was already dead. She’d died of an overdose before the flames even started spreading.” He let out another long breath. “We’re better off, you know? Haven spent her life trying to help her . . . cooking food for her, cleaning up after her, attending the things she was supposed to attend. I would have been in foster care a thousand times over if it wasn’t for Haven.” He leaned forward. “Once, our electricity had been turned off, and she asked for help from one of the guys she thought might be her dad.” His face twisted in distaste. “There were a few possibilities. I think Haven had this idea that one of them might be decent. Anyway, instead of helping, the dude hit on her. She came home sobbing her eyeballs out, and our mom just looked right through her like she wasn’t even there. And she still can’t manage to hate the worthless bitch. I can. Most days I can. And if I forget, I just remind myself what it looked like, our mom lying there, dead on the street, her skin burned, track marks littering her arms, our building in flames and Haven trying to run back inside for those fucking plants, trying to save them like they were her children.”
Oh God. The plants from the Kims’ garden. The ones she’d nourished and cared for after they’d left.
Not her children. A representation of the only stability she’d ever known. Before it, too, went away.
Just like everything and everyone that had ever meant anything to her. Whether they’d earned it or not.
I couldn’t breathe.
Haven Torres had been hurt and abandoned by the people who were supposed to care for and protect her. All her life. But instead of lashing out at others, she’d sought to be a protector, a rescuer. She’d remained good and loving despite all that she’d endured.
Unlike me, who’d turned my pain in the opposite direction.
I knew what it was like to lose someone a part of you wished you could hate. I had turned that hate outward. But Haven had found a way to love around it. And it was honorable and brave and beautiful. But I knew better than anyone that it was still there, inside, that ball of complex emotion that festered and hurt.
And so she’d run.
She’d cared for others, even to her own detriment. And she’d given every last ounce she had to give until she couldn’t do it anymore. And even then, her loving spirit demanded that she rescue something, and so she’d rescued plants.
She was a goddamn miracle.
How could I demand more? If I truly cared for her, and I did, God, I did, then I could not ask for more than she was willing to give. If I cared for her, I could not manipulate or plot, or try to control, the way I’d always done.
That was my fallback. Always. Manipulate. Position myself. And when I took a moment to consider this, I knew why. It was familiar and it made me feel artificially powerful because I was doing something to attempt to lessen my hurt. My feelings of being less-than. Second best.
Grasp. Hold. Attain for myself what no one else would give me, because I wasn’t worth the effort.
And it’d brought nothing but unhappiness. Loneliness. Even when a crowd of people surrounded me.
I shut my eyes, pain winding through me at the mere idea of just . . . letting go.
For her.
The way I’d done with Archer and that amendment, but harder. Infinitely harder.
The lessons just kept on coming, didn’t they?
Life testing whether I’d truly gotten it.
Archer’s words came back to me. She made me braver, and stronger. Because of her, I wanted to be the best version of myself. And that, I think, is what love does, if it’s really love.
The best version of myself wouldn’t try to force Haven to choose me. The best version of myself would let her keep her fear because, for now at least, she needed it. It was helping her survive, and only she got to decide when to let it go.
Bree had given Archer the time he needed to overcome his fear once upon a time. And I’d give Haven hers. Despite that it killed me.
I wouldn’t plot. Not with Archer, and not with her. Not with anyone. I’d made my case. I’d bared my heart and it was all I could do. All I should do. I laced my fingers, clenching my joined hands, because I’d thought it