After My Husband Left Me Alone with a Brain Injury I Stopped Waiting for Him to Come Back Chapter 06

After My Husband Left Me Alone with a Brain Injury I Stopped Waiting for Him to Come Back Chapter 06

“Kevin, just go home for now.”

“Do you still want to be with me?”

Kevin’s hand went still.

“Does that even matter anymore?”

“Didn’t you say that as long as Allison never got her memory back, we’d be together forever?”

Kevin went silent.

I stood right in front of him and watched panic flash across his face.

In that moment, he didn’t look like a man grieving the loss of his wife.

He looked like a man whose secret had just been exposed.

[I knew I was the only person she believed she could rely on, but I treated that dependence like a burden.]

He wrote all night.

By sunrise, every page was filled.

But I didn’t forgive him.

He went to the rehabilitation centre where I had once stayed and asked about my old records.

A nurse told him, “Allison had a few brief lucid spells during her recovery. She asked me why you were never around. She also asked whether Erin was family to you.”

Kevin froze.

“When did she ask that?”

“The day you brought Erin in to visit her.”

“She heard us?”

“She couldn’t remember the past clearly. That didn’t mean she couldn’t tell what was happening around her.”

Kevin raised a hand and braced himself against the wall.

Back then, I had been sitting in my hospital bed, watching him peel an orange for Erin.

He did it carefully, even picking every strand of white pith from the segments.

I asked him to do one for me too.

He said, “Take one yourself.”

But I couldn’t manage it.

My fingers still weren’t working properly.

I didn’t cry.

I just pulled my hand back.

The nurse said, “After that, Allison stopped asking.”

Kevin closed his eyes.

I stood in front of him.

“I knew then. I just didn’t dare admit it. I was afraid you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m waiting for my wife.”

I stood a short distance away.

The wind passed through me.

He couldn’t see me.

That was good.

I didn’t want him to see me again.