About Time (Broken Vows #4)

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Charlie Present- Age 53

As soon as I finish telling the guys about the night I found out Hattie was pregnant Griffin stands suddenly, kicks his camp chair out of his way, and heads toward the woods. I start to go after him, but Donovan puts his hand on my shoulder keeping me in place.

“Let him cool off. You’ve kept all of this under wraps for over twenty years. He tells you everything, and you’ve held back an entire life from him. He’s going to be mad for a bit, and you’ve got to let him,” Donovan says.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Scott offers and heads in the direction Griffin went.

“I know why I haven’t told this story to everyone, but why doesn’t everyone know how close you and Hattie used to be?” This is something I’ve been wondering for years, but it was like we’ve had an agreement never to bring up the past.

Donovan doesn’t talk for several seconds. He stares at the fire and pokes one of the logs with a stick. Glowing embers float away every time he disturbs the log.

He takes a deep breath and turns his head to face me. “When she left town she didn’t just leave you. You’re right, I was her best friend, but when she took off she forgot me. That’s been harder for me to set aside than I wanted everyone to know.”

There’s a gasp behind me, and we both turn to see Hattie with her hand over her mouth. Even in the darkness, the flicker of the bonfire is enough to show her eyes have filled with tears.

“You never said anything,” she says in a shaking voice.

Donovan tosses his stick into the fire. “I’m going to go see what Griff is up to.”

Liam has been quiet and lost in his head. It seems that there’s a melancholy mood blanketing all of us tonight. He stands up and points at his dad’s house. “I’m going to go find my wife.”

I hold my hand out for her. When she takes it I pull her onto my lap. Telling this story is making me relive every heartbreaking moment. There was so much passion, and love, but the higher we climbed the harder I hit the bottom. There were days I didn’t think I’d be able to breathe from one moment to the next.

Hattie’s hands frame the sides of my face. We sit like this for minutes, hours, hard to say. That’s the thing about time: the actual length never accounts for how long or short it feels. All of my years with Hattie have flown past in the blink of an eye. The twelve years we were apart though dragged on for an eternity. Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat afraid that the last eleven years have been nothing more than a dream.

She presses her forehead against mine. My hold on her tightens, and her arms around my neck pull me as close as I can get.

“We’ll never be apart again,” she promises, hitting right to the cause of my anxiety.

“I’ll never push you away again,” I swear to her.

Slowly, everyone makes their way to the fire. Liam comes holding hands with Claudia. Griffin, Scott, and Donovan come back and each finds their wife and pulls them to sit on their laps like Hattie is on mine.

Hattie turns to sit facing forward. I pull her back flush against my chest with one arm around her stomach. I turn my free hand over on her leg, and she laces her fingers through mine. I haven’t shared every detail of our past, but enough that they probably know way too much about the dynamic of our relationship. Even if censoring the more salacious details from my retelling, it doesn’t stop every memory from slamming into my brain unfiltered.

Griffin doesn’t say anything to me. That’s not how our friendship works. We will give each other hard truths when the other needs to hear them, but we don’t sit and have long conversations about our feelings. When our eyes meet he gives me a small nod, and I know I’m forgiven.

He leans forward with his elbows on his knees and steeples his fingers. “Might as well continue the story. You’ve already blown up a lot of what I thought I knew about you. We have a lot to catch up on, apparently.”

I put my chin on Hattie’s shoulder, and pull her tighter against me. Remembering this part won’t be as painful as living it, but I don’t think it’s going to be fun. She squeezes my hand, and I exhale tension as I let myself go back to a time I would much rather forget.

Charlie Past- Age 29

I never saw myself getting married or having kids. Watching Griffin’s marriage implode two years after Liam was born solidified that. Those plans evaporated the moment the doctor told Hattie she was pregnant.

The easiest decision I ever made was pointing my truck in the direction of Reno once she was released and marrying her. The honeymoon phase lasted a couple of months, but we’d really only pushed our problems back.

I was still resistant to telling her family and Griffin that we were together. I wasn’t trying to hurt her, but I know I did. I was still trying to figure out how to tell them we were together without Martin and Elisa hating me. I wasn’t so worried about how Griffin would take the news, but I felt like if one person knew then everyone should know.

