time to get a wedding dress.
But Sarah didn’t speak. Her hand lay unmoving on him, her expression still, but there was nothing to say she believed his declaration. Abe didn’t panic; he’d known this wouldn’t be easy. He’d hurt her brutally in his self-protective terror, savaged that soft heart. He had to earn back her trust, earn the right to fight for her love.
“Give me till the baby comes,” he bargained. “If you don’t think we’ll make it at that point, I’ll agree to whatever you want. We’ll be friends, co-parent, nothing more.”
Sarah’s fingers curled against his chest. “I don’t know if I can,” she said at last, the words falling like rocks on his hopes. “I was so alone, Abe. I waited for you to call me after that night, to come for me. You never did. You left me all alone.”
He heard the tears she was trying not to shed. They eviscerated him. “I’ve got no excuse for that.” Sarah had no family in the city, no one to whom she could’ve turned. “I didn’t do it on purpose, that much I can say.”
Dark eyes met his, stark knowledge in their depths. “Did you take drugs after I left that night?”
“I took a bunch before we ever spoke.”
Her pupils dilated. “What? You weren’t sober when we fought?”
Abe could’ve taken advantage of that fact to play Sarah’s soft heart, but he wasn’t that guy, wouldn’t ever use her. “Doesn’t excuse what I did,” he said flatly. “And yes, I took more after you left, a shitload of them. And I kept doing it for weeks, chasing it down with the hardest liquor I could find.”
“The others—”
“—were all out of town.”
She lifted a hand to her mouth, horror a bleak shadow across her beauty. “You were alone that entire time? You could’ve—”
“Killed myself?” Abe nodded. “Yeah, I know.” Another ugly truth he’d had to accept, stop hiding from. “Noah’s the one who eventually found me. I was messed up and fucked up.” No way to pretty that up. “He called the others, waited until I passed out at a club, then they hauled me into rehab.”
“I’m glad.” Relief sent a tremor through her. “But the fact you didn’t think to call me once you came out of the drug haze… it proves my point.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Muscles bunching, Abe sat up with his elbows braced on his knees, the sheet pooling around his waist.