There Goes My Heart (The Sullivans #20) - Bella Andre Page 0,29
she was okay. She wouldn’t let me in to see her, though. Wouldn’t talk to me again either. Her best friend came out from California to take care of her.” He had a hard time swallowing past the huge lump in his throat. “Her friend told me flat out that I had nearly killed Chelsea, that she was going to take her to California so that I could never hurt her again, and that I should stay away from her for good.”
Zara’s expression had grown more and more stormy with every word. Finally, her response thundered out. “I’m sorry your ex-girlfriend had a horrible accident and that you had to go through the fear of worrying about her. And I’m really glad that she recovered from her fall. But it isn’t your fault that after your breakup she ended up getting drunk in a bar and falling—no matter what her friend said. Just like it isn’t your fault that she wasn’t your one and only love.” Zara’s words shook with passion. “You can’t force yourself to love someone any more than they can force you to love them back. Surely I can’t be the first person to tell you this. Because from what I’ve seen, your family doesn’t seem shy about giving their opinions. And I know they’d be the first ones to defend you to the ends of the earth.”
“You’re right. They all told me it wasn’t my fault. But how can I see it any other way when I knew damn well that for all of Chelsea’s life she hadn’t felt good enough, hadn’t felt like anyone’s first choice? All I did by breaking up with her was prove her right.”
“Rory, you’re not the one who raised her! You’re not the one who taught her about love!” Zara was practically yelling at him now. “All you did was see if you could give your heart to her. And when you realized you couldn’t, you did the only thing you could. You broke up with her so that she could find the person who would be a perfect fit.” She inhaled a deep breath in an obvious bid to calm down. “Look, I’m not saying breakups are always rational. That’s obvious, given that we’ve just pretended to be a couple tonight so that I could save face in front of my ex. But while we certainly have every right to be upset when someone dumps us—I for one had a great time making a dart board out of a blown-up picture of Cameron’s face—at the end of the day, I don’t think it’s fair to blame other people for our unhappiness. We have to take responsibility for our own happiness, even if sometimes it seems impossible.”
“Is that why you haven’t lashed out at your stepsister or your ex?” he asked. “Why you kept holding back tonight, even when most people would think that they deserve your fury? Because you think it isn’t fair to blame them for hurting you with their cheating?”
“I might not like the way they found love,” she replied, “but I can also see that they’re happy with each other. Taking their joy away wouldn’t make me any happier. Trying to crush them under a mountain of guilt wouldn’t either.”
“But what if facing up to the harm they caused you is exactly what they need to do? What if it’s their big chance to finally redeem themselves and correct their behavior?”
“You mean like how you’ve decided that if you ever let a woman get close to you again, you’re bound to hurt her? So now you think you need to steer clear of relationships forevermore?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “And I’ll bet you wish you could turn back time so that you could do the whole breakup scene differently, don’t you? Maybe you even think it would have been better to have stayed with her, because then she wouldn’t have gotten drunk and hit her head?”
When he didn’t deny any of the above, she let out a frustrated growl.
“Even if you could turn back time, even if you could have kept Chelsea from drinking and falling, she was never going to be your true love.” She glared at him like an angry schoolteacher. A gloriously naked one. “In fact, if you could open your eyes for just one tiny little second, you’d see that staying together would have been the worst-possible choice, because then you would for sure have been consigning her to