Feels Like Falling - Kristy Woodson Harvey Page 0,78

even got a chance to walk up the steps, I heard Frank’s feet thudding down. When he turned the corner, I was standing right there on the bottom one, just waiting and smiling.

He put his hand on his chest, a little out of breath. “Di, you always did know how to get my heart racing.”

He leaned in to kiss me, but I backed away.

That handsome face fell.

“Please, Di. Please don’t be here giving me bad news. I can’t take having you and then having to be without you again. Please.”

“Frank, I’m so mad at you,” I said. “Still. All these years later. You abandoned me just like the rest. Worse than the rest because you knew how hard it was for me to let anyone in. How can I ever trust you again?”

He took my hand, and I let him. “Di, it isn’t an excuse. I realize that it isn’t. But I was twenty-two years old, and I wasn’t just in danger of losing those stores. I was in danger of losing my family.”

My ears perked.

“Look, like I said, it isn’t an excuse, but my momma and daddy weren’t taking away the stores; they were taking away themselves, our relationship. Everything. I loved you. I wanted you, and I see now that I made the wrong choice, but at the time I couldn’t imagine my life without Christmases around the tree at the beach house and Easter lunch at Grandma’s. It was too much. It was too big a choice. So I didn’t choose. I just hid.”

Now, I know for most women, that wouldn’t be a good explanation. But for me, it couldn’t have been better. Because I had never had a family. At least, not in the way I wanted to. And if I ever had, I wouldn’t have let it go either. I’m damn sure about that. I was okay on my own. I was. But when you have a family and then you lose it, all you want forever is to get that back.

“I have never moved on past that day you walked away.” He put my hand up to his heart. “I’ve carried you right here all these years. I love you, D. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.”

I could feel the panic rising in me that he couldn’t ever really love me, that he was going to leave me, that if I let myself fall, even a little, it would be over, just like everything else. I couldn’t bear it. “You don’t even know who I am, Frank,” I practically shouted, my voice suddenly shaking with fear and anger and passion. “You have no idea.” I could feel myself trying to push him away; I was terrified that he would find out who I really was and leave me. I had to tell him now. He had to know the real me. It was easier for him to leave me now than later. “Two months ago, I had sixty bucks to my name. I was homeless. I was living in my car. I was washing my underwear in a sink at the marina.” I was so worked up I had to pause to look away. “That isn’t something new for me, Frank. I’m not some shiny, hopeful eighteen-year-old anymore. I’ve been through things that I could never even explain to you. Life has worn me down. Life has won.”

He took my face in his hands. “I don’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done. I don’t care about any of it, Diana.”

“Your mom was right,” I said, my voice still raised. “I’m a trailer trash orphan. That’s all I’m ever going to be. I will never be good enough for you.”

“Diana,” Frank said quietly. He rubbed my arms, trying to soothe me. I was having trouble breathing. He bent down just a little so his face was even with mine. “She has always been shortsighted and she has always been wrong about you. You are more than enough for me. Hell, you are the only one for me.”

I was calming down now. I was hearing him. And this huge part of me knew that he was right. We were meant to be. There was no other way to describe how it felt.

“I love you no matter what,” he said. “I love you more than myself. I love you more than time.”

There were tears in my eyes now, but I didn’t want him to see so I looked away. All I could manage