The Room
I jerked up and took note of the time it was 3am. I heard loud sobbing coming from further into the house. I got up and walked to the end of the hall I looked off the banister to see Kaiden. He was on the floor on his knees and a broken bottle of wine on the marble floor. I ran down the stairs to him to make sure he wasn't injured at all. "Kaiden are you okay?" I asked half awake a whole lot calmer than I was earlier. Kaiden was crying his face red and his face soaked in tears. "I'm such a fuck up" He slurred his words telling me he was probably drunk and by how he was acting he was blacked out.
"No you're not Kaiden listen it's been a long day you need to get some sleep. We can talk about this in the morning." I tried to comfort him. But he wouldn't stop shaking his head. "I wasn't there Dani! I wasn't there when she needed me the most. I wasn't there for you when you needed me the most!" He said not making any sense. Clearly I was not going to get him into bed in this condition anytime soon so I decided to listen to him and hear him out. "Kaiden you're here for me it's okay I'm right here." I said to him to comfort him I reached down to touch him but he acted as if I burned his skin.
"She's dead! Because I wasn't there! If you stay around me long enough you will be too! You were already almost killed by that stupid snake." This is the moment I realize that Kaiden's wall is completely down and I am able to see the stress he has towards me and my wellbeing. How much all the events happening since we started being around each other stressed him out. "They will hurt you these people will hurt you and I don't know how to keep them away!" Kaiden cried into his hands. "I can't let her drive. I can't let her drink. I can't let her go out with her friends. Because there's people."
I just listened to his cries it was breaking my heart to see him in this condition. Mainly because I knew this was the true him and a side of him I haven't ever seen before. "They were drunk! They all were drunk! They didn't know how to help her. I was drunk I didn't know how to help her. Bad things happen when we drink. Bad things happen when I'm around" Kaiden cried. I shook my head at him. "What are you talking about Kaiden?" I asked softly not understanding what he is trying to say. He stood up way too quickly stumbling along the way but yet there was something in his drunkenness that still seemed to be graceful.
The way he stood up and regained his balance then you wouldn't have ever been able to see that he was drunk as if he has practiced walking while drunk before. Kaiden grabbed my hand and lead me upstairs. "You kept asking me about my past I told you not to ask about Sophie and you did I asked you not to drink and you did!" He walked straight to that mystery room. He pulled out his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. "I kept on asking you to not doing things not because I wanted to but because I knew the outcome of reckless actions."
We walked in he walked to the middle of the room and fell to his knees crying. I flicked on the lights and stared at the room in awe. He sobbed on the floor looking around the room as if he hasn't been here in months. Which by the looks of his desperation he probably hasn't seen it in months. "This is what I've been hiding from you... my ugly past Denali. I wanted to build a new life with you and forget it all happened but I can't... I just can't. Sophie will just keep haunting me" I shook my head looking at the room still not quite understanding what is going on. "Kaiden you need tell me everything from the beginning no lies just the truth." I said slowly and carefully so I knew he understood me.
He took a deep breath several times trying to calm down and he closed his eyes as if he was remembering something long ago. "I love her. She was my world. She was the only thing that mattered in my little work. We were young and dumb and had way too much money to blow. We drank all the time and partied together. We often would go to the club even on work nights. But 5 years ago me and Sophie were out with our friends a couple me and her were close to were getting married so she was out at the bachelorette party I was at the grooms party of course. I thought it was okay to drink we had a ride lined up for the group for when we all were drunk. I had called her and asked her what club they were at before we got too wasted in case something happened I knew where she was."
"Sophie didn't drink as far as I know before she got in the car that night. She had left the party earlier due to her not feeling good. I only knew this because she left me a voicemail on her way home. On the way home a drunk driver hit her going 75 miles per hour 45 miles over the speed limit for the city. They collided into her right at her driver door killing her instantly. The doctors said she was killed so fast from impact that she didn't even feel a thing. I got the call at the bar I could barely comprehend neither could the other guys what was happening. I couldn't get a ride home and I couldn't even function to find my car to get to her. So I had to call my mom to come get me and we went to the hospital."
"They needed me to confirm it was her... mentally I knew it was her and that blue mustang I bought her after we got married and the ring that was cutting through her ring finger I remember buying it for her. But physically... I couldn't her body was just all mauled up. Her face was just...gone. Those beautiful eyes gone I would never look into them again. Or those lips that I could kiss forever that I had kissed forever. This you see was going to be our future. She was pregnant and just a few months away from having our son."