The truth was I wanted to shout from the roof that Hattie was mine. I’d piss a circle around her if that would keep any of the much younger men away from her. I took comfort in the fact that pretty soon everyone would know she was taken as our child grew inside of her.

Nothing made me hornier than knowing a part of me was combined with a part of her forever. Then when she entered her second trimester she couldn’t get enough. I woke up more than once with her lips around my cock. If this was how she acted while pregnant we were going to end up with a dozen children. I didn’t even care that her taking the initiative fucked with our normal dynamic. Show me a man that’s going to bitch about a spontaneous blow job, because I’ll call bullshit.

Everything was perfect until it wasn’t.

There are events in life where time freezes. The moment I saw Hattie again at the pond was one. When the doctor told us we were having a baby was another. Those were the moments I locked away, somehow knowing I’d need something to hold on to.

This is what I’m thinking about as I sit in the waiting room of the hospital waiting for the doctor to come and tell me something. Then I think I want them to wait a bit longer. If they don’t come out here and tell me that I just lost my family then I can continue to believe Hattie and I still have a future ahead of us.

I look down at myself, and start to shudder because I’m covered in her blood. I’m shaking, and now I really wish I’d told someone, because I’m falling apart, and there’s no one here with me. The person I want most is back in an operating room fighting for her life.

At least, she better be fighting for her life, or I’ll never forgive her. I need to see those green eyes looking at me with love, lust, hell I’ll even take irritation. Anything, as long as she’s looking at me once more.

I close my eyes, and it all comes back to me.

Hattie’s moans woke me from a deep sleep. Somewhere in my dream her moans lost the sound of pleasure as my mind became more aware of the groans of pain.

“Are you okay?” I ask her. Of course she’s not fucking okay, I mentally yell at myself.

She doesn’t answer, because she falls back on the bed. Her groaning silences, and she doesn’t respond to my question.

Instinctively I know something is wrong, so I get up and pull the covers back. I nearly fall to my knees when I see Hattie’s legs and the bed covered in blood. It doesn’t even occur to me to call 911. There’s no time, instead, I scoop her up and run to my truck.

The following minutes are a blur as I race one town over to the only hospital, and carry her into the emergency room.

“Help,” I scream.

I’m carrying Hattie in my arms, with her head hanging limply, and both of us covered in her blood. The moment a nurse comes out and sees us the doctors and nurses burst into a flurry of activity. They have me lay her on a gurney, and in moments she’s out of my sight. The moment she’s taken from me I fade into a sort of half-existence. My life before her was shallow and unfulfilling. The idea I will have to go back to that is inconceivable because my ignorance made me think I was happy. Being married to Hattie for the last three months has opened my eyes to that reality, and I’ll never be able to convince myself I’m happy being on my own again.

I’m not sure how much time passes while my mind replays the horrors of the last few hours. The doors open and a doctor approaches me. My stomach drops seeing the solemn look on his face. I’ve never been this scared in my life.

“Your wife suffered a placental abruption. She needed a blood transfusion?—”

“Doctor, please just spit it out. Is my wife okay?” I interrupt him.

“Like I was saying, she needed a blood transfusion. I’m sorry to tell you that she miscarried. We had to perform an emergency D&C to prevent infection and halt the bleeding. She’s in recovery now, and the anesthesia hasn’t worn off yet, but you can go in and sit with her.”

I stand up to follow him, and he gets a better look at my current state. “Why don’t you follow me and I’ll have one of the nurses get you a pair of scrubs and show you to her room after you’ve changed.”

I speed through scrubbing her blood off my hands and arms, and changing my clothes. After I finally make it to her bedside, I take her hand. It’s so cold that I have to focus on the rise and fall of her chest to reassure myself she’s still alive.

Once again I’m reminded that while Hattie fills my life with so much joy and love, the only thing I bring her is pain. For a while, I convinced myself we could actually work, but now I see clearly. Staying in her life may actually be the end of her.

I love her far too much to be selfish enough to keep her. I finally understand what is meant by setting someone you love free. She may hate me for a while, but her life will be so much better without me in it.

Not yet though. I need to make sure she’s really okay. When we part I want to know that she’ll be happy. I won’t be without her, but at least I’ll be satisfied knowing she’s living the life she is meant to live.