Reeve knows what went down with Dillon. He asked me a few weeks after I got home, and I told him the important parts without going into intimate details. Reeve never asked his name, and I never volunteered it.
“I’m not going to just bring it up after all this time, Rey! Can you imagine that conversation? Oh, hey, darling. Remember I told you I was in love with the guy I met in Ireland? I neglected to tell you it’s Dillon O’Donoghue, lead singer and songwriter of mega-bestselling Irish rock band Collateral Damage. “Terrify Me,” the first of their songs to reach number one on the billboard Top 100, was actually written for me and about me, and I have a video on my cell of him serenading me with it at his brother’s wedding. I’m also pretty sure “Hollywood Ho” and “Fuck Love” were about me too, but who the hell knows why Dillon wrote such vitriol when he’s the one who rejected me.”
Audrey is the only one who knows about the letter I sent and how I sat in Dublin Airport for hours crying and praying to every deity known to mankind that he would show up. My heart aches, and acid crawls up my throat. “Ugh.” I rest my head on my desk. “I can’t believe it still hurts so much after all this time.”
“You still love him even now?” she softly asks.
“You know I do,” I whisper. “I’ve tried to evict him so many times from my head and my heart, but it never works. I guess I’m destined to love him forever.” I rub my temples. “Gawd, I’m a terrible person, Audrey. A terrible wife to still pine after another man.”
“You can’t help how you feel, and I know you love Reeve fiercely. You’re not a terrible wife. You’re a great wife, and he adores you. You two have been written in the stars since inception.”
I’m not sure she’d say that if she knew I have all the band’s songs on my phone and I listen to them repeatedly. I try to avoid watching them on TV because I’m not sure I could disguise the pain and longing on my face from my husband.
Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I go out to our sunroom, lie down on the couch, close my eyes, and cry as I listen to Dillon’s husky voice roll over me like one of his possessive caresses. Other times, I go through the photos and videos I have hidden on my phone from my time in Ireland, just because I need to see his face.
It’s not healthy.
I know that.
And I feel so disloyal to Reeve, but this soul-deep ache in my chest never goes away, no matter how happy Reeve makes me.
And Reeve does make me happy.
He’s an incredibly attentive, supportive, and loyal husband. It took a while for him to earn back my trust, and I kept him at arm’s length a lot that first year, out of necessity for my sanity. I couldn’t be sure who the father of my baby was, and I wouldn’t accept Reeve’s marriage proposal or be seen with him in public until after Easton was born and the paternity test confirmed he was his dad.
Even then, I had to think long and hard about my motivations before finally agreeing to marry Reeve. I needed to ensure it was for the right reasons.
I spoke with a therapist at length, and she helped me to untangle my jumbled emotions. She helped me to understand the complexities of a woman’s heart. To accept that it was okay to love Dillon from a distance while promising to share my life with Reeve. I don’t regret that decision. Reeve loves me, and I love him, and we’re good together, but Dillon will always own a piece of my heart.
“I knew this day would come. I knew I couldn’t continue to avoid events where Collateral Damage was playing. It’s a miracle I’ve gone this long without bumping into one of them.”
“What if Ash seeks you out?” Audrey quietly inquires.
Positioning my cell against the stack of books on my desk, I sigh as I lean forward. “If she does, it’s probably to strangle me. I’m ashamed of lots of things I did that year, but ghosting my Irish bestie is the worst.” It wasn’t by choice. It was a necessity, but that doesn’t make it any easier to live with. I hate I let her down. That she must be wondering what she did to deserve the cold shoulder.
“Don’t beat yourself up, Viv. You know you couldn’t stay in contact with her while there was a possibility the baby was her brother’s kid. At least in cutting her off you weren’t lying to her.”
“A lie of omission is still a lie, and it must have hurt so bad. I know it hurt me.”
I still miss Ash. So fucking much. She’s the band’s manager, and I’m sensing she might have been behind the change in name. She always thought Toxic Gods was a shit name for a band, but I felt it suited them.