Chapter 25 #2
“Wonderful.” I clap my hands together and lean all the way back in my Adirondack chair. A wave of melancholy hits me but I breathe through it. “I want to tell you about my daughter, Tonya, and my wife, Valorie.”
Blair flinches hard as she turns to face me completely. “Your wife? Wes, we—”
“Let me explain,” I tell her calmly.
She frowns deeply but doesn’t interrupt again.
“At eighteen I married my high school girlfriend just before enlisting into the Marines,” I start.
“She agreed to the marriage because she loved me. I did it because I knew I’d make more money married when I enlisted.
I liked her enough, but I wasn’t in love, if that makes sense.
Unfortunately for us, getting married was the worst mistake either of us could’ve made. ”
I’ve been psyching myself up for this conversation. Still, my stomach twists uncomfortably as the words fall from my lips.
“Years went by and eventually we had a child together. I felt trapped. I avoided coming home, taking long deployments when I could, and when I was home, I drank until I couldn’t remember my own name.”
I can’t look at Blair as I admit to the bastard I’d been. My gaze lands on the dying fire, instead.
I continue, “The drinking… it became a problem. When I finally retired from the Marines, it’s all I did.
I wasn’t any good to them like that. I drank us into debt and I got arrested a lot due to countless bar fights over stupid shit.
Valorie did the best she could with the mess I’d become.
She was practically a single mother to Tonya and she was shackled to a lazy drunk who just kept dragging her down.
Every time I promised I’d do better, I would back slide and go on long binges. ”
I pause to steady myself. I’d been a wretched asshole back then. My heart clenches as I think about them now.
“Eleven years ago, it all came to a head,” I mutter, staring at the fire.
“I was thirty-six, jobless, and at my lowest point. One night I needed to be picked up from a bar. I called Valorie and demanded she come get me. She said no, that the weather was too bad to make the trek.” I take a shuddering breath.
“I kept pushing until she finally caved. Valorie said she had to wake Tonya up and bring her with her since there was no one to watch her, but that she’d be there soon.
They were on their way when the accident happened. ”
My throat squeezes shut, forcing me to stop talking. Tears well up and my chest threatens to crack open. It takes several long minutes to get myself under control. During that time, Blair sits and waits patiently for me to finish.
“I didn’t love my wife, Blair,” I admit, my voice hardly more than a whisper.
“And what’s worse? I didn’t even really know my daughter enough to love her either.
I don’t have a single memory of her where I wasn’t drunk.
At least, I thought I didn’t love them before I’d called Valorie that night.
The police found me a few hours later and told me what happened.
Valorie had hit black ice. Her car spun off the road into a semi-frozen pond where she and my daughter drowned. ”
Blair’s soft gasp mixes with the crackling of the fire. I ignore her to keep going.
“When I learned of their deaths, it hit me right then that I did love them. Their loss hurt more than anything I’ve ever experienced.
Not only did I lose the people who cared for me—even at my worst—but it was my fault they were dead.
So ashamed of myself, so guilt-ridden and heartbroken, I drank harder than ever.
It didn’t matter how much I drank, though.
They haunted me while I slept and while I was awake. ”
“Wes…” She reaches out and places a hand on my forearm. “I’m so sorry.”
I look down at her hand. The warmth of it seeps through the plaid flannel and I swear I can feel it sinking beneath my skin. I place my other hand over hers, appreciating the comfort.
“Trust me when I say, I’m more than sorry any of that happened,” I admit.
“Ledger found me about six months after their death and helped me get on my feet. He took me to AA meetings and when that didn’t work, he dragged me out into the Arizona desert and forced me to survive for two weeks with nothing but water and some MREs. ”
Blair snorts her amusement. “That sounds about as loving as Ledger gets.”
“Yup,” I agree with a half-hearted smile. “But it worked. By the time I got back, I was able to say no to a drink. When he could trust me, Ledger brought me aboard Gnarly Pines and I’ve been here ever since.”
Blair passes me the thermos. “Sounds like a story that could use some hot chocolate.”
