That's a Relief (Promises, Promises Book 3)

by Victoria Klahr

  There is so much damage I need to clean up.

  Chapter 43

  Josie

  Devastation crashes into me as soon as I wake up and realize he isn’t with me. After all the progress we made last night, and he still couldn’t stand to be around me when the sun came up.

  I wipe away the stray tear I didn’t mean to shed and sulk into the house. Everyone is still asleep, so I sit and drink my coffee alone. My headache is killer, but the throbbing in my chest is so much worse.

  He may be able to walk away from me without feeling a damn thing, but I’m devastated. For weeks I’ve been desperate for some sort of sign that he still cared, and last night I got it. We could have mourned our baby separately, but we did it together. That has to mean something. It has to.

  Regardless of waking up alone, I have this urge burning in my stomach to hurry up and go find him. To force him to sit down and listen. To let me love him again.

  Shuffling feet distract me from my thoughts, and I glance up to find Brooke looking the frumpiest I’ve ever seen her. Her blonde hair looks like a rat nestled a bed at the top of her head, and her makeup runs in streaks down her face. Her feet are covered in the most ridiculous Dr. Seuss-esque slippers, and she wears the fluffiest yellow robe I’ve ever seen.

  She plops down in the kitchen chair next to me and steals my coffee.

  “Sure, help yourself.”

  She grunts and cradles the coffee in her hands like it’s the most precious thing she’s ever touched. I wait for the creepy my precious to come out of her mouth, but it doesn’t. When she finishes the cup, she finally starts looking human. She slumps into her seat and eyes me. “How are you this morning?”

  “Got a bitch of a hangover, but it could be worse. You?”

  “Miserable. I can’t believe this shit.”

  We stayed upstairs for hours last night drinking and damning our men to hell. Now that I have less alcohol and less anger in me, everything is a little clearer, and I feel … exactly the same as I did last night.

  “Men suck, Brooke.”

  “Hear, hear,” she grumbles raising my coffee mug up in the air. “So, where’s your douchebag this morning?”

  I chuckle and get up to grab a new mug. “I don’t know. We kinda had a moment last night. I thought I’d wake up today and everything would start to slide back into place, but he was gone before I woke up.”

  She perks up. “What? What happened?”

  I bring my cup back to the kitchen table and shrug my shoulders. “Don’t know,” I mumble over the rim of my cup. “He found out about … He knew I tried to kill myself. We finally talked about losing the baby and we kind of fell asleep together on the back porch.”

  “Holy crapballs,” Brooke exclaims. “That’s great. I mean it’s depressing, but it’s a start. I bet Brandon told him.”

  “Probably.”

  “So, what are you doing here?” she asks. I give her a really look and she rolls her eyes. “Jos, don’t be dumb. He ran off because being that close to you last night must’ve scared the shit out of him.”

  I know that. I really do. “Brooke, I have no clue what to do anymore. I tried giving him space and that made it worse. I tried being sexy and that was an epic fail. I tried to be his friend and that blew up in my face really quick. Last night, I thought we had a breakthrough, and even that wasn’t enough. I don’t know what to do!” I exclaim. “I want to run up to him and hug him and hold onto him. I want to tell him I will never stop loving him and that despite the fact that he hates himself right now, I will always love him.”

  Brooke slams her mug on the table, giving me an incredulous look. “Josie!”

  “What?” I grumble, crossing my arms.

  “Do that!” she proclaims. “Do everything you just said, you dummy.”

  “I’ve tried telling him I love him, Brooke.”

  “I’m telling you, Josie. Go find him right the heck now and tell him what you just said to me.”

  I stare at her for a minute, to which she purses her lips and raises her brows in a challenge. I roll my eyes and sigh. “I’m going to go find him, not because you told me to, but because I had already planned on finding him so we could talk.”

