Unbreak My Heart

by Nicole Jacquelyn

  “You had a lot going on.”

  “I’ve had more going on in the last two years than I’d ever had before, and I still know the exact moment you walk into a room. I saw every time you blew a raspberry on Gavin’s belly or helped Sage do her homework.”

  “You were just more aware of things because—”

  “I can’t keep my eyes off you,” he filled in before I could say another word.

  “Auntie Kate!” Sage yelled as she burst in the front door. “Keller fell in the creek!”

  “Son of a bitch,” I mumbled under my breath, standing up. “Where is he?”

  “Grandpa’s taking off his clothes outside since he’s all muddy.”

  “Okay.” I turned to Shane. “You’ve got her?” I asked, nodding to Iris.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then I’m going to run a bath for Keller. He probably has mud everywhere.”

  Shane gave me a tender smile and a nod before turning toward Sage, who was trying to get a good look at Iris. I didn’t know what that smile meant, but I didn’t have time to mull it over. Keller ran into the room in his underwear, his face and arms covered in green slime and a huge smile on his face.

  * * *

  Late that night, I sat nursing Iris while Bram paced the floor and Alex kicked back in our dad’s recliner.

  “This is bullshit, Katie,” Bram hissed. “You shouldn’t be driving all the way to California—especially with that prick.”

  “He’ll be careful,” Alex drawled, taking a drink of his beer.

  “Yeah, because he’s been so careful in the past,” Bram argued, turning to look at me. “You’ve got nothing to add?”

  “You two seem like you’ve got it covered,” I replied with a wry smile. My brothers had been having the same conversation for almost an hour, Bram getting more worked up and Alex more relaxed as time passed.

  “Why are you doing this?” Bram asked, coming to a stop. “He treats you like shit, Katherine.”

  “Ooh, he’s using your full name,” Alex said in amusement.

  “Shut the fuck up, Alexander.”

  “Calm it on down, Abraham.”

  “Are you guys kidding right now?” I huffed in annoyance. “You’re thirty years old. Grow up.”

  “We’re thirty-one,” they both replied before turning to glare at each other.

  “Exactly. Shut it already.”

  “You’re being an idiot, Kate,” Bram growled, taking a step forward.

  “Leave her be, Bram,” Shane said, moving into the room in nothing but a pair of sweats.

  “You shut the fuck up,” Bram said, pointing at Shane. “You’re not a part of this conversation.”

  “Interesting. Sounds like I’m the topic of the conversation.”

  “I didn’t beat your ass because my dad asked me not to,” Bram said in warning, crossing his arms across his chest.

  Even with the tension filling the room, I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of my mouth. I finally knew why the boys had begun crossing their arms when something pissed them off.

  “What the hell are you laughing at?” Bram asked with a scowl.

  “Okay, this is over,” Shane stated, moving around the couch between Bram and me. “Hold her tight, baby.”

  I clutched Iris closer as Shane bent over and scooped her and me into his arms. He didn’t flinch as Bram started ranting, just nodded at Alex—who was grinning—and carried us down the hall.

  I glanced back toward my brothers as we reached my bedroom, and Alex had one hand on Bram’s shoulder, his fingers gripping Bram’s flannel shirt. He was saying something I couldn’t hear, but whatever it was had Bram relaxing slightly and nodding.

  “Your brother is insane,” Shane mumbled as he kicked the door quietly closed behind us and set me on the bed.

  “He’s just worried about me,” I replied, pulling off the irritating nursing cover I’d used when I was with my brothers.

  “I’m not going to fucking hurt you,” he rasped, dropping down next to me and running his hand over his head.

  “You already have—that’s worse in Bram’s book.”

  His sad eyes met mine, and he barely nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, you’ve said that.”

  “I meant it.”

  “You always mean it, Shane,” I said in exasperation as Iris finally stopped nursing with a small burp. I stood up and brought her to her bassinet, happy for a reason to step away from him.

