Logan never came to check on me, though I stayed in long enough again that the water ran cold. But when I was in new pajamas and was walking out of the bathroom again, something on the bed caught my eye.
My engagement ring was on top of the same piece of paper I had left it on this morning, sitting in the middle of the bed.
I sat on the edge and reached for the paper, letting the ring slide off it onto the comforter.
I understand, and I don’t blame you. I’m sorry.
I’m here. Always. And I’m never giving up on us. I love you.
“So fall when you’re ready, babe . . .”
Somehow, impossibly, more tears filled my eyes, and I pressed the paper to my chest as I fell back onto the bed. Grabbing my engagement ring, I held it above me and stared at it through blurred eyes as I replayed yesterday, then replayed the first and second times Logan sang “Fall into Me” by Brantley Gilbert to me. It was after our first time together, and then again as he danced with me in my kitchen last fall on the anniversary of my parents’ death.
I loved him. I loved the man that was waiting for me somewhere in the house. I loved the way he loved me, and I loved all his faults. Including his quick reactions based solely on emotions rather than on facts.
But the events of the last month wouldn’t just go away. Just like the horrific night with Blake hadn’t gone away overnight. Logan was right about one thing, I was sure of it. I wasn’t the same Rachel as before, and I didn’t know how to get her back. Because this time, it wasn’t just the events that had changed me . . . it was also Trent, and he had changed Logan too.
Logan didn’t understand my relationship with Trent, and I wasn’t sure if he understood now that I wasn’t in love with him. But for Logan, there was still that level of unease and suspicion when it came to Trent, and that needed to be addressed, just as much as I needed to work my way through all that had happened before Logan and I could move forward.
Sitting back up, I opened the drawer of my nightstand and kept both the note and ring in my left hand, suspended over it, as I thought of the past . . . the future . . . and most importantly, the present. What happened here and now could change everything.
Letting the note fall, I shut the drawer and stood to leave the room.
20
Kash
SLIPPING THE CHAIN holding the badge over my head, I pulled on an old Henley shirt and made sure it covered my duty weapon resting in the holster on my belt. Grabbing my tactical boots, I put them on and ran a hand through my hair as I walked out of the bedroom.
It was weird. Getting ready for work whenever Rach was home usually consisted of me trying to get ready, and her doing everything to make sure I had fewer clothes on ten minutes later than when I’d begun. Now that she was back, I hadn’t expected it to go back to that immediately. But she shut herself in the closet when she changed and always seemed to walk out of the bedroom whenever I was doing the same. And it’d been close to three weeks since she’d come home.
I stopped near the end of the hall and leaned a shoulder against the wall as I watched her. She was sitting on the far end of one of the couches, her legs up in that way that she always seemed to sit now, and was staring off into the backyard. Her journal was resting in between her knees and her chest, a pen in her hand like she’d forgotten she was writing again.
This happened a lot now too. She wrote more than she used to, and even when she wasn’t writing, there were times when she would suddenly stop whatever she was doing and just stare off . . . usually outdoors. I didn’t ask what she was thinking about, or what she was remembering, because it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out. I just usually tried to let her be alone in her thoughts during those times.
With all that said, though, she was getting better all the time, and I was so damn proud of her. After that second day home, when she’d walked into the living room with her engagement ring back on, we’d slowly been working on everything. Neither of us mentioned the fact that she put it on, but I’m positive I hadn’t stopped smiling like a lunatic for hours after.
We’d worked on her fear and anxiety, as well as my jealousy issues and insecurities over Trent. But most of all, we’d just worked on being us again. She hadn’t cried since her second shower, as far as I knew; and after a long talk about how she’d felt like she didn’t know the man who’d come to rescue her . . . she slowly went back to calling me Kash again. As I’d seen that second day, my bitchy Rachel was still there, and her attitude was slowly coming out more and more. I’d gone back to treating her like I always had from day one, and she’d gone back to teasing and fighting with me again, as well as smiling a little more every day.
Though she didn’t ask about him, she knew that I’d made sure Trent was put in an isolation cell so that no one could get to him except for the guards, and I knew she only didn’t mention him for my benefit. Because every night, in her sleep, she’d whisper his name. Sometimes her voice was laced with fear or agony, and sometimes it was as if he were standing right there . . . but it never failed. Though we were working on us, and I knew without a doubt that she loved me, there was always that nagging thought of what her real thoughts of him were. Even still, Mason and I had been working for the last few weeks on getting him moved somewhere else for his safety, but since Rachel didn’t bring him up, I wasn’t sure how to bring that up to her . . . especially when there was the chance we wouldn’t succeed.
I held her every night in our bed, and took any opportunity to kiss the top of her head, forehead, cheeks, and neck . . . but we still hadn’t kissed since that second morning. There were lingering touches from her, brushes here and there; and when I would hold her in my arms, her eyes would search mine as her fingers gently trailed over my face and through my hair. It was the sweetest form of agony I’d ever endured.