Challen and Addy

Chapter 34 (Addy): Butterscotch Cake

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

After our weekend together, Challen began stopping by the Center every day at least once, but more often twice. Some days he brought me breakfast and dinner, some days he brought desserts for all the patients and we'd have an impromptu ice cream and cookies night, some days he brought me tulips or daisies, some he brought me a quick kiss on the cheek. Some days, Grady intercepted him and the two of them talked for a bit before Challen came to my room.

 Challen always sat and talked to me in my room before bed. Sometimes it was innocuous conversations about our days, sometimes he helped my with my piano playing (which had improved to the point that I now played with all the skill of a duck) and sometimes it was more bite-sized conversations about what had happened between us and what moving forward would look like, if I decided to commit to that.

That if was becoming less iffy with each week that passed. I kept seeing my original husband overlaid with some lessons that had struck deep and changed him for the better.

When Challen came into my room one night after he'd been talking with Grady, I could tell at a glance that something was on his mind.

"Everything OK?" I asked.

"Just something Grady said," he frowned.

I waited him out.

"He said that he should have gotten Carys gifts so she would have forgiven him faster."

That made me laugh. "The implication being that I forgave you because you bought me things?"

His shoulders lifted up and down. "Maybe? Sometimes he can be pretty cryptic, but this one seemed pretty obvious."

"Challen, have I ever in my life seemed like someone who needed you to buy me things to gain my forgiveness?"

"Not at all."

"I'd have to be pretty stupid to say, hey, the last two-and-a-half years have really sucked, but you got me some LEGOs, so let's call it even."

He grinned sheepishly at me. "You're pretty but not stupid, Addy."

"No. But I will admit that it's the thoughtfulness behind the things you've done and have gotten for me that speaks the loudest. That's been the man I fell in love with showing up after he'd gone missing."

He sobered quickly. "I can't change the shit I pulled."

"Nobody can. All we can do is be better and try harder."

He was silent for a long, long time, and I could see an unimaginable weight settling on his shoulders, his face so tense he suddenly seemed to have aged ten years.

"I didn't check on you for three days."

If Jennifer was my stumbling block, this was Challen's. Those three days gnawed at him and we'd had several conversations about them.

"No, you didn't."

 "Addy, of all the terrible things I did, this is the one that's the worst to me."

"You have your opinion, I have mine. You spending all that time with Jennifer was the worst to me."

Then, as he always did, he argued his case. I really hoped he never decided to become a lawyer, because his case-building would guarantee his clients a guilty verdict.

"I didn't check on you. I made some assumptions and focused on work."

"You thought I was mad at you."

"That's no excuse. I'd become that husband, Addy, and that's how low I sunk."

"Challen, if I'd had my ID on me, and the police had called, what would you have done?"