Chapter Twenty-Six Remi #2
“Selfish,” I admitted in a thick voice. “Like the most selfish thing I could possibly do. I want him so badly, it terrifies me that I’ll let it take over.” My voice faded to a whisper. “That everything will come second to what he makes me feel.”
The words slipped through a crack in my chest—hairline thin, invisible to the naked eye.
Until they rolled so easily off my tongue, I hadn’t even known they were there.
Wasn’t that how it worked, though? There was something different about being in a safe place, with a safe person.
We found ourselves admitting things out loud that we hardly dared to think inside our own minds.
I’d been running in terror from that feeling from the moment I met Archer, from that white-knuckled grip of attraction that felt wild and big and . . . destructive.
Like we’d lay waste to everything around us if we so much as tiptoed into the banked heat that framed every single interaction.
Pops sat back on the couch and folded his hands over his stomach, peering at my face so intently that I started fidgeting.
“What?” I asked.
He lowered his voice even though Gavin’s door was closed. “It feels selfish to find happiness with someone?”
Something about his question made me feel a sharp edge of panic on my next inhale. It was too simplified. Too stripped down to encompass what this really was.
“Remi,” he prodded gently. “Does it?”
“No.” I picked at my fingernails, a wave of sadness crashing against my sternum. “But his job—”
“That’s not what I asked.” He refused to look away. I wanted to hide from what I saw in his eyes. “Did you know about his job the night you met him?”
I rolled my lips together and shook my head. I’d run that night, too, fled like my life depended on it because what he made me feel eclipsed all my better sense.
“So it’s not just about what he does and the eyes that might be watching. It’s not about your past and the douchebags you’ve dated before, and I think you know that. Those are excuses. But they’re not the reason.”
I didn’t like this conversation.
I didn’t like these questions.
I didn’t like that this was so hard for me and that I couldn’t just say Fuck what everyone thinks and take what I wanted.
That girl was still simmering underneath the surface, carefree and desperate for the kind of love that Archer would give me.
It would be passionate and fierce. Nothing with us would be average or safe or normal.
We’d argue, and it would feel like foreplay.
We’d push and challenge and bicker, and it would be like sparks on a dry pile of tinder.
But I was so afraid of those flames. Was so afraid of who’d get burned in the process.
“I’m scared,” I told him.
His eyes glistened. “I know, bug. But you don’t need to be.”
“How do you know that? How could you possibly know that?”
Then Pops did something I hadn’t seen since the day Gavin was born. He cried.
It wasn’t much, just a single tear escaping from the corner of his eye.
“You’re not her.”
My heart stopped. “What?”
Another tear slipped down his cheek, but he didn’t wipe it away. “You’re not her, Remi.”
I didn’t need to ask who. I didn’t need to ask what he meant. Goose bumps pulled at the hair on my arms. “I know.”
He leaned forward. “You’re not her.”
I was crying too. Hell, I’d never stopped. “I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” Pops sat forward and gripped my hands in his.
“You’re not her. You made one mistake, and I don’t even want to call it that because we love that boy so much—but something changed in you when he was born.
I have watched you work yourself to the bone to prove that you’re not like her, over and over for the last ten years, but sometimes I worry you don’t actually believe it. ”
The intensity of his gaze was a boot to my chest, a relentless crushing sensation, as was the unchecked emotion he usually never showed. “Pops, I know I’m not.”
We never talked about my mom because he remembered. He held those memories alone, and I couldn’t talk to him about the way she used to be when she was healthy and good and alive. I didn’t remember. But her shadow . . . it was everywhere.
I’d told myself her story so many times that it inked a blueprint in my brain, one that I followed dutifully.
It was a cautionary tale. A map with giant red X’s to avoid.
And I’d sidestepped all of them, a decade-long effort to keep Pops from any more heartbreak.
To make sure Gavin knew that there was nothing more important than him.
But I’d never pulled my perspective into a different direction. I’d never thought about what it might look like to the man who’d raised me. How he viewed all these choices, the safety net I stitched together day by day, month by month, year by year.