  “Sure,” she says, hiding her grin behind her coffee cup. I put my cup in the sink and muss up her hair on my way to the living room. Breanna and Brody are asleep on the couch, Brody sitting upright and holding Breanna’s outstretched legs in his lap. Figuring I’ll see them later tonight or tomorrow, I decide not to wake them and grab my purse and keys to leave.

  I don’t bother with makeup but change into a light-blue shirt dress. Brooke refuses to walk me out while she looks like a troll, and gives me a hug at the door.

  “He just needs you to love him,” she murmurs during our embrace. I pull away and nod my head. “And no one loves him more than you. So go show him that.”

  In the car, I call Seth’s mom to see if he had gone back to her house. She said she hadn’t seen him since she told him she was selling the farm yesterday—which I had no clue about, since Seth has been shutting me out for so long.

  I should be with him when he hears news like that. I should be the one he talks to so he doesn’t lose himself. The need to get to him rages inside me. My heart races as I get on the exit that will take me home.

  Would he come back here?

  I want to feel relief when I see his truck in the driveway of the house, but my heart kicks faster and my breathing is harsh. Flashes of memories invade me, and I have to squeeze my eyes hard to blink them away.

  Seth’s here. Get to Seth.

  Forcing myself to work through the anxiety, I get out of the car and run up to the door. I can’t take time lingering or I’ll lose my nerve.

  Pushing past the front door, I vow not to leave this house until we’ve worked through all our demons. Until our souls are bared to each other in the most intimate and vulnerable way. At which point, we’ll have to decide whether or not this relationship is worth fighting for.

  I already know my answer.

  Seth is worth everything.

  “Seth,” I call out into the distressingly quiet house. “Are you in here?”

  I walk around the corner to find the living room lacking any evidence of Michael’s assault. The chair is gone. The rope is nowhere to be seen. My blood doesn’t mar the wood floors.

  A flash of me screaming under the sharp sting of a knife comes to mind and my hand shoots to my chest. Pain that is supposed to be healed fires through the scars he left on my skin.

  A bucket with a sponge floating in dirty water sits against the wall next to an empty bottle of whiskey. I close my eyes and breathe hard. This room is too much—the walls start closing me in and I can’t breathe. The memories suffocate me, and I’m gasping for air by the time I make it into the kitchen.

  It’s over. You’re not a hostage anymore.

  A cacophony of banging followed by a string of cursing slices through the anxiety. I follow the noise until I’m standing in the middle of the garage.

  “What the …” I mutter to myself. Seth art studio looks like a tornado barreled through it. The poles of his drum set are dented, the cymbals and snare drum strewn haphazardly across the room. Painted canvases are mutilated with holes and tears.

  A steady thump grabs my attention and I search until I find Seth in the back of the garage.

  “Sethy?” I whisper, heart pounding furiously.

  He sits against the concrete wall wearing nothing but a snug pair of jeans, a bottle of beer hanging from one of his hands resting on the tops of his bent knees. The long blond hair at the top of his head falls in front of his eyes as he knocks his head against the wall over and over again, muttering to himself under his breath.

  He stops and looks up sharply when he hears me say his name. His free hand balls into a fist and he looks through me, pointing the neck of his beer bottle behind me. “I couldn’t get the blood out of the rug,” he says, his voice coarse.

  I
fall to my knees in front of him and grab his face in my hands. When his eyes meet mine, I notice how red they are. How helpless he feels right now. My fingers run over the stubble of his cheeks and I have this crushing need to take it all from him. To take all the pain he’s feeling away.

  “I don’t care about the rug, baby.” I push his hair out of his eyes and try to find the right words to make this all okay. “I’m here for you, Seth. I’m here now. Everything will be okay.”

  He jerks his chin away from my hands and stares at nothing behind me. “Tell me what happened,” he demands.

  I nod my head. “Okay. I’ll explain everything. Do you—”

  “No,” he shakes his head and swallows hard. He brings his hands in front of him and snaps the rubber band on his wrist. I wince when I see the welts he’s made from using them. “Tell me what he did to you. Tell me every goddamn thing.”

