be nice and easy. Convincing you that I am no longer who I was is not going to be easy, but I figured it would at least go faster if I skip the small talk and try to be honest.”
“Honest?”
“Yes. Honest.” His voice finally rose. “Maybe you should try it.”
His challenge broke something loose inside me. “You want honest? Fine! You made me hate you!” The words came out in a scream that surprised even me, and then they sat, ringing in the space between us. “Is that the honesty you want to hear?”
He swallowed twice. “I hated myself for a long time too.”
I punched my fists into the cushions beside me and got to my feet. “Stop doing that! Stop taking responsibility! Stop letting me be awful to you! Is that the person you want me to be?”
“I want you to be the kind of person who feels whatever it is you need to feel. And I want you to be able to tell me about it.”
I shook my head, pinching my lips together.
His expression hardened and he got to his feet. “Your husband is dead.”
“Stop,” I begged.
“Your dad is dead.”
“Stop!”
“And I made it all worse.”
“Why are you doing this? This is making it worse, not better.” I didn’t want to hear the ways he’d hurt me. I wanted him to tell me why. I wanted him to have a good reason why. Something that would excuse—in some small measure—the hurt that he had caused.
“I’m trying to give you a chance to see the situation as it really is so that maybe you’ll start dealing with it.”
“I am dealing with it. Every day I deal with it.” I looked him over with disdain. “Don’t you walk in here with your swagger and your thousand-dollar pair of sunglasses and try to teach me something about real life. I’ve been dealing with it! And despite what you might think, it hasn’t all been about you. You’re not that special.”
“Libby—”
“No, just get out.” I got to my feet and turned my back on him before spinning around to yell at him more. “I won’t let you do this. I won’t let you provoke me into yelling at you so that you can be absolved of all your guilt. You want forgiveness? Well, I’m sorry. I haven’t got any to give right now.”
He took a beseeching step in my direction. “I’m not asking for that, I—”
“You’re not my shrink. You’re not my brother. Stop trying to pretend you have some sage wisdom or some moral high ground. You don’t. My husband died, Sean! You can’t fix that!”
He rocked back a step, looking wounded. I suppose that was a point in my favor, since my words had been meant to wound.
I was punishing him. I knew that.
It felt necessary. Sometimes it even felt good as I was lashing out.
Sean huffed a pained breath through his nose, and my heart lurched. Then he turned and walked out of my house.
I stumbled back, sinking onto my couch, and sat stiff as I tried to hold on to my anger, but it was dissipating quickly and I was left with the familiar guilt, the uncomfortable remorse and the constant, throbbing grief. I lay down and cried into the cushions, cradling my belly as if my baby could somehow ground me. There were times that I had hated Sean, but there were also times that I hated myself. He’d been nothing but a loyal friend and a complete gentleman since he’d walked back into my life, but I just kept punishing him.
It had to stop. He may have deserved it. If I wanted to give an eye for an eye, I would have to keep going for a long time. But the longer he remained, the more I realized that there was no real satisfaction in flogging him for his mistakes. Even if he was willing to take it. Even if he felt like he’d earned it.
Even if he might earn it again.
And that was the problem. Part of the reason that I continued to take out my anger on him was because I’d been holding my breath since the moment he arrived, just waiting for him to fail me. I couldn’t let myself count on him. I was walking mechanically through my days, just trying to survive in a world that no longer had my husband in it. If I started to count on Sean and he left, I didn’t know if I could handle that on