  “I’m trying, Katie.” Shane’s hands dropped to his lap.

  “I’m not sure what you want from me.” I stood in the middle of the room, my hands fisted at my sides.

  “I just want you.”

  “Why?” I asked softly. “I already agreed to go back with you. You’re getting what you wanted.”

  “Come here,” he murmured.

  “No.”

  He stood from the bed then, making my heart race.

  “Why are we like this?” he asked, walking toward me until he’d stopped less than a foot away.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “You fucked up,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears.

  “I fucked up,” he agreed, reaching out to cup the side of my neck in his large hand. “I won’t do it again.”

  “That’s what you said last time.”

  “Do you remember when you showed me your belly?” he asked, running his thumb up my throat. “You were just starting to get round, and you were nervous for me to see you.”

  I nodded, swallowing hard.

  “I thought, No one has ever been more beautiful than she is at this moment.” He lifted his other hand to trace his fingers down the side of my face.

  I scoffed. “I did my hair and put on makeup when I knew we’d be Skyping. I usually looked like shit.”

  “You got gussied up for me?” he asked with a small smile.

  “You don’t get it. That wasn’t me. I don’t wear makeup. I hate doing my hair, and usually I don’t have time for that crap anyway.” I tried to pull away, but the hand on my face dropped to wrap around my back and keep me close.

  “I see you,” he murmured, the smile never leaving his face. “You were even more gorgeous in the hospital after having Iris.”

  I startled. “What?” I hadn’t seen him at the hospital.

  A dark look crossed over his face, erasing his smile. “I got there as soon as I could, and you were sleeping. You were still a little bit sweaty—” I grimaced, remembering how gross I’d been.

  “Your face was swollen, and you had these little red dots on your cheeks.” He reached up and ran a finger under my eyes. “You looked exhausted.”

  “I was.”

  “I’ve never seen a woman look more beautiful in my entire life.”

  “I looked disgusting,” I argued.

  “No. You looked like you’d just given birth to my daughter.”

  My heart raced, and I finally took a step back out of his arms. “What are you doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t—I can’t keep doing this with you,” I cried quietly. “You have to stop doing this to me.”

  He looked at me in confusion, “Kate? What—”

  “Get out of my room,” I rasped, backing toward the bed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, taking a step forward. “What did I do?”

  “I’m going to California to be with the kids, but I think you’re confused,” I snapped, raising my hand to stop his forward momentum. “I’m not playing this fucked-up game with you anymore. I’m not some sort of fill-in wife for you—taking care of your house and handing out a random blow job. I’m not Rachel—”

  “Don’t bring her into this,” he ordered, coming to an abrupt halt.

  “Get out.”

  “Kate—”

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Shane,” I said firmly, staring at him until he spun on his heel and left
the room.

  I sagged onto the bed once he was gone, my hands shaking. A part of me felt good that I’d finally made a stand, but the rest of me was terrified that I’d made things worse between us. He was saying the right things, and God, he could be so sweet…but it never took long before he was making me feel like shit again, and I couldn’t do that anymore.

  Things had felt so simple while he’d been gone. He’d become my best friend, listening to my ramblings and flirting with me all the time, but that wasn’t real life. I was almost thirty years old, and I had children to think of. Losing my mind over Shane was no longer an option.

  * * *

  After I’d kissed my parents and brothers good-bye at four a.m., we were on our way south. Thankfully, Uncle Mike, Aunt Ellie, and Trevor had said their good-byes the day before so we’d been able to leave without stopping by their house.

  The kids were cranky, we were stuffed into the new rental van like sardines, and I knew before long Iris would be screaming. We were barely an hour into the drive, and I was already dreading the next two days of travel.

  Thankfully, the van came with a built-in DVD system that would distract the kids for a while, but I knew that it wouldn’t last. For children as busy as mine, sitting in a car for two days would be torture, especially when they’d made the drive less than a week before. I wasn’t sure how Alex had survived the drive north.

