AN: I'm not avoiding the Miranda chat. I'm working up to. I promise there is a better moment for it.
As for this part of their conversation, they have talked about this many times. Five times (six if you count the morning after), and there is nothing much left to say. (They're all on You Tube if you're curious) Which is why it's more about Dixie than LDZ.
I hope you like. This has been so hard (yet easy) to write, and it hits a lot of feelings.
Chapter 20 | Part III
David sighed and shook his head. No matter how many times he said it, she was never going to believe him.
"I wasn't going to leave you," He told her again, eyes fixed on her face.
Her words always said something completely different than he saw on her beautiful face. Read in those big brown eyes, he could still lose himself in.
"You know I mean it. I can see it in your eyes. You were my first love, and I believed you would be my last."
He always had been able to see her, straight into her heart, her soul. It didn't surprise her he still could.
"I told Dimitri that day in your office that I was so happy he was back. That I thought I'd been in love with someone else, but that couldn't have been possible because he was back. Your feelings terrified me, David. I always pictured my future with a man, but with you, I saw it all so vividly. I wanted it, all of it. The small wedding. The big house. Kids running wild in the yard."
She paused on a hard breath, the words painful as they spilled out. How could he still make her feel like this?
"But I couldn't take the chance. I couldn't love you the way you needed me to, because if you stopped loving me...who was I?"
"You are Erica Kane, and you would have still been if we'd broke up. Nothing about you is unlovable, Erica."
"If my face would have still been scarred, we wouldn't be here."
"I didn't fall in love with you because of your beauty. I saw your scars. I bathed them, and I still couldn't stop myself from falling for you. Nothing would have changed."
Her eyes squeezed shut, and she bit her lip to keep her tears at bay. He was telling the truth. She could hear it in his words. See it in his eyes. "You say it with such conviction, even now. How can you be so sure?"
He sighed and shook his head, turning onto his back, frustrated. "Because no matter how I pictured the rest of my life, there was no version of it that didn't have you by my side."
She nodded slowly, eyes closing as she processed the truth she'd always known.
"You walked away and moved on so quickly. You fought for me when we ended up together, but otherwise, you were busy chasing Dixie. You said you knew you couldn't compete with Dimitri being alive, and while I know part of that is true, you still chose to go after Dixie rather than fight for me. For us. For the future, you so desperately say you wanted. You did leave me."
He sighed and shook his head. Everything in him said to deny her words, tell her how wrong she was. But she had a point he couldn't deny. "That's not fair."
"Why isn't it fair?"
Why wasn't it a fair observation? He had given up. He had walked away. He had chosen when to fight for their relationship and when not to.
"You could have focused your attention on us. On trying to show me that I was wrong. Continue on from the moments we shared. But you didn't. You chose Dixie."
He shook his head again, frustrated. He wanted to turn over again, face her. Tell her how wrong she had. "We have already been through this," He reminded her. "I tried to get you back every chance I could."
"You did, but only when the chance presented itself. If I wasn't around, you were lost in Dixieland."
She was right, he realized after opening his mouth a few times to protest, and no words came.
He wanted her. He loved her. He would have married her. But he hadn't fought for her.
"Stealing Dixie from Tad was what you really wanted. Hurt people as much as you hurt. Isn't that what you do, David?"
"I tried to be a better man," He finally looked at her again, eyes wide and face twisted with emotion.
She nodded. "You were a better man, David. I knew him. I loved him. But it wasn't enough."
He finally turned onto his side, eyes meeting hers again. "Until Leora died, losing you was the hardest thing I'd ever been through since my father's death. I didn't know how to go on. I didn't know how to push away the darkness. All the reasons I had for being a better man went away when we broke up. Dixie was there. And I threw myself at her. Whatever it took."
"When you could have fought for us," She reminded him.
"I couldn't compete with Dimitri Marrick when he was dead. How was I supposed to challenge him when he was alive? Why would I? You made yourself very clear."
"And ruining Dixie's life made you feel better?"
He sighed and shook his head. "Dixie was a willing party to everything that happened." He tried to protest, but Erica shook her head.
"You drugged a boat full of people to manipulate her. That's not willing."
"I did not mean to drug the entire boat," He reminded her.
She scoffed, shaking her head. "And that makes it alright? Bianca drank that punch. She collapsed from the effects of it."
He nodded. "I never intended for that to happen, and I would never try to hurt Bianca. I was trying to spike Tad's drink, and the boat rolled..."
"And you left the punch there? The rest of us be damned? Didn't matter who you hurt as long as you got Dixie into your bed?"
He blew out a hard breath and studied her face. How was this possible? How could she be looking at him with such anger and still so much compassion?
"I was a mess, and I wasn't thinking straight. I wanted Dixie, and I was going to have her, no matter who I hurt on the way. I have always been that man, Erica. I will probably always be to some degree. You already know that."
She sighed, eyes drifting closed. "I will never understand, David. I will never understand how you chose that squalled affair over me. How you let the dark corners of your soul take over again. But I know you weren't in your right mind. I know you were lost, and that's what I chose to focus on."
He didn't deserve her. He never had.
"I am sorry for what happened to Bianca. And I'm sorry for what I did to you. I never meant for either of you to end up under the effects of Libidozone."
She nodded. "I imagine we would have ended up in my bed had you driven me home," She confessed softly. They hadn't been able to stay away from one another, and she couldn't deny the truth of what would have happened. "But I work so hard on my sobriety, David. And to have that control taken away."
She would always struggle with how he had compromised her sobriety, but she believed him. "But I know you weren't in your right mind and that you weren't yourself, and I am doing my best to remember that."
"We really made a mess of things," David said through a soft smile.
"We did," She nodded, a slight smile tilting her lips, eyes meeting his. "You more so."
"Of course," He laughed lightly and shook his head, before leaning in and raising a hand to her face.
His lips met hers, quirky, softly. The passion of earlier tempered with something deeper. Something neither of them understood.
"I want to do better," She said against his lips after a few seconds. She reached out and took his his palm against the small curve of her stomach. "I want us to do the best we can for him. I want us to be better parents than we were lovers. He deserves nothing less."
"I want the same. I want him to have the childhood we never had. I'm committed to it, Erica. To him. To you. To not failing."
She smiled softly and rolled onto her back.
David shifted his own position so he could reach for the comforter. He pulled it over both of them. "Don't worry, I'll keep my hands yo myself," He teased, looking over his shoulder at her.
She raised an eyebrow at him and smiled before turning her back to him. "I've never complained about your wandering hands."
He laughed and leaned up on his arm and dropped his lips near her ear. "Goodnight, Erica." He dropped a quick kiss on her temple and turned away from her.
Whatever this was. Whatever happened or didn't happen between them, they would be the best parents for their son
The rest of their family and Pine Valley could doubt. Would doubt. Would do their best to undermine them.
But they would do this. For their son. For Josh. For Alex and Olivia.
For all the time stolen from them.
TBC