I take it and pour myself some in the cap Blair had just used. Neither one of us say anything for a long time. Not until my cup of steaming hot chocolate is gone and I’m twisting back on the cap.
“I’m guessing,” Blair starts. “That there was a point in telling me that story?”
I nod. “There is.”
Blair waits, raising an inquisitive brow when I don’t dive into the reasoning right away. I chuckle at her impatience.
“I vowed, when I became sober, that I would never be a burden again. That and I would be there for the people who were in my care,” I tell her, my voice deepening with emotion. I reach over and drop my hand back over hers which hasn’t left my forearm. “So tell me, Blair, how can I help you?”
We stare at one another. The indecision to tell me what’s wrong wars in those pretty, large brown eyes. They capture the firelight and flicker. For a second, I think tears well up but if they do, they’re blinked away a moment later.
She lets out a soft sigh as she pulls her hand away from my forearm and leans back in her chair.
“I don’t know how to do this, Wes,” she admits after a moment.
We’ve had this conversation. She doesn’t know how to open up. I open my mouth to guide her with questions but she continues before I can speak.
“I didn’t interact with very many people growing up,” she says.
“The only person I spoke to, other than Dad, was Ledger. Occasionally, if Dad thought it was safe enough to go to a diner or spend a night in a motel I’d talk to a waitress or receptionist but that was the extent.
Most of my learned behaviors come from television or just watching others.
When I went to college I didn’t make any real friends.
I was the weirdo who didn’t get social cues and didn’t have a normal upbringing—despite me having dreamed up the ideal childhood and laying it out whenever someone asked. ”
She reaches up and covers her face with her hands. Through her fingers she continues.
“Even in the workforce, I just couldn’t fit in. Eventually, I just learned to keep my mouth shut and listen. I thought, since coming to Gnarly Pines, that things were going okay here because I’m Blair, not CeCe, and you all know my past. There’s nothing to hide…”
She pauses to suck in a deep breath. After she lets it out she pushes on.
“But somehow I’m still screwing things up.
I’m complicating things between all of you because I don’t know what I’m doing.
Then there’s the fact that Rhett is right—that me being here jeopardizes your safety—and that makes me feel even worse.
But if I don’t belong here, where I’ve been more myself than I ever have before, I don’t really belong anywhere, right? ”
Her question, laced with pain, causes her voice to squeak at the end.
I’m up and out of my chair in an instant, then crouching down in front of Blair. I grab the armrests on either side of her as I gaze up into Blair’s face.
“You’re right where you belong, Blair,” I assure her confidently. “You’re the cure to the plague of complacency that we’ve all contracted. You’re a beautiful miracle that’s been bestowed upon the unworthy but will be cherished all the same.”
“How can you say that?” she whispers in denial.
I chuckle. “You really don’t see what you’re doing to us, do you?”
Tears well up in Blair’s eyes as she stares down at me with furrowed brows. Her confusion is adorable and my heart flutters at the sight of it. This gorgeous yet lost and lonely woman sitting in front of me has no idea that she’s rocked our world.
“You came to Gnarly Pines and shook off the dust that was collecting on each of our souls, Blair.” I speak slowly so she hears every word.
“We’ve grown complacent and that’s not good for anyone.
Ledger’s used to control but he’s trying to be hands off with you so you don’t feel stifled—he’s learning not to micromanage.
And because you entertain his ideas and actually listen to him, Santi realizes that whatever he and Rhett have isn’t enough anymore and that he deserves better.
And Rhett? He’s scared to live. Your presence is forcing him to deal with that fear rather than continue to hide behind the thick wall of indifference that he’s built. He can’t keep going as he’s been.”
Her eyes search my face curiously.
“Do you really think that?” she asks me softly.
I smile at her. “I just don’t think so, I know it. I can see it. I can feel it because you’re affecting me too.”
“I’m affecting you?” she repeats, curiosity seeping through. “How?
I stand then, and offer her my hand. “Let me show you.”
Blair takes my hand without hesitation, her eyes never leaving my face. The beat of my heart grows fast as I lead her away from the fire and toward the cabin.