Tangled Hearts

Prologue

Time stands still around Savannah as she stares down at the man she loves, kneeling at her feet.

One sentence.

That was all it took to send their world crumbling down.

"What..." Bruce breathes, finally breaking his paralyzing silence. "What do you mean?" He asks, closing the velvet box resting in his palm.

"I-I-" Savannah struggles to find words, Any words, but none come.

Her ice blue eyes dart all around the perfectly decorated patio outside of their townhouse. He laid everything out beautifully. Rose petals lay sprinkled atop every visible surface, their golden twinkle lights wrapped around the patios onning — illuminating everything that the trio of burning candles resting on table don't.

Rising to his feet, Bruce calls her attention back to him as he calmly repeats the question. Battling his own disbelief as he prays for her to take back what she's just said.

He did everything in his power to make tonight perfect, All to ask the love of his life one simple question.

But nothing can ever truly be simple, can it?

"I can't marry you unless you know the truth, I-I love you, Bruce. You know how much I love you, but... fuck." She stammers, allowing her word vomit to flow freely as the lie she's held close to her chest for the last six years comes spilling out. "I was already pregnant when I came here... Theo h-he isn't your son."

Savannah reaches for Bruce but thinks better of it, Wrapping her arms tightly around her own torso instead as she follows him across the backyard.

"I was eighteen, Bruce! I-I was scared and I loved you an-and I knew you would love him and you do! You're the best d-"

"Don't!" Bruce snaps, twisting around to face the woman he can now barely recognize. Everything he believed to be true about his family crumbling to ash around his feet. "You... Six years?! Six years you've kept this from me?"

"How was I supposed to tell you?" She cries, the honest question falling from her blush colored lips.

She's thought about telling him a million times.

She's spent days, weeks, years, cursing her past self for lying in the first place.

Because there is never a right time to tell the truth. And the longer you sit with a lie, The harder it becomes to live it.

A sickening laugh escapes Bruce' lungs as he tosses his open palms into the air between them. "Not like this, Sav." He cries, sucking his bottom lip betwixt his teeth. "Not like this..."

Savannah opens her mouth as he brushes past her, but again, No words come.

Her body flinches as the patio door slams shut behind her a few seconds later. Still, she doesn't move. She listens as the garage door creaks open in the distance, And only once she hears the sound of Bruce' Chevy Trax peel out of the driveway does she release the breath she's been holding.

Crumbling onto the ground where stands, she breaks into a full sob.

Replaying the way Bruce's eyes changed as she confessed the truth.

One second, He was beaming up to her with nothing but love in his deep ember eyes. Asking her to spend the rest of their lives together.

The next, He was staring up at her as if she were a stranger.

Perhaps she will be, Now...

Is it possible for all of the love he felt for her mere minutes ago to have become eviscerated by her lie, Or rather, The truth?