28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

TUCKER

Once out of the water, we discovered our clothes were caked with wet sand. I'd been content to air dry, and while Izzy hadn't seemed to mind it for me , she'd insisted on wearing something, making me walk behind her until she dug out that silk gown from earlier tonight from her bag that she'd left in my backseat.

Now, we were laying out on the blanket I kept in my truck, eating the mixture of fruit, yogurt, and chocolate she'd brought and staring up at the stars. The wooden storage box from her dad was at the corner near our feet.

I hadn't asked her what was in it yet, but I knew it was important, knowing the significance of that last present Patrick had given her. We would have to talk soon, and, while I didn't know how long it would take, I wanted plenty of time before the sun made an appearance. This was private. Between us and our baby girl.

"Princess?" I said after swallowing the strawberry I'd been eating.

"I know, whiskey. I know." She sighed, sucking a bit of chocolate from her fingertips before sitting up .

She pulled the box in front of her, her hands resting at the detailed etchings along the lid. I sat up and placed a hand on her back. "You can do it. I promise. I'm right here with you."

She shut her eyes, the hint of glistening tears in the corners. "It's going to hurt so much, Tucker. What if I can't take it? I don't think I can stand it if another piece of me dies."

My heart clenched, hating her pain. I took the box away from her, setting it in the sand. "You're right. It's going to hurt like hell, but we have to do this. For us and for Zoey. But if I'm right about what's in that box, we don't have to open it yet. I think it might be better if we talked first."

Izzy looked down, her eyes lost. "I don't know how to start. How do you start a conversation that you know means you're letting go of your child? Even if you know holding on any longer will ruin you and the person you love?" she asked in despair.

"Tell me about the daycare. Help me understand."

She looked up in surprise. "You've never wanted to know before."

"Well, tonight it's different. Tonight, we're doing everything we should have done in the first place and then some. Tell me about it, Izzy. I need to understand."

She nodded, and I watched her determination build before she scooted over to sit in my lap. My arms opened for her, and she leaned her back against my chest, settling in as I wrapped her in my embrace. If she needed comfort to do this, I would gladly give it to her.

She was silent at first, her fingers playing with the hem of her gown, and I waited, letting her think over what she needed to say. Her voice was soft when she finally began .

"When we lost her, my world crashed. A piece of my heart died when she did. It's like this chunk that just sits stagnant in my chest. The rest of my heart beats but not like it used to. That part throbs and aches and tortures me."

I gently squeezed her. Just hearing that made my own heart pound.

She squeezed my knee in comfort. "But when I'm at work… When I'm around all of those little ones…that ache slides away, and my heart feels whole for the few hours I'm there."

She tilted her head back to look at me. "The only thing that soothes the ache when I'm not there is you. That's why I need you when something really hits me. You're like a balm to my frazzled nerves. The only thing that lets me breathe again."

I gave her a bleak smile. "While that's good to hear, that's also the reason I get so upset with you. I feel like you go there knowing what kind of torture you'll be putting yourself through later. Even if it helps for a few hours, you know the damage that's coming. Then you expect me to help you ease this self-inflicted pain, like it doesn't torture me to see you that way. And while I love to ease your pain, did you ever think that maybe each time you go in, you might be scratching at a wound? Keeping it from healing? It's like a knife to my chest every time, and all I can think is why do you keep doing this to me, to us ? Can't you see how much it hurts me, too? Because, Izzy, some days, it kills me."

"Oh, God." I could hear the way her throat clenched and pressed a kiss to her head.

"It's okay. We're talking. Tell me. "

She sucked in a breath. "I've been torturing you for months, and I couldn't see it. I'm so, so sorry."

"I hid it pretty well then, I guess." I laid my head on top of hers, and a silent minute passed, both of us in thought.

"I won't do that to you anymore, Tucker. I promise."

"What do you mean?"

Izzy sighed. "I'm going to put my notice in at the daycare tomorrow, and I'll ask Gemma if they can just work me in the toddler room for now. The after-effects are less on those days. I'll find another way to cope."

"Really?"

"Really."

I couldn't believe it was that easy. Maybe if I'd just talked to her more before… "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, can you explain something to me?"

"Whatever you need me to."

"Earlier, when I asked if you ever worried about living through it, you said something about every day and almost every night . What did you mean?"

I winced. "I've been having nightmares and day mares pretty much every day since you fell."

She grew quiet, the wheels in her head turning before she said, "I'm sorry. I never realized. I thought you were just there at night chasing away mine."

A small smile touched my lips, and I pressed another kiss to her head. "Something I'd do a thousand times over, but no, you were chasing away mine, too. Those few nights when we'd try to sleep apart? Any time I managed to get a little sleep, I'd wake up to the same haunting images that plague me during the day."

"Do you want to tell me about them? "

I swallowed, her fingertips drawing gentle circles into my kneecap. "It hurts just to think about them."

"Isn't that why we're talking tonight? I thought we were getting all the bad out?"

I sighed, knowing she was right. "It's a bunch of images flashing through my head. I see the look on your face when you were falling, right before your head hit that bench. I see you lying at the bottom of the stands, blood pooling all around you, all over my hands when I tried to stop it. The sight of you lying in that hospital bed, bandaged, bruised, and fragile, looking like you already knew the worst. The way you cried out when I told you we'd lost her.

"And then I keep thinking about what Zoey must have been feeling. How she was hurt and dying and we couldn't get to her. I had to bury her, while you were too broken, it was on me. I held her tiny, broken body in my hands, knowing at least one of her parents should hold her before she was put in the ground."

I sucked in a sharp breath, my tears falling freely now, feeling myself breaking with everything I was finally saying out loud. No one had known about the nightmares. About any of it.

"You have no idea how scared I was. I just kept praying, but praying didn't work to save you both. We lost her. I almost lost both of you, and I couldn't do anything to stop it."

ISABEL

I turned quickly in Tucker's arms as he broke down, his body beginning to shake. His tears were rough, tortured and wrenching, and they beckoned my own to start as well. The fissures of my heart were spreading, fracturing further through the wall I'd created as the pressure built. Tears couldn't help but leak out.

Everything Tucker had just admitted, everything he'd been through, were things I'd been spared. They were burdens solely on him, and I'd never once thought to ask. To check on him and what he'd endured.

I knelt in front of him and wiped away his tears so I could stare fiercely in his eyes. "I am so sorry you had to go through that. That would have been horrible, seeing Zoey that way…" I swallowed, my throat tight with tears. "I can only imagine what it must have been like for you to see either of us that way because the mere thought of that happening to you just about wrenches me in two. It wouldn't be bearable. My life would be over if I lost you."

And at that moment, I knew it was time to let my baby go. That I could really do it. Because losing Zoey had been torture, but I'd survived. I simply couldn't if I ever lost Tucker. He was the center of my universe, and my universe would without a doubt implode without him in it.

Zoey was gone. Tucker was here, and he deserved the very best version of me that I could offer.

The dam in my chest was breaking now. I could feel the flood coming, and I braced myself for it, ready to take on the pain that I now knew wouldn't kill me as long as the man in front of me was by my side.

TUCKER

Izzy's final words had struck home, the pain I'd been suppressing for so long shooting through me like a bolt of lightning, crashing into that wall I'd built to send it crumbling down around me. Izzy had described exactly how I felt. While losing our daughter had been absolute, soul-changing hell, my life would be over if I lost her .

And now, her tears were just as fierce as mine, and I knew that could only mean one thing. That she was finally letting everything hit her, too. The walls around us were broken, and we were here, together, to crash and then rise from the rubble.