Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 32

I buried my face in the crook of her shoulder and inhaled her extravagant scent temporarily lost in her essence.  She snuggled up closer against me and I wrapped my arms around her, placing my hand on the round firmness of her belly.

She signed as the baby pressed against the inside of her belly, making her presence known.  I smiled and kissed Jenny’s neck tenderly.

“Connor, when do you think it’ll be over? “She asks softly.  I was silent unsure of how to answer her question. Mindlessly, I began to rub her belly gently. “Connor,” she whispered and turned around so that she could look me in my eyes. Her bright brown eyes were glowing with uncertainty and I knew that they were mirroring my own gaze. 

“Jennifer, I don’t want to worry about that at the moment.  I want to sit here and bask in the moment that we have.  I have come close to death more than once and what that has taught me is to appreciate the little moments in life.”

I could see glimmers of tears in her eyes and she immediately closed them, holding the tears back.  Despite her efforts, they spilled out washing down her cheeks.  A sob broke free and she threw her arms around me as if she was trying to keep me close to her. “Please, please don’t ever leave me again.  I thought that you had broken your promise and that I had lost you forever.  It felt like my heart was on fire,” she cried burying her face in my chest and taking a hold of my shirt.  I rested my face in her hair and rubbed her back soothingly.

“I would never break my promise to you,” I mumbled, my voice muffled by her hair. I pressed a kiss into her hair and then continued to softly rub her back.

“I wrote you something.  It was like a eulogy.  I couldn’t come to your funeral and I thought I had lost you forever.  When I thought you had died, it took so much in me to stop crying and when I did I decided to try to say goodbye.  It was the hardest thing I had ever done and the most painful thing. Can I read it to you?” She probed, lifting her face up so that she could look at me.

“Sure,” I say, unwrapping my arms from around her.  She slid off of the bed and walked over to her dresser where she picked up an envelope with neat script handwriting on it. She ripped open the envelope, taking out a neatly folded piece of paper and unfolded that paper.

She glared down at the paper and then looked back up at me.  “This is stupid.  Never mind,” she grumbled and began to refold the piece of paper. 

I sat up with a frown on my face. “It’s not stupid, Jennifer.  I want to hear the letter,” I encouraged.

She swallowed visibly and unfolded the piece of paper once again.  She looked down at it once again, not speaking.  Finally she looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

“It started with a kiss,” she began, and wiped her eyes.  “A simple touch of the lips and he had stolen my soul.  Connor Levi Middleton talked a lot of game, he was arrogance at its finest, but there was a reason he was such a lady’s man.  He was free spirited, gorgeous, charming and most of all he was optimistic.   He was optimistic about life, about love, about everything and that was one of the many things that I loved.” She stopped and looked up at me.  “Love about him.”  Breaking the gaze we had begun to hold she looked down at the piece of paper in her hand.  “I could talk about how much I love him for days and why I love him, but I don’t need to.  I don’t need to prove to the world that I love him or tell the world how much I love him, because he knows and that’s all that matters.  He was all that mattered, him and our baby.  There were so many different ways I saw this turning out, I never expected this to be one of the scenarios.  When I imagined myself crying over him, I figured he had broken my heart, but this type of heart break wasn’t something I expected. “She stopped again and I stood up prepared to comfort her as small droplets of tears fell from her eyes.