definitely need a therapist if you keep spouting that kind of crazy crap.”
“You think it’s crazy crap and that should totally invalidate my viewpoint?”
“Listen, buster, you’re the one who told me I needed to pack up and move back home if I was going to let my parents’ opinion run my life. You take your own advice and stop letting a set of lousy parents ruin your ability to have a relationship.”
That hit remarkably close to home. “Why do you need a therapist?”
“Just so you don’t think you’re getting away with anything, I know you’re deliberately changing the subject. You have a habit of doing that when the conversation isn’t going your way. But I needed a therapist because you were driving me crazy.”
Simon crossed his arms over his chest. Next she’d be commenting on his body language. She had nerve saying he drove her crazy. She made him loony. “How was I driving you crazy?”
“Well, not you personally, but you in those dreams. I couldn’t figure out how I could love Elliott and be having those kinds of dreams about you every night. But now that’s easy enough without a shrink.” She put her hands on his shoulders. “I don’t love Elliott. Well, except as something that’s a cross between a brother and a friend. Not the way I love you.”
She made it sound frightfully logical. “Oh.”
“That’s it? Oh? After all of that, the only thing you have to say to me is ‘oh’?”
“What would you have me say?” He uncrossed his arms and dropped his hands to his sides.
She closed her eyes, as if her patience stood on its last leg, and delicately banged her head against his chest. “Simon, I believe we have a long, happy future ahead of us. I know in my heart that you love me. But it would be nice to hear it without me having to drag it out of you.” She cupped his jaw in her hand. “I love you, Simon Thackeray. Now is it really so hard to put this—” she looked at the photo “—into words?”
The photo all but shouted it, but he said what she so obviously needed to hear.
“I love you.” The stark beauty in those three simple words, and the accompanying vulnerability, shivered through him.
“Thank you.” She looked so happy it nearly ripped him apart.
What if he didn’t live up to her expectations? What if he simply didn’t have it in him to be the man she thought he was? “But it doesn’t really change anything.”
“Like hell it doesn’t change anything. You are never getting rid of me, because I love you and I know you love me. Go ahead, retreat behind that wall of yours. If I have to go brick by brick and it takes me a lifetime, I’ll tear it down. I’ll crawl to hell and back if that’s what it takes. All the other times I’ve been relentless and gone after what I wanted, that was just boot camp. This is the big event I’ve been training for. So be forewarned, this is war.”
“You’ll get tired. You’ll figure it out, sooner rather than later, that I’m not this romanticized version you’ve painted in your head.”
“You are so wrong. Please, never tell me I’m irrational. I’m not harboring any illusions. You’re arrogant and opinionated and sarcastic and really sort of bossy.”
“You just called me bossy?”
“That’s why we’re so perfect together. You don’t intimidate me because I’ll hand it right back to you.” She sat on the sofa and pulled him down beside her. “You told me that you were scared when you went out on that ledge. It’s okay to be frightened. That’s what bravery and courage are all about. It doesn’t require courage to face what you don’t fear. It’s okay to be frightened, but it’s not okay to run away from it.”
Hadn’t Elliott told him, in the early-morning hours at the hospital, that Simon feared being happy? Maybe he’d been onto something.
“You don’t seem to fear anything except the dark.” Even as he said it he realized that though she feared the dark, she’d gone down those seven flights of pitch-black stairs with him, for him.
“That’s not true. I’m scared to death I won’t get through to you. I’m so scared of losing you I’m shaking inside.” She held up her hand and he could see that it was, indeed, less than steady.
“And you really think that would be such a bad thing?”
“Infinitely worse than being trapped in the dark alone.