  “How’re you feeling?” Shane asked softly, even though the kids were all wearing headphones.

  “I’m fine.” I stared out the window as the sun began to rise. I was already both bored and on edge, waiting for the baby to wake up.

  “What’s Iris’s last name?” he said abruptly.

  I twisted to look at him. His hands were tight on the wheel, but he kept glancing at me as he waited for my answer.

  “I wasn’t sure what you—” I mumbled.

  “Evans?” he asked, his shoulders drooping.

  “No,” I replied softly. “Anderson.”

  He nodded, staring straight ahead as he swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

  “Iris Rachel Anderson.”

  “Good choice. She would have loved that,” he said, rubbing his hand over the bottom half of his face.

  “Probably not, seeing as how I fucked her husband,” I replied drily. “Not sure she’d be crazy about that.”

  He choked out a laugh and looked at me like I was crazy. “I had a hard time with that at first,” he said as he switched lanes, pulling onto the freeway. “Shit, the guilt was intense.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” I turned to look back out the window.

  “It took a long time for me to figure it out,” he said before going silent.

  I didn’t want to play into it. I knew he was trying to draw me into conversation, and I wanted to ignore him, but I still asked. “Figure what out?”

  “That Rachel doesn’t give a shit,” he said bluntly, checking the rearview mirror to make sure the kids were still occupied. “I miss her. Christ, sometimes when one of the kids does something funny, or Sage smiles, I think that I’ll never stop missing her.”

  I nodded, pulling my sweatshirt over my suddenly freezing arms.

  “But she’s gone, Katie. She’s never coming back. And she doesn’t give two shits about what I’m doing now.”

  “Shane—” My voice stopped working. I didn’t even know what to say. Did I agree with him? Mostly. I thought wherever Rachel was, she probably cared very much what Shane was doing, but not in the way he’d meant it. Rachel had loved Shane; she’d want him to be happy and safe. I didn’t think jealousy was an emotion that followed you into the afterlife.

  “Don’t you think it was hard for me?” I finally asked, breaking the silence.

  “I didn’t know how you felt, Kate,” he said seriously. “You never said a word.”

  “What could I have said, Shane?” I asked imploringly. “You didn’t want anything to do with me. Should I have told you how bad I felt when you were already so intent on blaming me for everything?”

  “I apologized for that.”

  “You may have apologized for being an ass, but that didn’t mean that you were okay with the situation,” I argued.

  “What do you want me to say, Kate? Tell me, and I’ll say it. I felt guilty. I hadn’t been with anyone but Rachel in over ten years, and then suddenly I’m fucking you into a hotel mattress. I was a little overwhelmed.”

  “Yeah, well, join the club,” I retorted. “I didn’t treat you like shit.”

  “If I could go back and change things, I would,” he said, sighing and leaning back into the seat. “I would have handled it better.”

  “I don’t think either of us handled things very well.”

  “Don’t, Kate.”

  “I was too busy reliving all that sexing in my head,” I said with a satisfied hum.

  “Can you be serious for a goddamn minute?”

  “Who said I wasn’t being serious?”

  He scoffed and went silent. A few minutes later, Iris began to fuss.

  * * *

  “We’re home,” I told my mom, flopping onto the bench in the backyard. The trip back to California had taken three days of stopping every couple of hours for potty breaks, lunch breaks, and just-because breaks. It had been the longest three days of my life. “I’m never making that drive again.”

  “How are you feeling?” she asked with a chuckle. “How did the kids do?”

  “They hated every second, and by the time we passed Six Flags, I was ready to jump out of the van while it was going eighty down the freeway.”

  “And Shane?”

  “He was fine. Surprisingly patient. He just left to take the van back to the rental place.”

  “Did you two work anything out?”

  “There’s nothing to work out.”

  “Katherine,” she said in warning.

