want me to be, hoping to get some sign that he loved me.”
“If you wanted your father’s love, then you had some idea of what love was,” she said, knowing that her words were unkind, not really caring.
“No,” he said, “I didn’t. Because I thought that love drained you. I thought that it left you empty and hollow and broken. Just like my mother. That’s what I thought I was. Not my father. But somebody who would let themselves be consumed by this thing that seemed more like a curse than a blessing to me. But that wasn’t love. It never was.”
He continued. “You asked me what I was if you weren’t a victim. I didn’t have an answer for you. But I have a few now. If you weren’t a victim, then I wasn’t a villain. If I wasn’t a villain maybe...maybe I didn’t need to run. Maybe I needed to stay. I thought if I told myself I deserved to be punished, I deserved to walk around aching and wanting and never finding satisfaction. I thought maybe if I believed that, I could learn to live with it.” He cleared his throat. “But even more than that, if you weren’t a victim, then I might have to give you something more than just a Band-Aid for your life before I left town again. If you’re more than that... Then I have to be more than that. I have to give more than that. I have to give you some of myself, and it’s been so long since I’ve done that I’m not even sure I know who I am.” He took a deep, ragged breath. “Unless it’s the person I am when I’m with you, I’m not sure he’s worth knowing.”
“Gage,” she said, tracing the lines on either side of his mouth, giving in to her need to touch him. “I know who you are.”
“Tell me.” He said the words unsteadily.
“You’re the man who came into my life when I wanted him least. The man who pushed me to challenge everything about myself. You’re the only man who has ever seen me naked. You are the only person to hold me that I can even remember. You’re overbearing sometimes, and stubborn as hell, but that’s okay because I am too. And you...you want love, don’t you? More than anything. But you’ve been standing on the outside of your own life looking in for so many years that you don’t know how to take a step inside. So you fix things. You fix things because it’s the only thing you know how to give.”
She blinked back tears, a heavy weight in her chest. “You helped me, Gage. You helped me get rid of so many terrible burdens. Please, please let me have yours.”
She put her hands on his shoulders, then ran them down his back, felt him shudder underneath her touch. “Let me,” she said. “Let me in.”
He was an impenetrable rock wall, even now as he shook beneath her touch, it was like they were miles away from each other. And then, he looked up, his eyes locking with hers, and she saw it. Fear. Fear that went down so deep she didn’t know if there was an end to it.
“I lived my whole life wanting love, wanting something neither of my parents could give me. And it was much easier to go live a life where I wasn’t even tempted anymore. To put myself in a different category, the kind of person who couldn’t have it. I had no connections with anyone, so how could I miss what wasn’t close? When it was right there... That was when it was hard. When my mom was there, but wouldn’t look my direction. When my father was within arm’s reach but would never give me a word of reassurance. And it is the most wussy-ass thing...”
“How?” she asked. “Nobody goes through life alone. We aren’t meant to. If we were, why would we live like we do? Why would we give our lives for our families? Why would we make vows to one person, pledging ourselves to them until we die? We aren’t meant to live alone. The people that are around us mean everything. To have them right there and to feel like you don’t have their love? That isn’t a small thing. Was it a small thing that my mother left me?”
“Of course not.”
“But it’s wrong for you to feel bad? That doesn’t make any sense. Those