Running from the truth had already stolen too much from my life.
“No,” I said. “But I’m going, anyway.”
She smiled through wet eyes. “I’m proud of you.”
I walked to Callahan’s apartment because I needed the cold air and the time to think. Buddy heard me first, paws skittering across the floor before I even reached the top of the stairs. When I opened the door, he nearly knocked me over with relief.
My husband was in the kitchen. He turned his head the moment I stepped in.
“Merry, you’re back!”
“How did you know it was me?” I asked.
A sad smile touched his mouth. “Buddy told me first. My heart told me second.”
“How did you know it was me?”
He took one careful step forward, then another, reaching slightly with one hand. He almost caught the rug wrong. I moved before thinking and caught his wrist. Callahan stilled under my hand. Then, very gently, he found my face again.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, Merry.”
The honesty of that hit harder than any apology could have.
Then I smelled something faintly scorched past his shoulder and looked toward the stove.
“Callie! Are you burning something?”
He frowned. “No.”
The omelet was blackening in the pan. I laughed so hard I had to lean against the counter, and Buddy started barking like joy had a sound he recognized. Callahan laughed too, then, the first real one since the night before.
The honesty of that hit harder than any apology could have.
“The kitchen,” I said, still laughing through tears, “is mine now.”
That was my first official decision as a married woman.
Buddy lay under the table like a witness to peace talks and wagged every time one of us laughed.
For the first time in years, I no longer feel ashamed of my scars.
I finally understand that what happened to me was never my fault. And the one person who knew the ugliest truth attached to it still looked at me, through nothing but darkness, and found something worth loving.
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