“Yes. I have been afraid too. But someone very wise once told me that sometimes we just have to make a choice. A choice to trust. The choice to let go.”
He realized, right then, that he had a choice to make. To release his hold on the past, to refuse to allow any more power over the present. Tabitha was right. You couldn’t wait for these things to go away. Couldn’t wait until a magical moment of certainty, couldn’t wait for a guarantee. It didn’t exist.
There was no magic. Sometimes, you had to get up and move the mountains all on your own.
“That is very wise. But I’m not certain I deserve for anyone to choose to let my sins go.”
“I’m not certain that matters either,” he said. There were so many years between this moment, and that moment in the hall in the palace when his mother had left. So much bitterness. So much pain. Part of him railed against the idea of releasing it, because shortly, it couldn’t be so simple.
In truth, he knew it wouldn’t be simple. But it was the only way forward.
“Come and visit us,” he said. “When you can. The palace will facilitate your travels.”
“Oh,” she said. “Are you... You’re certain you want to see me?”
“You left because of fear. I pushed my wife away because I was afraid. There is nothing more to fear now. Anger, hurt, it doesn’t have to stand in the way. At least, not if we make the choice to put it away.”
“You would do that for me?”
“For me. For me, first. Don’t get the idea that I turned into anything too selfless. I realized that I had to speak to you, to put all of this to rest first before I could move on with my life. I want very much for us to get on with life. All of us.”
“I would very much like that too, though I don’t deserve it.”
“Heaven forbid we only got what we deserved. If that were the case, then there would be no point in me going and trying to fix things with Tabitha,” he said.
“Go. You should always go. I didn’t. And I will never stop regretting it.”
“No more regrets. For any of us.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TABITHA FELT WRUNG OUT. She hadn’t had the energy to try and secure herself a place other than Kairos’s penthouse, and to his credit, he hadn’t come after her. Also, to his discredit, he hadn’t come after her. She didn’t know what she wanted. She didn’t know what she had expected. Something. To hear from him.
You expected him to stop you.
Yes, two days ago when she had walked out of the palace, she had expected him to prevent her from leaving. But he hadn’t. He had simply let her go. Damned contrary man.
The bright spot was that she had no more bleeding. She was feeling well, and not terribly drained. At least, not physically. Emotionally, she felt exhausted. She was sad. As though there was a weight in each of her limbs, pulling her down, trying to bury her beneath the earth. She was beginning to think it might succeed. That the weight would win. That the overwhelming heaviness would become too great a burden, that she would simply lay her head down and not get up and spend the rest of her days in bed, watching life go by.
Why did she have to love him so much? It was more convenient when she believed herself simply unhappy because of distance. Not unhappy because she was the victim of unrequited love.
She walked out of the bedroom, into the kitchen, feeling extremely contrary, because she wanted to lie down desperately, but she also needed to get something to eat. She stopped as soon as she walked into the main part of the room. She pressed her hand to her chest, as if it would keep her heart from beating right out of it.
“Kairos,” she said, stopping cold when she saw her husband standing there.
He looked as if he hadn’t slept in the past two days. His black hair was disheveled and there were dark circles under his eyes. His white dress shirt was undone at the collar, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He looked devilish and devastating. Like every good dream she could hope to have for the rest of her life. So close, so real, but untouchable.
“Are you all right?”
“Is that going to be the first question you ask me every time we see each other from now on?” And she realized just then that they would see each other again. At least, if all went right with the pregnancy, which she desperately wanted.
They would be forced to see each other at sonograms. At the hospital when she went into labor. Every time they passed their child back and forth. She would have to watch him walk away, taking a piece of her heart with him. Not just because he was holding their child, but because he was leaving too.
There would be no clean break, no getting over it. And if he remarried... If he had more children with another woman... She would be forced to see that too. And photographs of it in the papers, and clips of it on TV. A woman standing in her position.
She pressed her hand to her stomach, and doubled over, a harsh cry escaping her lips.
“Tabitha!” Suddenly, his strong arms were around her, holding her close. “Tabitha, what is it?”
“I can’t do this,” she said, her voice nearly a sob. “How can I see you and not have you? How can I watch you with another woman? How can I watch her take my place, and hold my child and bear more of yours? Kairos, this can’t be endured. I can’t.”
“You’re the one who left,” he said.
“Yes, I left. Because I can’t live with you when you don’t love me either. Why do you have to make everything impossible?” She straightened, and he took a step back, but she followed the motion, pressing herself against his chest, hitting him with her closed fist, even while she rested her head there, listening to the sound of his beating heart. “Why do I still love you?”
“I never quite understood why you loved me in the first place,” he said, his deep voice making his chest vibrate against her cheek.
“I don’t either. I was very careful. I was supposed to marry a man so cold he could never melt the walls I built up. You didn’t hide it well enough.”
“What?”
“How wonderful you are. Even when I couldn’t see it, I could feel that it was there. And I just wanted...I want everything you hide from me.”
“I want to stop hiding,” he said, his voice rough.
She lifted her head, looked into his dark eyes. “You what?”
“I called my mother. And I...I have to tell you something. I never wanted to tell you about the night my mother left. It was a defining moment for me. A mark of my great failure, a warning against what I might become. My greatest weakness.”
“You aren’t weak. If there’s one thing I know about you, Kairos, it’s that.”
“But I have been. Just not...in the way that I recognized weakness. I have been afraid. Like you, I’ve been afraid of being hurt again. Afraid of undoing everything I have learned. And that if it happens, I will no longer be able to do what I need to do as king of this country. It isn’t that I feel nothing, Tabitha. I feel things, so deeply, and I spent a great many years trying to train that away.”
“What happened when your mother left?”
“I saw her. I saw her walking out and I knew. I knew because I always felt I was more like her than I was like my father. She felt things so deeply. At first, it was one of the very beautiful things about her. But I... Talking to her, I understand. My father took that softness and twisted it. He made her feel like there was something wrong with her. Like her feelings were going to bring down the kingdom. I understand, because he did the same with me. He saw me crying after she left. I started the moment I fell to my knees and begged her to stay, and she walked out anyway. And I didn’t stop. He saw me, twelve years old and weeping like a baby for my mama, and he told me that I could not afford such emotion. Such weakness. But you see, it is this false strength that has become my greatest enemy. It has kept me safe from heartbreak, but it has destroyed any chance I might have had at a normal life. At love. And when you told me you loved me...I didn’t know how to respond. Or, rather, I didn’t know how to be brave enough to respond.”
“Kairos, of course you’re brave. You’re the strongest man I’ve ever known.”
“Who was reduced to trembling by your declaration.”
“Love is terrifying. It’s certainly the most terrifying thing I’ve ever confronted.”
“But everything of value comes at a price, does it not? Otherwise it would have no value. And so, I think the price for love is that you must lay down your fear. Your anger. Your resentment. Because you cannot carry them and carry love along with them. But no one can put them down for you. And very often, time is not enough to reduce the burden. So you must set them down. As you said, for you, trust had to be a choice. You chose to trust me, and I used it badly. For that, I am sorry.”
“I was going to say that’s okay. But it really isn’t. You hurt me. So badly.”
“I know.” He reached up, cupping her cheek. “I know. Tabitha, my arms are empty now. I set everything down. Everything that will get in the way of you. Of the love that I want to give you.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his embrace. “I put it all away so that I could carry my love for you. It’s all I want. It’s all I need.”