Holding on to the past so I didn’t have to deal with the future. So I didn’t have to let people close. But he...he made me want someone close. He made me think maybe I could have that.”
“So it took that bastard coming back into your life to make you realize that? I’ve been here the whole time, and you didn’t pick that up from me?”
His words gouged at her soul, guilt pouring through her. “My only excuse is that it took someone coming in from outside. To show me, to shake me. You were like a foundation I didn’t know I was standing on, Jonathan. But trust me, I’m realizing it now, and I’m grateful for it. We... Gage and I broke up.”
Broke up seemed an insipid term for what had happened last night. For actively having your chest ripped open and your heart torn out. But then, boyfriend had always seemed an inadequate name for him too, so it stood to reason that this didn’t really fit either.
“Do you want me to go kill him? Because my offer still stands.”
She laughed, watery and shaky. “I don’t doubt that, not for a moment. But, I don’t actually want him to die. I love him.”
“Damn,” Jonathan breathed. “I really don’t understand that.”
“Hating him never helped me, Jonathan. Not one bit. But loving him...” A tear slid down her cheek. “It healed me. It changed me in ways that I didn’t know needed changing. And right now, even though part of me—a different part of me than before—feels a little bit broken, I feel fixed too. That makes about as much sense as any of it, I guess. But it’s true.”
She looked around the house, her house, the one that she was so proud of, and yet had never brought a single bit of those seasonal decorations into, those things that she felt so strongly made a home. She had kept them from herself. Because, somehow she had felt she hadn’t deserved them. Because she had felt like her mother’s abandonment was her fault, because she had forced her brother to live a life he shouldn’t have had to live.
But things had changed now. Gage West had changed her.
“I think I’m going to redecorate,” she said.
“That’s...random, but if you need help... You know I’ll help you. Whatever you need. Hell, having a brother who works in construction has to be useful somehow, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not really that random,” she said, taking a deep breath. “It’s actually been a long time coming.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WHEN GAGE ARRIVED at the rehabilitation facility the next morning he felt...nervous. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt anything that he would characterize as nerves. But he had been putting off seeing his father for a long time. For so many reasons. Reasons tangled up in other reasons that were difficult to find the end of.
A nurse ushered him into his father’s room, and when he got there, he saw his mother, holding vigil by the side of the bed, his father sitting up with the aid of the hospital bed.
He suddenly felt too large for the space, too large for the town. Standing there, encroaching on this moment. His mother looked so brittle it caused an answering crack to run through his own heart. There she was, still sitting by this man’s bed. This man who had never given her a damn thing in return.
Her hand was resting over his, and he wondered if his father had any idea just how fortunate he was to have that hand there.
“I can come back at another time,” he said.
Both of his parents turned and looked at him, his mother quickly, his father slowly, age and ill health altering his movements.
“Gage,” his mother said, sounding shocked.
Nathan West said nothing. His expression was immobile, and Gage wasn’t certain if that was just the old man or if it had something to do with his stroke. Either way, it made his chest twist.
“I’m so sorry that I didn’t come sooner,” he said, and he was surprised to discover that he meant it.
“I know you’ve been handling all of the financial things,” his mother said, her voice thready.
“I’m sure that Colton talked to you about it.”
“Madison,” his mother said. “Madison told me that you were back and that you are taking care of everything.”
Of course Madison had. His unlikely little ally. His younger sister he hadn’t seen nearly enough of. He was overwhelmed with a sense of need then. A need to