  I pull back, shaking my head. I run a hand through my thick wavy hair, trying to hide the way it shakes. I wanted to tell him why I left him. I wanted to explain my actions. Not this.

  “I can’t. Seth, you don’t want to know what he did to me.”

  He throws his beer bottle across the room, the crash making me shrink back. “Don’t tell me what I want and don’t want! I just spent the past hour scrubbing your fucking blood out of the floors of our home. I need to know what he did to you.” He pleads to me with his eyes. “I need to, Jos.”

  My lips part hearing him use my nickname again for the first time in weeks. I settle down next to him, drawing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. “Seth, I can tell you everything he did to me. Everything he threatened me. I could explain every sadistic word he said and every cut he made. I can explain it all, but it won’t change anything.” I rest my head on my arms, facing him.

  He runs his hands over his face frantically. “I don’t care,” he says in a low growl. “I need to know what he did to you. I need to see exactly why I have his blood on my hands. I need to know why murdering him was the right decision. I need to know because I can’t sleep. I can’t function anymore. Every day I wake up and wonder why the fuck I’m still breathing.”

  His words knock the wind out of me. Tears well in my eyes and my chest aches more than I thought possible. “I don’t want to live in a world where you aren’t breathing, Sethy.” His eyes are an unwavering force staring at me. “No,” I say more firmly. “I understand that you need to know, and I will tell you. But not before you hear all of it. Not until you let me explain everything that led up to that day.”

  He stands up abruptly and kicks the bass drum from his set. “I don’t want to know anything else. I need to know why there was so much blood on our floor. I want to know how he was able to get into our home and hurt you. I want to know exactly what I couldn’t save you from!”

  I shoot to my feet to stand in front of him and poke his chest. “That is exactly why I’m not telling you. The last damn thing you need is another reason to blame yourself more than you already do.” I put my hands on his chest, his heart palpitating rapidly under them. “None of this is your fault. Everything will be okay if you let me be here for you—”

  “This is my fault!” he bellows, pulling away and snapping the bands on his wrist so hard I think they’ll finally break.

  “Stop doing that!” I scream, grabbing his hand. Blood trickles from the scab he opened. My tears fall onto his palm as I look at the harm he’s doing to himself. “Why do you keep hurting yourself?”

  “In one week I lost everything, Josie! I lost you. I lost the baby. I lost my dad. And I lost my fucking sanity.” He rips his hand away before I can pull the band off and kicks the drum one more time. “One. Fucking. Week!” he yells, shoving his hands through his unkempt hair.

  Ice rushes through my veins. I step in front of him, reaching my hand out tentatively, scared any movement I make will shut him down. He pulls back quickly and hits the side of his head with the heel of his hand.

  “I’m so fucked up right now, Jos. I can’t function anymore. I hate you so fucking much, and in the next minute I’m begging to hear you say you love me.” He paces in front of me, running his palms up and down his jeans. “As soon as I’m ready to crawl on my hands and knees to get you back, I remember how you fucking broke my heart and remember why I’ve lost my goddamn mind in the first place. And I hate you again. But hating you feels so fucking wrong and I’m right back to where I fucking started.”

  “I do love you, Seth. I will always love you.”

  He stops pacing and pushes into my space. “Your love feels like razors, Jos! Loving you hurts too fucking much. You hurt me too much.”

  “I know,” I close the gap between us and push my quaking chest against his, teasing my fingertips against the back of his neck. “I know I’ve hurt you. I know I make it really freaking hard to love me, but I will never stop loving you. And I will never give up on you. Not ever. For so many years, you’ve taken care of me, fought for me, worshipped me. You loved me when I was a pile of broken pieces and refused to let me go when I never felt worthy of you. You never gave up and helped me to grow strong—strong enough to be the one to help you now.”

  I run the tips of my fingers over his trembling jaw. “Because you are worth fighting for, too. You deserve to be loved and worshipped the same way you have always loved me. I will love every broken and crazy and hurt piece of you until I can make the pain go away and you feel whole and sane and loved again.”

