thought you’d add insult to injury by leaving me by myself at the hospital?!”
“I was wrong. I know I was wrong.”
“You didn’t answer my phone calls. You ignored my texts. You forbade everyone from even telling me where you were. What is that, Sean? Who does that?!”
“I didn’t know what to do.” His eyes begged for understanding as he approached the foot of the stairs, making his way closer to me. “Those photographers?” He pointed somewhere off into the distance. “They would never have acted that way if I wasn’t with you.”
“So you decided to call it quits and leave me to clean up the mess?” Guilt I could understand, but abandoning me?
“You were hurt because of me.” He jabbed a finger into his own chest. “Joanie was in a car accident because of me, because of my career.”
“No.” I crossed to the top of the stairs, unable to stand still any longer. “You don’t get to claim responsibility for their actions. I was hurt because the paparazzi are soul-sucking vampires who see nothing but dollar signs when they look at you or anyone else.” My anger at what those people had done to us compounded the fire inside me, making my voice tremble.
“Exactly. They’re after me because of who I am and what I do. And by bringing you into my life, I put you at risk.”
“And have I ever run away from that? Do you think I fell in love with you without knowing what that meant? I knew what I was doing, Sean! I might not like parts of it, but I went into this thing with my eyes wide open. I accepted every risk, every annoyance. But it seems like you didn’t. You ran. Instead of sticking it out and staying by my side, you left me!” The raw ache in my heart broke my voice. “Do you have any idea how much that hurt?”
“Yes, Libby. I do.”
It took me a moment to realize what he meant, and when I did, it gouged a hole in my heart. Still, he hadn’t said it with anger. Instead it was just a statement of fact.
We’d never talked about it. He’d sent me the letter from rehab, yes. But other than that, we had never talked about what it had been like for him when I’d left. “That’s not the same thing,” I said, my voice a desperate whisper as I tried not to let the guilt and shame overpower me. “This situation was totally different.”
“No, it was exactly the same.”
My face scrunched up. Hurt by the accusation, angry that he would imply that I was somehow the thing that had driven him away.
He came up a few steps. “I was hurting you—again.”
My anger morphed into confusion.
“You walked away for your own good,” he clarified. “I was doing the same. I walked away because it was the best thing for you.”
I glared, unwilling to accept that reasoning.
“At least,” he said more quietly, “I thought it was best for you, but I regretted it as soon as I was gone.”
“Then why didn’t you come back?”
“I was going to, but when I first made the decision to leave—to protect you—I called Naomi. I made sure she was going to come, and then I gave my phone to Randy. I told him not to let me have it back, and he didn’t, even when I asked for it. Even when I demanded it.”
“You could have driven here! You could have found a landline. Cell phones aren’t the only form of communication.”
“I know. But when he wouldn’t give me my phone, it reminded me of all the reasons I had decided it was best to remove myself from the equation, and I thought I should give it some time. Because if I came swooping back in and that ended up being a mistake, I would just make everything worse. I didn’t know what was right.”
I made myself breathe in and out twice before responding. “And I’m supposed to trust that this time—now—you won’t do the same thing? You won’t decide tomorrow or next week that all those good reasons you had really were the real deal?”
“I lasted less than two days, Libby. By last night I was barely functioning. I realized my worry for you hadn’t decreased. It had increased. I realized I didn’t trust anyone else to take care of you. I made Randy give me my phone back. I may or may not have taken a swing at him before he