The light in his eyes went dim and it hurt me. I looked away as confusion set into my body. This was stinging a lot worse than I’d thought it would.
“The baby isn’t mine.”
I felt like we should be on Jerry Springer. The baby isn’t mine! I’m not married, anymore!
His voice shook when the next words poured out, “We were having problems when I deployed last time, and she cheated on me with a guy back home. That was the news I got—the day that Zach took a bullet for me. Remember?” I looked away for a second and then met his stare.
“The guy got her pregnant and she wouldn’t sign the divorce papers because she was using the Marine Corps medical insurance, claiming the baby was mine.”
My eyes widened. I felt like I had gotten slapped. I could almost feel the sting on my face. The haunted and determined look in Luke’s eyes told me he was telling the truth.
“She was…” his voice dropped a bit, “fucking with me one last time by telling you she was my wife. She isn’t my wife, and I haven’t considered her my anything for a really long time, Cammie. What she and I had, it wasn’t real.” He looked away briefly. “I know that now.”
Wait. What? My heart halted in my chest. I couldn’t form words; it was all too much to process. My father’s words echoed in my head, “Everything isn’t always what it seems to be.”
I didn’t have a chance to say anything else because Luke walked backwards and said, “I hear you. I get it. It’s over. But I just wanted you to know the whole story. I would never intentionally hurt you, Doc.”
He turned around and walked over to the elevator, never once glancing back at me. I watched him walk inside, his back still facing me and then he dropped his head low. He placed his hand on the back wall, and the doors slid together, slowly.
My heart was aching in my chest. My pulse had picked up pace and I just stood, staring at the chrome elevator doors until I heard Becky’s voice.
“That was so much better than Days of our Lives.” I met her raised eyebrows. My dazed expression matched hers to a fucking T.
“Mom, I need to ask you something.”
My mom had been jabbering my ear off since I called her twenty minutes ago. She thought I was calling to see how Mexico was and how she was keeping sane while staying with José’s huge family, but I was really only calling for one particular reason.
I wanted the truth about her and my father. I had been so angry at him after he had cheated on my mom. I had been so angry that they had just separated without even giving it a chance. They hadn’t gone to marriage therapy or tried to work on things for a while. They’d just…given up, and maybe that’s why I gave up so easily on Luke.
Ash had cheated on him, as his wife, while he was deployed, fighting for our country and freedom. What a low fucking blow! I hated her. I hated her and I didn’t even truly know her.
“What is it, honey?” My mom’s voice held a gentle tone.
I leaned back against my counterto
ps, feeling the edge dig into my back. “What really happened between you and Dad?”
There was a long pause on her end. So long, I started to pace around the kitchen.
She cleared her throat. “I know you were mad at your father despite me telling you not to be.” She paused but I didn’t say anything. “We wanted to protect you and Alex. We tried to stay together for so long that by the end of our marriage, the last few years, anyway… we were so tired we both just gave up.” She took a long breath and blew it out so loudly that I had to pull the phone away from my ear.
“So, what do you mean?” Confusion washed over me.
“Your dad technically cheated on me because we were still legally married, but we had already established that our relationship was over long before then…” Her voice trailed at the end and I felt like I had been run over by a Mack Truck.
“Now, don’t get me wrong. I was still annoyed that he’d gotten his new wife pregnant, but my anger wasn’t really justifiable. She made him happy, and he no longer made me happy, so there was nothing left to salvage.” She cleared her throat. “Then by the time things blew over and your father and I were ready to talk to you about our reasons for separation…Alex happened, and we didn’t want to add anything else to the mix. We wanted to give you time. We knew you would come around and you’d stop being so…”
I finished for her, “Angry.”
She laughed, “I was going to say sad, but angry works, too.”
I found myself turning towards my kitchen window, and I stared over at Luke’s house. My mom changed the subject after mumbling something motherly about following my heart, but I only pretended to listen. I stared at Luke’s, wondering if he was really giving up or if he was just leaving it all up to me.
Part of me (okay, most of me) hoped it was the latter. But, should I fix it? Or was it truly over? Did we just give up that easily? Did he finally throw the towel in and actually give up? Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure I was ready to throw my towel in just yet.
Twenty-Seven
Luke and I had been on completely different wavelengths since the hospital. We lived right next door to one another, but he might as well have been millions of miles away. I started to run again in the mornings, and I always made sure I looked exceptionally sexy in my tight running pants, just in case he finally came to join me like old times, but nope. Nada.