just made the decision to be honest with me, he says, “My mother died slowly and horribly from pancreatic cancer. My father couldn’t live without her and hung himself a month after we lost her.”
A tear draws a warm line down my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Gage.”
He rubs his fingers along the soft surface of my arm like he’s fascinated by the feel of it. “It was a long time ago.”
“How long?”
“Five years. I sort of lost control, I think, after it happened. I tried to block it all out by … getting my fix wherever I could. I medicated with money and sex.”
Wow. Psychology is pretty interesting. The things people do and why they would. “Did it help?”
“Not really.”
A group of people walk past and keep walking. We wait until their voices fade away.
“I want to know what happened to you,” he says. “So I can help fix it.”
I don’t know why I even admit it. “You can’t fix it. Josie couldn’t. I can’t. I don’t know why you could.”
“Does Josie know what happened?”
“Josie was there through all of it.”
“Did you talk about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you get therapy or talk through the things that happened with Josie or anyone else?”
“No. I don’t like talking about it.”
“That’s how I know I can help. It’s the talking that breaks it loose. Once it’s loose you can start to heal.”
I stare at him. “How do you know that? And why do you want to heal me anyway?”
“Because I think I could make you happy and I’d like you to let me try.”
Here he goes again. “Gage—”
“My parents met at a party their junior year of college. My father said he looked at her once and his world literally slid off its axis. That’s the way he described it. I always thought he was crazy, of course. I knew for a fact there was no way anything like that could ever happen to me. It’s ridiculous, to think you can know something that fast, or that instantly. I used to tell him you can’t know a person from one glance.”
“You did?”
“Yes. And you know what he said?”
“What?”
“That you can never really know a person. You can only try and have faith and give the best of yourself. That’s what he did and she never let him down. Not once. She just kept on amazing him every single day.”
I look up at a bright star, which becomes two. “Wow.” They swirl around each other like they’re dancing. Maybe it’s them, is what I find myself thinking. “I guess some people just get lucky.”
“Or they make their own luck.”
“Maybe.”
A light breeze touches his hair. He takes off his jacket and gently drapes it over my shoulders. I shiver from the comforting heat of it and the scent of his body. God, he smells good. Like warmth and wishes and whiskey. He takes my hand again. “Tell me who it was.”
“Who what was?”
“The person who hurt you.”
Is he really asking me about this? I sigh and it feels heavy, like it’s coming from a mired, long-buried place.
“Did it happen in high school?”
God, why’s he so curious? When all my defenses are down? Against every shred of common sense I possess, which at this point in time has been all but obliterated, I hear myself say, “Yes.”
“A boyfriend?”
His persistence has slid past some barrier in me. “He was never really a boyfriend. More of a crush. He was the starting quarterback.”
His expression as I confess this detail makes me feel like he’s getting things, piecing things together. And I realize I was wrong about him. He’s not cold, not at all. He’s one of the most complicated, feeling men I’ve ever met. You just have to get past that hard surface to find it. “That’s why you reacted the way you did in the limo, when I told you I used to play quarterback.”
I shrug lightly.
“So you had a crush on the quarterback. What happened next?”
“Everyone had a crush on the quarterback. I’m sure you know all about it.”
“People get crushes on all kinds of people all the time. Did you date him?”
Did I date him. An interesting question. “I don’t think you could call it a date.”
“You went out with him.”
“Once.”
“Tell me what happened.”
I guess sometimes when someone makes a request into a donut hole of a perfectly vulnerable moment, it’s possible to eke out an answer. “It was a party. A pool party, the first week of school, at a senior’s house. I