Stripping Her Defenses Read Online Free Page B

I hated looking at her. She’d had that look of pity on her face from the moment I’d woken up in the hospital and found out my son was gone. I didn’t need anyone’s pity. In fact, I didn’t want anything from anyone. All I wanted was my baby boy, and since I couldn’t have him, I didn’t care about much else in life.
    I heard my mother’s voice speaking and realized I must have spaced off again. According to Mom, I did that a lot these days.
    “Are you sure about this, Kara?”
    My hands clutched at my no longer burgeoning belly. I tried to respond, yet my voice came out as a croak from disuse. Along with not getting out of my bed or eating, I’d stopped talking, too. All of this had been the subject of a lengthy discussion between my mother and my, now, former obstetrician because they were both concerned. I couldn’t even work up the emotions to care about that, either.
    Clearing my throat, I tried to respond again. “Yes.”
    She looked around the house at all of the things I hadn’t packed: all of the knick knacks Riley had bought me from around the world, all of our pictures hanging on the wall. Everything was still there, left untouched by me or my mother. I wouldn’t let her pack a single piece of it. I didn’t want any of it at all. No reminders of what I used to have or didn’t have. No remembrances of the dreams I’d once lived for or the life I’d been planning.
    All the evidence I needed to remember of how I’d once lived were the scars on the side and back of my body and the empty arms I had to carry around which would never hold my little boy. That was enough torture to endure. The rest of it, I was leaving behind for my soon to be ex-husband, who still hadn’t come home from his mission. Yet another decision my mother didn’t approve of, and the real reason she was now asking me if I was sure about what I was doing.
    Mom thought it was wrong for me to leave Riley and divorce him when he’d yet to come home. She didn’t get it. Riley was never home. That was the point. It was bad enough dealing with the missions he was given and enduring that time away, but to be brutally reminded that my husband wasn’t here with me when I had endured what no parent should ever endure—the loss of our child—because he had volunteered for that mission.
    No ! I was done.
    If I had meant half as much to Riley as his precious career had, he would have been here with me. I was done trying to fix things between us. I was done trying to rekindle our love. Even though I knew it was an epically shitty thing to leave him and let him be by himself when he came home to the loss of our child, I couldn’t bring myself to stay. I needed to leave before him. The memories of everything that once had been in this house hurt me more than our marriage already had.
    A small voice that came from the area where my heart used to be whispered, Didn’t we hurt each other mutually, though?
    Maybe so. I had handed over my teenage heart, which he’d kept safe and loved for years. The scars on my heart, soul, and now body had never been intentionally given. If anything, Riley had loved me with everything he had to give at first. The problem was, eventually, I’d stopped being the love of his life. Somehow, the Navy had replaced me.
    When we had been in high school, the idea of being married to an honorable military man had been absolutely romantic. I had imagined him leaving for his six month floats then coming off the ship to sweep me off my feet with breathtaking kisses. And Riley had delivered those devastating kisses just like I’d dreamed of, but only the first few times he’d come home to me. No, the injuries to my heart hadn’t started until he’d repeatedly volunteered for missions after his successful completion of BUD/S to become a Navy seal .
    He had been voracious for the adrenaline high he got from the life threatening missions, while living solely for the camaraderie between his brothers in the unit and the