Rumor Has It

Part 45

The thought that Stefani never told Emily's father was filling Bradley with an unsettling dread. He couldn't imagine anything like it happening to him, leading to a life without Lea now, even though things with Irina hadn't happened according to any plan.

But being removed from Lea's life completely, that was nauseating. The idea of how terrible he would feel if he had missed out on a chance to become a part of her life and to essentially end up being a stranger to her now, having missed all those big moments so far, was unsettling.

Stefani regarded his face that had paled and she grew visibly more nervous. The turmoil in his insides had to be visible in his eyes. Her hands slipped from her arms, expecting a response from him that he hadn't found yet. She swallowed hard and tried to keep talking. "It was better this way...it was safer. With...how that relationship was going, I would've been too afraid for her."

Her voice cracked at the end and she tried to swallow the emotion, but it refused to let go so easily. She took a deep breath and rubbed her hand over her eyes uselessly. Bradley broke free from his frozen state at the sight of her crumbling and tried to find the right words, but they weren't there. "It's...I'm only trying to understand." He began and wrapped his arms around her trembling shoulders. "Are you still worried about him?"

"All the time. There's a constant reminder, of course, not that that's a bad thing, because SHE never was anything to regret." Stefani said firmly. "But I know that the calm has an expiration date."

"If he hasn't found out until now, he's not going to be able to get to you or her now either, even if he puts any pieces together now."

"I know. And I'm just...the situation was very different from this."

"I guess I just wasn't considering that there had been a relationship." Bradley stated quietly, not able to shake this jealous feeling creeping up on him. He had always assumed something else, had always pictured some hookup, maybe some situation with a friend or a fluke on a tour that could be traced back to her in an uncomfortable way.

Behind all the red flags, he found that he hated how what was once just a vague idea of Emily's father was turning into a real person. Someone who was still out there. Someone who had the chance to experience this with her and didn't. And for some reason the idea that it was a relationship, maybe not so different from this one, turned this perspective more grim.

"Yeah." She continued and drew away a little to be able to see a reaction on his face, her hands still holding onto his sides. "It looked like a good one at first, too. I thought we were going to get married and I would....I don't know. I kind of dreamed of it. And then we'd take care of each other, I thought that's how that goes."

An old bitterness reared its head at how he once had very similar dreams that simply evaporated. Those vows that he now wasn't sure they both even meant. "I don't know how often that comes true anyway, I'm not sure I trust it anymore." He mumbled before he could stop himself.

Stefani scrunched up her face. "Trust...what? Marriage?"

Bradley focused on the open door to the yard to calm himself and Stefani's hands were a soft, reassuring weight against his chest. But it really hadn't been something he had considered anymore for a long time. 

"The expectations that come with it, you promise each other all these things, like taking care of each other, but then reality and day-to-day life hits and everything comes up empty and..." He still found himself rambling helplessly, pouring out thoughts that he had to admit kept him awake at night too often. "Sorry, I don't know why I still dwell on it so much, who knows if I'll ever get married again."

"Yeah, it's okay." She stepped away further and searched for something to busy herself with, some toys to pick up or her phone to stare at instead of him.