A Second Chance in the Show Me State - Jessie Gussman Page 0,55

was probably right. Although being prideful wasn’t exactly something he was proud of. If that made sense. It probably didn’t. He could see a million ways he could have done things differently. Now, when it was too late to go back and fix anything.

Chapter 16

It was funny how sometimes the dark made her able to see things more clearly. One of those odd contradictions in life.

How giving rather than getting made a person happy.

Being kind to people who were unkind to you made you a better person.

Serving made one stronger, and surrendering your will was harder than demanding your own way.

All biblical principles she’d learned in childhood but never really understood.

The dark making one see things clearly wasn’t exactly a biblical principle, but the light always shone brighter in the darkness.

Maybe that was the idea behind knowing what was right but not actually knowing what it was until the dark took away her sight and she could actually think about it.

She’d been in the dark plenty of times, but not with Reid in the last eight years.

The other things they’d argued about, remembering dates, her being bossy, and all those silly things that didn’t matter. Maybe they had weakened their relationship enough that when the major trial came along, they were ready to go for the easy solution.

Or what had seemed like the easy solution. It was actually the harder one.

“I don’t think I ever would have left if I’d realized that I was never coming back.”

“Never?”

“Isn’t that the saying, water under the bridge? You can never go back.”

“Sometimes roads circle back. Rivers do too.”

“Not to where they began.”

“Maybe they turn into something better down the road.” His voice sounded thoughtful, although there was a quality in it that she couldn’t quite figure out, but it matched her mood too.

“Do you think?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the river reference wasn’t a good one. Maybe I ought to simply talk straight.” He took a breath, like he was going to do exactly that and needed a little extra courage. “I think we made a stupid mistake. I think I was prideful and uncompromising. And I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t know if there’s been a day these past eight years when I haven’t wished that I could go back and do it differently.”

“Me too.” Her words were whispered, words she never thought she’d say to him.

“It’s probably true that we’ll never have what we had. But I think it could also be true that we could have something better.”

“That sounds so good I can hardly hope that it could be true.”

“Let’s make it be true.”

“That simple?”

“Does it have to be complicated?”

“I guess not. But I need to apologize. I insisted that my dad needed to take care of things, and it showed a lack of trust in you. It hurt you. I didn’t realize, not really, how badly I hurt you until just now, as I was thinking about it. We’re kind of talking about how I looked, and you never doubted me, you never made me feel bad. If you said ‘yeah, your nose is crooked, and I don’t really like that,’ maybe it wouldn’t have been devastating, but it would’ve hurt. And yet, that’s really what I did to you. I said I didn’t trust you to take care of us, and I let my dad do it.”

He was silent beside her, although she could feel his chest going up and down in the darkness. She leaned closer, and his arm brushed hers. It almost sounded like he was not quite panting, but there was no doubt her words had affected him.

“I would never have told you that,” he said, his words barely a whisper. “That’s not something I could admit to just anyone.”

“I know it’s probably hard to admit it to me, because once somebody hurts you, it’s so hard to trust them again. I never did anything unkind, I was never mean, I never physically hit you, but my lack of belief in you destroyed what we had spent so many years building. It’s just obvious to me now, when I was so blind before. I don’t even know why I couldn’t see that. Maybe I was just so caught up in being right—”

“Because you were right. What you wanted was the best thing to do. It would have been stupid to do anything else. And we’ve always agreed that you were the best one with money. Anytime we’ve done what you suggested,