“Not when it always comes at a sacrifice to yourself.” She bit down on her lip. “You act like you have to earn your place, but the fact is, people love you here. You don’t need to earn anything.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with me asking you to stay—you’re deflecting.”
She sighed. “My point is…we’re still caterpillars. We still have so much work to do, so much growth we have to experience before we’re ready to be butterflies together. We’re not…we’re not ready.”
Trent glanced at the ground, to the little wrapped box that contained the gold pendant, and frowned.
“The way you see yourself, you’ll never be a butterfly,” Trent said. “You think you’re so broken and so unlovable that you’ve become that way. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“I don’t think that.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“Why else would you go back to the parents who’ve done nothing but belittle you? You don’t think you deserve any better.” He clenched and unclenched his hands. This was not going the way he’d hoped. “Don’t you think it’s possible for two people to grow together? To change together? If you had to be perfect to be worthy of love, then nobody would ever be loved.”
“You forgave your family for lying to you for more than a decade, yet you can’t understand why I keep hoping that I can turn things around with mine? That’s hypocritical.”
“He wants to crush your dreams, Cora. For crying out loud, he basically told you to give up!”
The second the words left Trent’s mouth, he wanted to snatch them back. Shit. He hadn’t planned to broach the topic of the last letter from Cora’s father in such an emotional fashion.
“You read my emails. Wow.” She took a step backward, shaking her head.
“I didn’t go looking. Your laptop was on the table and it was open…” Okay, and maybe he’d nudged the track pad so her screen would light up. But he hadn’t done anything more than that…except sending his father Cora’s file without her permission. Crap. Okay, so maybe he’d majorly overstepped. But it all came from a good place. “He should never have told you to quit.”
“That’s none of your business.” Her cheeks were bright pink now, her eyes blazing like twin blue flames.
“If it’s hurting you, then I want to make it my business. He has no right to bring you down like that. Why can’t you see how toxic they are?” It was like beating his head against a brick wall. It made absolutely no sense to Trent that she would leave a place where she could be loved and included to go back to a place that by all her accounts was cold and unwelcoming. Back to people who were happy to cut her down with their words. “Are you so desperate for a family that you’ll go back to them simply because they’re related to you?”
Her eyes widened as if he’d slapped her.
“I’m sorry, that came out harsher than I meant.” He held up a hand, but something told him the damage had already been done.
“It’s not your place to tell me what my family should be like,” she said quietly. It was as if the flames had been extinguished with his carelessness, and for some reason the quiet felt so much worse than her anger. “You of all people should know that family isn’t always perfect.”
At least my parents love me.
He bit back the words because, even though they were true, they felt spiteful. And he didn’t want to treat Cora like that—he’d hoped that by showing her what it might be like to be part of a cohesive unit, she’d want to stay. That she’d see how much better her life could be.
But he’d clearly underestimated the pull her parents had on her.
“Bloody hell, Cora. I care about you.” Now he was laying it all out on the line, opening himself up further when she’d given him no reason to. No encouragement.
If she walked away now, it wouldn’t be because he’d kept his feelings a secret—and that meant he’d live without regrets. Because, for the first time ever, he was showing someone all his cards. Leaving nothing unsaid.
For too long, he’d kept secrets like rocks in his pockets, not telling people about his true identity for fear they’d reject him. And maybe Cora had a point; he did put other people’s needs first. A lot. He could say it was the “Walters Way,” as his dad liked