The room was a beautiful nursery it had a blue velvet crib for an infant and it had black and white wallpaper of leopards. It was so elegant while still being a nursery and functional. It looked ready to be used any second with diapers still organized near a changing station. "Kaiden..." He started bawling his eyes out again and shook his head. "Just don't... I've lost so much I can't bare losing you. When I first saw you yes I thought you were her and I hated you for it taunting me everyday for my mistakes. I dressed you up in her clothes comparing your every move to her."
"Pretending you were her so I could hate you for the things I dealt with. So I could hat myself for not being there when she needed me. But then you were so sweet and kind. I could say anything to you and you'd just stand your ground. You were opinionated without being overbearing or annoying. You were smart and intelligent I thought I could put a bomb in front of you and you could disarm it. You disarmed me that's for sure. I began to fall in love with you for who you were not because you reminded me of Sophie. The more I grew closer to you the more I stopped comparing you to her for you are better then her."
"You are in every way better than the very thing that gave my life meaning. You have brought my life a new meaning. I don't deserve you Denali. I don't so if you're going to leave me just leave me I understand. I've grieved the death of Sophie I could possibly do it again with you. But I can promise this indeed will be my last time falling in love with someone. For no one should bare my burdened heart and the hurt it holds." I sat on the ground beside him and made him look at me.
"Kaiden I'm not going anywhere. I may be hurt right now but you are more hurt than I thought you were. I'm here with you and I'm not leaving you other something like this. How insensitive and cruel I would be to turn a cold shoulder to the love of my life all because of something tragic that happened. Kaiden nothing that happened that night was your fault and there as no way to fix it or change what happened. I'm sorry you lost her and the baby."
"I'm sorry you have been left with this hurt and grief. That you've had to pretend everything was okay when it wasn't" I said hugging him. "When I left that week when you first started that was the anniversary of the accident that happened 5 years ago. I couldn't bare to see you let alone try to work through all the emotions I was dealing with." He explained to em putting all the pieces together. After a few more minutes of his crying I finally was able to get him to stand up and lean against me. He was large and I could barely handle him but he was still conscious enough he wasn't dead weight.
"Come on let's got to bed." I whispered to him and lead him out of the room into the bedroom. I sat him up in the bed with pillows behind him so if he threw up he would be okay. "Mom I love her." Kaiden started in a whisper. He thinks he is talking to his mother instead of me. I guess because I'm taking care of him. "I do mom I love that woman. I want to grow old with her and have children with her. I want to give her the entire world and never let her worry again. I want to dress her up in the finest clothes and the finest jewelry."
"I want anyone who sees her to see straight through her and know that whoever her husband is loves her dearly and spoils her. No man would ever even dare to talk to her because she has everything she has ever needed in front of her. She would never have to leave the house or do chores. She would just raise our children and provide them with the best mother possible... Mom... She would be the perfect mom. Patient and gentle. She would love our children so much they would beg her to leave them lone. I'll have to schedule more time away when she gets pregnant. I want to live this life now. I'm ready for it mom."
Kaiden said and by the time he finished I had tears running down my cheeks my hand covering my mouth to keep me from crying loudly. "Mom why are you crying?" He asked me and I shook my head wiping my tears. "Nothing honey I can tell that you just really love this girl." I said and he smiled closing his eyes. "This girl... She's not just any girl mom. She's the light in the sun and the gravity that keeps us grounded. She's the pull in the ocean and the peak of a mountain top where the trees meet the horizon. She's the little star in the night sky that sparkles reminding you that she's right there at all times that she's never moved from her spot. She's the blue hue in a flame scorching and burning everything that comes near."
"She is the kiss of death because oh God I would die by her doing. Either heaven or hell I would follow her to. If she were to die before me I pray to God that she is to haunt me forever. That she drives me insane because I could never imagine a moment in my life without her in it." He began to hum and this was the moment that I realized he was falling asleep. I grabbed his hand and I rubbed circles in his palm with my thumb until he had fallen completely asleep. I slowly got up not want to wake him.
I crept back into the nursery and I look around some more taking it in not knowing if I was ever going to get this chance again.I was processing everything that Kaiden just told me. He was so deeply in love with me more than he was with Sophie. I opened the door to the closet and it is all was not just the baby clothes but Sophie's clothes too.
I looked through some items and Kaiden was right we were exactly the same size as me. I came across photos of her and we looked very similar it was odd. I found ultra sound photos of the baby. I even found pictures of their wedding day by the looks of it Kaiden could only be 19 or 20 in those photos. Sophie was his first and only love I could see why it all was so much losing her. I put it all back just as I had found it all. I felt exhausted so I stumbled out closing the door behind me and locking it with the key Kaiden left in the little of the nursery. I went to the bedroom and carefully laid in bed beside Kaiden. He instinctively wrapped his arm around me protecting me and snuggling me closer to him.