Ex-Husband's Regret (by Evelyn M.M) novel Chapter 71

71 /133

Present day.

“So you see, they have a reason to hate me…I ruined their love” I mutter as tears fill my eyes.

It’s always painful for me to go down memory lane. I was naïve and foolish. Thinking that I could make him love me after I literally ruined his life. Nine years later and I’m still paying the price for loving Rowan Woods.

“It wasn’t your fault?” Ethan asks me, his fingers slowly caressing mine.

“It was. I let my obsession with him take center stage and because of that I made the biggest mistake of my life” the tears fall freely now.

If only I could go back in time. If only I could change things. I’ve lived my life in regret. I wish I had listened to that nagging voice in my head. I wish I had payed attention to it instead of ignoring it. It would have saved me from so much heartache and pain.

Hell, I wish I had realized earlier that I was pregnant. I could have escaped earlier. I would have left and never told Rowan that I was pregnant with his child. No one would have been the wiser. I know it sounds downright evil but looking back now it would have saved Noah from seeing Rowan and I fight all the time.

I would have gone to a place where no one knew me. A place so far away from my family and Rowan. A place no one knew them. I’m sure they wouldn’t even have bothered looking for me and that would have just been fine with me.

“Ava?”

“What?” I ask as a response. I had gotten lost in thought again.

“I said it wasn’t you fault. You were also drunk, so if they were blaming you, they should have blamed him too” he gives me a reassuring smile.

I look at him with round eyes.

“You believe me?” I ask him in surprise.

No one and I mean no one has ever believed that I was drunk. They all thought I was malicious and I took advantage of an innocent man.

“Of course I do, don’t you believe you’re also innocent?” his blue eyes seer into me. As if he was trying to unveil all my pain.

I sigh tiredly. “I got so tired of hearing that I was to blame. That I wasn’t drunk at all, that sometimes I believe that’s exactly what happened. Everyone has pounded it in me, cementing the idea that I took advantage of his drunken state that sometimes I doubt the events of my own memory”

It’s sad really. That sometimes I think that my memory is faulty. I mean if everyone says I’m guilty isn’t that the truth?

There are other times I think that the pain I went through at Rowan’s hand was my punishment. That God was punishing me for wanting and sleeping with a man that didn’t belong to me. That’s also something everyone has told me. That my pain was my punishment.

You get used to people’s words when the keep forcing their truth and beliefs down your throat. That’s what happened with me. Soon after I started believing them. Believing that I was a fault. Believing that I was at fault.

My heart aches when I think of everything they put me through, Rowan especially. That a man you love could destroy you leaves you wondering if there’s truly any good in the world.

The only good thing that came out of that mistake is Noah. I would never regret my son. He was the one that saved. He was anchor during the times when I wanted to end it all. During the times when I felt so alone I contemplated suicide.