  He rests his forehead against mine, moving his hands to cup the back of my neck. “I’m so fucking scared, Jos. There are all these voices in my head telling me what a fuck up I am—that this is all my fault—and as soon as I let you in again, I’m afraid it’ll get worse.”

  Pushing myself up on my tiptoes, I place a whisper kiss on the side of his mouth. He sighs heavily, the grip on my neck tightening. “You’re not crazy, Seth. We’ve been through the worst of the worst in such a short time. Even a glass of water gets heavy when you hold it for too long. Give me your pain. Share it with me.” I take a small step back and grab his hands. I pull off each of the rubber bands, feeling a sense of triumph when he doesn’t jerk away. “Yell at me. Cuss at me. Cry with me. Hold onto me. Hate me and love me at the same time. Just don’t push me away anymore.”

  His shoulders sag and drops his head to the crook of my neck, nodding. “Okay,” he whispers.

  Chapter 44

  Seth

  She tugs on my hand and leads me out of the garage, looking back to give me a reassuring smile. “This could take all day, so let’s at least get comfortable before we lay it all out there.”

  I don’t say anything, too wrapped up in this film of despondency that I can’t cut through.

  She said I’m worth fighting for.

  But, why? How could she possibly think that when I couldn’t keep my promise?

  “He threatened to kill you,” she says, cutting through my skepticism. I look up and notice she’s brought us into our room. She settles into her reading chair in the corner watching me as I stand in the middle of the room, perplexed. I shake my head and walk to the dresser to grab a shirt to pull on. The shirt I had on earlier was too dirty after …

  “What?” I ask, forcing myself to pay attention. What did she say? I sit on the edge of the bed across from her.

  She sighs and looks at the ceiling, picking at the frays on the arm of her chair. “That day we had that big fight about the gun. I was so pissed at you, I needed to get out. When I knocked over the nightstand, I saw that box Blake left for me, and apparently decided it was the perfect time to give it back.”

  I tense at the sound of his name. I really don’t fucking think I want to hear this. As soon as I open my mouth to tell her that, she holds up her hand and cuts me off.

  “Anyway, I was leaving his office and Michael grabbed me.”

  “What?” I exclaim, making Josie wince. I rise to my feet suddenly overflowing with energy—pissed off, angry, exasperated energy. “Why am I
just now hearing about this?”

  She stays seated and appears genuinely sorry as she looks up at me. “I was going to. I swear, Seth. But we kinda got distracted when I got home, and then I got the call about Blake being in the hospital.”

  I run a hand over my mouth and close my eyes. My fault, again. “Tell me everything that happened.”

  “He took me around the back of Blake’s building and I was so scared, Seth, I just froze up. I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t do anything. But he didn’t hurt me. Not really. Not like last time, at least.” She gazes out the bedroom window, biting her bottom lip.

  “He said he would hurt everyone I loved. Dad, Brandon and Brooke, Blake. You.” She looks back up at me, tears shimmering in her dark-blue eyes. “He knew we were getting married. He knew when. He knew exactly who you were, where we lived. And he said … he said he would slice your throat open the night before our wedding.”

  Things start looking a little clearer as I hear what happened. I pace across the room, fists clenching and unclenching, heart racing, head pounding.

  “How did you get away?”

  “Blake noticed my car was still there when he left his office, so he thought something must be wrong. He grabbed a baseball bat from his car and hit Michael over the head. It knocked him out long enough for Blake to give me an address to run to until the cops came.”

  I stop and close my eyes. An address.

  “That’s why I was at his house that day, Seth. Not because he and I were … I would never cheat on you. I needed a place to hide and it happened to be close by.”

  “Are you—” my words get lost in my hard breathing and aching throat. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “Seth,” she whispers, drawing my attention. She pulls her knees to her chest. “I’d rather live the rest of my life broken hearted than put your life on the line.”

  My jaw throbs from clenching it so hard. “Please fucking explain what you’re trying to say, Josie.”