  “We’re getting along, Mom. Okay?” I huffed and rocked Iris’s car seat with my foot as she began to stir. “I’m too tired to worry about anything else at the moment.”

  “You two need to—”

  “Mom!” I hissed, rubbing the tension from my neck. “Drop it.”

  “Fine,” she grumbled. “I think Bram is ready to move to California.”

  “He’s being a jackass.”

  “He’s just worried about you.”

  “Why can’t he be more like Alex?”

  “Don’t compare your brothers. That’s not fair to either of them.”

  “Crap.” I let my head fall back until my face was raised to the sky. “I know, it’s just frustrating.”

  “Yeah, well he and Anita got into it right after you left.”

  “What? Why? Keller, stay out of the pool!”

  “Who knows with those two? They’re like oil and water. Alex finally threw Ani over his shoulder and carried her out of the house.”

  “Why didn’t you stop them?”

  “You know we’ve always tried to let you kids argue your own problems out.”

  “They’re adults.”

  “All the more reason to leave them be,” she murmured.

  “Crap, Mom. I gotta go. Gunner just put something in his mouth.” I stood from my seat and tossed my phone to the bench, yelling for Gunner to spit out whatever it was. Just as I reached him, he spit out a clod of dirt and started crying.

  “Everything okay?” Shane asked, carrying Sage outside, her skinny legs wrapped around his waist.

  “Yeah,” I huffed, picking Gunner up. “Gunner put dirt in his mouth, and now he’s regretting it.”

  I walked Gunner back toward the house, but stopped when Shane reached out with his free arm to stop me.

  “It’s almost bedtime,” he said softly, wiping a frustrated tear from my cheek. “I’ll do baths, okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just need to—” I didn’t want him stepping in. What the hell was I doing there if I wasn’t taking care of the kids?

  “I’ll do baths, Katie,” he said firmly, before yelling for the
boys.

  Iris chose that moment to wake up screaming, and I gave in without another word. I just needed one day to get my legs under me. I’d feel better by the morning.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry,” I said, cringing as Shane stepped into my room and closed the door behind him late that night. “I don’t know why she’s doing this—she hasn’t done this before.”

  Tears were pouring down my cheeks as I paced back and forth. Iris had been screaming for a full twenty minutes by then, but it felt like hours. I had no idea what to do with her. I’d fed her, changed her diaper, and wrapped her tightly just the way she liked it. There was absolutely no reason for her to be so fussy.

  “Did you get any sleep?” he asked, his voice so low I nearly missed his words.

  “Yeah, about an hour before she had to eat again. She wouldn’t let me put her in her bed so I just kept holding her,” I said on a sob. I was so freaking tired.

  “Come here,” he said gently, reaching for Iris. “Have you tried a binky?”

  “I—she hasn’t ever had one.”

  “Do you have any?” he asked, gently rocking Iris as she screamed.

  “I think maybe in her suitcase. My mom got her a couple when we were at the hospital.” I threw open the suitcase and dug through it, finally pulling out a couple of pacifiers in a plastic bag. “She even sterilized them.”

  “Hand me one,” he said quietly, reaching toward me.

  It took a few minutes of him teasing Iris with the binky before she sucked it into her mouth, and I breathed a sigh of relief as the room grew silent. My eyes were scratchy and heavy from all the crying I’d been doing, and it took all I had not to reach up and rub at them like a little kid.

  “Climb in bed,” Shane crooned, looking at Iris but speaking to me.

  I crawled onto the bed, sighing as I relaxed. A few moments later, Shane was cracking open the door and shutting off the light, leaving us in near darkness. I turned onto my side and curled my bottom arm under my pillow as he set Iris against the front of my body.

  I stopped breathing when he walked around the bed and crawled in behind me.

  “I know things with us aren’t—” He sighed and scooted his body forward until he was spooning me. “I don’t want to sleep without you anymore.”