Free UNFORGETTABLE (Able Series Book 3) by Gigi Aceves

telling me this is all his fault. His past, once again, is making its appearance.
    Brian ends the kiss as he rests his forehead against mine. Inhaling deeply, taking in my strength, and exhaling loudly, expelling every negative thought playing in his brain. I give him a smile, a swipe of my thumb on his lips as I lovingly plant my palm against his cheek, pulling his head down as my lips tenderly land on his forehead.
    I thought I was able to offer him a distraction, but once he glances over my shoulder straight to our dresser where our little one’s picture is on full display; I know . . . I just know he’ll break soon. Walking away from me breathing hard, he sits on the foot of the bed as he laces his fingers tightly, forearms resting on his knees, head down, and eyes closed. Witnessing him bent like this from the time I told him I was pregnant to this very moment does something to my already weak heart. It only exacerbates old wounds—wounds that never healed. I sit next to him, laying my head on his shoulder as we wait in silence.
    “Talk to me.”
    His silence brings tears flowing freely down my face as shallow breaths escape his lips. Two painful losses—two for him and one for me, two angels in Heaven, two broken hearts, and many unrealized dreams. All this shatters my heart into a million pieces while it decimates my love’s heart and crushes both our worlds.
    When the fog of pain clears and the rage of anger hits, Brian turns, reaches for the baby picture frame, and throws it against the wall. Not content, he hits the wall over and over again with his closed fist until a gaping hole the size of my head now decorates it.
    Hit.
    More tears fall.
    “I’m fucking tired.”
    Hit.
    My heart suffers its first fracture.
    “How much more, T?” His voice cracks.
    Hit.
    My heart splits open.
    “How many more times?” His voice breaks.
    Hit.
    I beg the Lord to take his pain away and give it to me.
    “Give me a reason, and I promise you, I won’t give up,” he’s sobbing.
    Hit.
    My heart bleeds for him.
    “Give me a reason . . .” He cries out and falls to his knees.
    I stay glued to the bed as my own tears veil my face. But, when he cries out one more time without words but whimpers, I lunge at him, covering him with my arms. Protecting him as best as I can from whatever pain that’s slowly destroying him. My chest plastered on his back, my hands cradling his head as we share tears and cries of disappointment mixed with a little bit of hope.
    “Love. The love I have for you, and you for me is the reason, Brian. I love you so much, so much I’m willing to try through the pain. Dreams. The dream we both desire to raise and love a child. Hope. The hope that in time it’ll happen when God wants it. He’ll make everything right—everything beautiful and perfect in His time, not ours. All we can do is try, and if the time comes that you don’t want to anymore, we’ll stop. We’ll do what you want.”
    “Hurts too much . . .”
    “I know, but together we’ll hurt. Together, always.”
    “Forever?” He whispers.
    “Without end.”
    With his hands resting lifelessly on his thighs, the only answer he gives me, yet again, is another nod. Maybe to appease me, I don’t know. All I know is, I have before me a man whose heart has been hammered down one too many times.

BRIAN
    I KNOW I’M SPIRALING DOWN —losing myself in my own grief. I can’t stand being in Tami’s presence because her sadness is consuming me. It’s adding to my already drowning heart filled with nothing, but—emptiness. I overload myself with work. I leave before she wakes, and I come home when she’s asleep. Avoidance, that’s the name of my game.
    Talking is her way of coping, while mine is denying it ever happened. How can one really deny something as grave as losing a child. There’s no way of forgetting the hurt, unfeeling the pain, and undoing the reality of it all. Somehow, that’s what I do anyway. Denial plus avoidance is