“If you don’t mind,” she continued in his silence, “I’ll stay in the house a few more days until we can arrange the movers to put my things back in my apartment.”
“We don’t have to make any quick decisions. Give yourself a few days.”
Amelia sighed and reached out to pat his hand. “Tyler, you and I both know we don’t need a few days. We were ending it this morning before everything else went wrong. Now we just don’t have to face the endless custody complications and awkward eventuality of seeing each other with other people. You can travel the world without worrying about me and the baby at home. I can go back to my little apartment and continue my quest for love. This is the way it needs to be.”
Tyler felt his grief morph in his veins to a low, simmering anger. She’d been angry with him this morning, yes, but if they had finished that fight, he would’ve seen to it that it was just a fight. Couples fought from time to time; it didn’t have to put an end to the whole relationship. She was using the Facebook leak as an excuse to push him away, just as she was using the miscarriage to push him away. Whenever she got close to anyone, she panicked.
“This wasn’t just about the baby, Amelia. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t have feelings for me. Tell me you’re not in love with me and I’ll walk right out the door.”
Her dark gaze flicked over his face for a moment, and she looked intently into his eyes. “I’m not in love with you, Tyler.”
She was lying. He could tell she was lying. Her fingers were rubbing anxiously at the blanket, the same way she used to fidget with a pencil or pen in class. But why would she lie about something like that? About something so important?
Tyler took a deep breath and sighed, the fight draining out of him. Even if she did love him, for whatever reason, she didn’t want him. Nothing had changed over the years. She hadn’t wanted him when they were sixteen and she didn’t really want him now. The last thing Tyler wanted to do was force himself on a woman who didn’t want to be with him. This wasn’t the first time he’d fallen short where a woman was concerned. If she wanted him gone, he’d go. He had work in New York. A life there. An apartment. If there wasn’t a reason to be in Nashville, he didn’t want to stay another minute.
“Okay,” he said with a sigh of resignation. “If that’s what you want. I’ll let the real estate agent know we’ll be out in a week or so and arrange the movers.”
“I’ve called Natalie to come pick me up.”
Tyler looked up at her. She didn’t even want him to drive her home? “Okay. Well, then, if there’s nothing else I can do for you, I won’t subject you to my presence any longer.”
“Tyler...” Amelia began with a coddling tone he wasn’t in the mood to hear.
“No, it’s fine. You want me gone. I’m gone.” He reached down and squeezed her hand, his eyes not able to meet hers. He didn’t want to see conflict there. That might give him hope, and if he knew Amelia well enough, he knew there was no hope. “Have your lawyer draw up the divorce paperwork and send it on when you’re ready. Feel better.”
With those last words hanging in the air between them, he slipped into the hallway and let the door shut behind him. There, he slumped against the wall and dropped his head back, hard. His chest was so tight he could barely breathe, his hands aching to reach out for her and pull her into his arms. But he wouldn’t. He would forfeit for the first time in his life, because that was what she wanted.
And in that moment, he realized it was because he loved her enough to give her what she wanted, even if it killed him to do it.
* * *
Amelia had thought their house was large with the two of them in it. Tyler had taken his personal things, some clothes and his laptop before she came home from the hospital. The rest, she assumed, the movers would pack up. The house had hardly been full before, but Tyler’s absence made it just that much emptier. When she was alone, it was like being locked in the Metropolitan Museum of Art at night. Room after room surrounded by eerie silence and unfamiliar shadows.
The first night there alone hadn’t bothered her as much, but she hadn’t really been alone. Natalie had picked her up from the hospital and all the girls had met her at the house with reinforcements. They’d piled up in the bed and had pizza, wine and copious amounts of chocolate while watching a couple of sappy chick movies. It was an excellent distraction, and crying during the movies had been a much-needed outlet for all the emotions she hadn’t allowed herself to process yet.
Tonight was her first night by herself. Gretchen had offered to come by, but Amelia had shooed her away. She could use some time by herself, and really, she was used to being alone. She’d always lived on her own. She wasn’t sure how living with Tyler for only a few weeks could make it feel as though somehow he’d always been there.
He was back in New York now. He had texted her that much. Other than that, he had thankfully left her in peace. When she’d told him to leave, she hadn’t been sure he was going to. She’d seen the resistance in his pale blue eyes, the curl of his hands into fists at his sides. He’d wanted to fight, and for a moment, deep inside, she’d hoped he would. She’d lied when she said she didn’t love him, but she wasn’t about to admit to something like that when he wouldn’t do the same. If Tyler truly cared about her, and hadn’t just been sticking it out for the baby’s sake, he would’ve told her no. He would’ve proclaimed that he loved her and he wasn’t going anywhere no matter what.
But he’d just walked away, confirming her worst fear. And breaking her heart.
She’d lain in her hospital bed and sobbed after he’d left, only pulling herself together when she’d heard the nurse coming. Amelia had managed to hold the fragile pieces of herself together since then, but it was hard. In one day, she’d lost the man she loved, her best friend, her husband and their child. Despite the promises they’d made, Natalie was right. She really didn’t think their friendship would survive this, and that was what hurt the most. She had never felt so alone in her whole life.
Amelia was standing in the kitchen, attempting to replicate Tyler’s hot cocoa, when she heard the buzzer on the gate. She made her way over to the panel by the door, where the screen showed a fuzzy image of her grandmother waiting impatiently to be let in.
She had made the obligatory call to her parents and her sister the day before to tell them what was going on. One of them must have passed along the information to her grandmother and had dispatched her from Knoxville as soon as she could finish curling her hair.
Amelia swallowed hard and pressed the button that would open the gates. She unlocked the front door and left it ajar as she ran back to the kitchen and pulled the milk off the stove before it boiled over. By the time she got back to the foyer, her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Kennedy, was standing in the doorway.
The woman had recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. Amelia was a clone of her grandmother. Elizabeth’s flame-red hair was as bright as Amelia’s, but maintained now by a fine salon in Knoxville. Her dark eyes saw everything, with the thin curl of her lips giving away her wry sense of humor. She was sharp as a tack, as nimble as ever and drove her old Buick around like an Indy driver.
The moment her grandmother saw her, she opened her arms up and waited. In an instant, whatever threads that were holding Amelia together snapped. She rushed into her grandmother’s arms and fell into hysterical tears.
“I know, I know,” Elizabeth soothed, stroking Amelia’s hair and letting her tears soak through her sweater. When Amelia finally calmed down, her grandmother patted her back and said, “Let’s go to the kitchen, shall we? I think a time like this calls for a warm drink and something sweet. I, uh...” She looked through the various doorways. “Where is the kitchen? This place is enormous.”
Amelia chuckled for the first time in a long while and took her grandmother’s hand, leading her through the maze of halls and rooms to the kitchen. Elizabeth’s eyes lit up when she saw the kitchen, reminding Amelia of her first day in the house. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Her grandmother nodded. “It’s amazing.” She went around opening drawers and investigating. “If this is any indication of the rest of the house, I’m moving in.”