Chapter 63\u00a0<\/p>\n
10%\u00a0<\/p>\n
On a normal day, we would have laughed at his joke but right now, the raw honesty in his voice cut through me like a blade. That I had to press my lips together to keep myself from crying, from making this about my own guilt when he was finally opening up about his deepest wounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJess saved me,\u201d he said simply. \u201cShe helped me see that life could be more than the darkness I was drowning in. She was there when I needed someone most. She loved me, and I\u2026\u201d He paused, swallowing hard. \u201cI loved her just as much.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Something sharp lodged in my throat, making it hard to breathe. The tears I\u2019d been fighting began building behind my eyes like storm, but I refused to let them fall. This wasn\u2019t about me. This was about honoring the woman who\u2019d been there for him when his family couldn\u2019t be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a year together, we got married.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The words hits me like wave, sending ripples of realization through me. Four years ago. He\u2019d already\u00a0<\/p>\n
found love and made a commitment while I was still in London, still trying to convince myself that what\u00a0<\/p>\n
had happened between us that night meant nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I pushed the selfish thoughts away. This wasn\u2019t about my timing or my feelings. This was about understanding the depth of his loss, the magnitude of what had been taken from him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I forced myself to listen, to really hear what he was telling me about the woman who\u2019d stood beside him when I couldn\u2019t. The woman who\u2019d been there for him during the darkest period of his life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJess didn\u2019t want children initially, so I agreed to wait. But last year, she changed her mind because she knew how much I loved kids. I would have waited forever for her to be ready, but when she decided she wanted to try\u2026\u201d His voice cracked slightly. \u201cI was over the moon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A bitter laugh escaped him, hollow and broken.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was seven months along when I came home from work and found her\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
His gaze drifted toward the dining room, and I followed it, understanding crashing over me like a wave. My mouth fell open as the full horror of what he was telling me sank in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my God, Tristan.\u201d The words came out as barely a whisper.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019d found them here. In this house. This was the reason he\u2019d refused to spend even a minute in this\u00a0<\/p>\n
1\/3\u00a0<\/p>\n
20:37 Sat, Jan 30\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 63:\u00a0<\/p>\n
place, why he leave every night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because that dinning room reminded him of what he\u2019d lost. The dining room I passed through every day was where his world had ended.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tears I\u2019d been holding back broke free, streaming down my face as I moved instinctively toward him. I couldn\u2019t stay on my side of the couch anymore, couldn\u2019t maintain the careful distance when he was sharing something this devastating.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I crossed the space between us and wrapped my arms around him, crying for his pain, for his loss, for the cruel timing that had taken everything he loved just when happiness seemed within reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The timeline was hitting me now with sickening clarity. Seven months pregnant. And she\u2019d gotten pregnant late last year. It means he\u2019d lost them few months ago, almost exactly when I\u2019d lost my own baby, when I\u2019d been drowning in my own grief and thinking my pain was the worst thing imaginable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While I\u2019d been mourning the loss of one life, he\u2019d been dealing with losing two \u2013 his mate and their unborn pub. While I\u2019d been raging against the unfairness of my situation, he\u2019d been trying to hold himself together after losing everything that mattered to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I sobbed against his chest, soaking his shirt with tears that came from somewhere deeper than sadness. This was grief for him, for the family he\u2019d almost had, for the future that had been stolen in a single moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His arms came around me, strong and warm and infinitely comforting, holding me while I cried for losses that weren\u2019t even mine. He rubbed gentle circles on my back, making soft sounds of comfort like I was the one who needed consoling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When my tears finally slowed, when the worst of the storm had passed, he pulled back gently to look at my face. His thumb traced across my cheek, wiping away the dampness with a tenderness that made my heart ache all over again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry I wasn\u2019t there for you when you were going through your own hell,\u201d he said, his voice thick with emotion. \u201cI\u2019m sorry I pushed you toward that bastard who hurt you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fresh tears spilled over at his words, accompanied by hiccupping sobs that I couldn\u2019t control. He was apologizing to me when he was the one who\u2019d suffered the unimaginable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry that if I hadn\u2019t let myself\u2026 if I hadn\u2019t done what I did that night\u2026 He couldn\u2019t finish the sentence, couldn\u2019t voice what we both knew he was thinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2\/3\u00a0<\/p>\n
20:37 Sat, Jan 3\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 63\u00a0<\/p>\n
I could see the guilt written across his features as clearly as if he\u2019d tattooed it there. He wasn\u2019t just blaming himself for not being there when Jess died. He was blaming himself for what had happened between us five years ago, for the night that had sent me running straight into Daxon\u2019s waiting arms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
it wasn\u2019t his fault. None of it was his fault. What had happened that night between us wasn\u2019t something he\u2019d orchestrated or manipulated. I\u2019d been the one who\u2019d begged him to touch me, who\u2019d initiated everything that had transpired.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I could see in his eyes that he\u2019d been carrying this guilt for years, convinced that he\u2019d somehow led\u00a0<\/p>\n
me astray, that his moment of weak had set in motion all the pain that followed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before my rational mind could\u00a0<\/p>\n
complications or\u00a0<\/p>\n
all the reasons this was a terrible I\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cand forward and pressed my lips to his.\u00a0<\/p>\n
fire.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The moment our mouths touched, something electric shot through me, setting every nerve ending on\u00a0<\/p>\n
I felt his body go completely still beneath me, every muscle tensing like he\u2019d been struck by lightning. For a heartbeat that felt like an eternity, he didn\u2019t respond at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
1 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories Drifted Into Soft Silence by Kyx Frost 63 Chapter 63\u00a0 10%\u00a0 On a normal day, we would have laughed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-second-gear-of-love-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}