The ache I felt for Gavin and what he was missing, it was the ache Pops felt for me.
“You give up everything for everyone else,” he said, his voice cracking on the tears that flowed more freely now.
“For me and Gavin, and your friends. For the shelter. God, Remi, you took a job that most wouldn’t, because it’s such hard work and it never ends, and I don’t think you’ve ever even stopped to ask yourself why.
You have built your entire life, brick by brick by brick, to be the exact opposite of her.
And that selflessness is ingrained in you, Remi.
It’s not faked and it’s not forced. But sometimes I wonder if you hold on to it so tightly because the thing you’re really afraid of is turning out like her. ”
It was the emotional equivalent of someone dropping an atomic bomb on my chest. The plume went sky-high, blotting out everything else in my field of vision. And the fallout . . . the fallout was pure devastation.
I dropped my head to my knees and wept so hard that my frame shook. Pops slid an arm around my shoulders and cried with me.
We cried for the little girl who was scared and confused and didn’t understand what was happening. For the parents who had to bury their daughter because she was sick and nothing they did made her want to get better. For the man who lost his wife to that heartbreak too.
Destructive choices by someone helpless against this addictive thing running their life.
We were the fallout. And I would never let Gavin feel that way. Not for a second.
“You could never do to your family what she did to you,” he said next to my ear. “Not for anyone or anything in the world, Remi.”
I clutched his arm as he held me, until the tears ebbed and the truth of what he was saying finally settled into something I could look at with clearer vision.
“I’ve never—” I stopped, trying to swallow against an aching throat. “I’ve never thought about it that way before.”
“I know, sweetheart. You were so young, and I’m thankful you don’t remember her, because it was hard.
” His chin wobbled. “It’s hard to love someone when all they care about is destroying their life in pursuit of the thing that’s killing them.
But you still love ’em. You never stop.” He cupped my face.
“But that’s not what you’re doing. I’d tell you if you were.
You have to stop chasing average and safe and small because you think that’s the opposite of what she did.
All you’re doing is sacrificing the chance at a damn good life, sweetheart. ”
“I have a good life, Pops.” I took a handkerchief from his outstretched hand and blew my nose. “I love our life.”
His eyes were sad. “You don’t know what you’re missing, though. I do. I had that with your grandmother, God rest her soul. I wish I’d had eighty more years with her by my side, but even when they were hard, I’d never trade a single day for something less. For something easier.”
“What do you miss most about her?” I whispered.
He sighed heavily but didn’t need to think long before he answered.
“I miss everything, bug. I miss telling her about my day and hearing about hers. I miss the look in her eye when she was fixing to argue. Holding her hand at the end of the day.” He brushed a knuckle under his eye.
“God, I miss holding her hand more than anything,” he said, voice rough and quiet.
“I want a love like that for you. Where something simple is the best part of your world, all because you’ve found the right person. ”
A carousel of seemingly simple moments flashed through my mind. Some not-so-simple ones too. I missed Archer. I missed him, and he’d hardly been mine long enough for the feeling to be so monstrously big.
I tried to imagine decades with him, and what it would feel like to have to keep going even after he was gone.
“I wish I’d had more time with her.” I leaned my head on his shoulder and sighed. “It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
Pops hummed. “Life isn’t fair, bug. Never has been.
Never will be. Even the people we think have it easy, they’ve all got a little bit of unfairness about their life too.
But that’s the part that gives us hope. We can make different choices, we can do something about how our life turns out, no matter what hand we’re dealt. ”
I thought about Archer and the selfishness of his parents. Analise too.
Everyone had their own story. Their own reasons for why they did what they did.
All it took was knowing those stories, and you realized how resilient humans are.
I wasn’t crushed under the weight of my story, and neither was Archer.
Pops had lost a daughter, and lost his wife shortly after, and he was still the best man I’d ever met.
“You did,” I said to him, lifting my head and smiling. “You helped me do the same.”
“I’m trying. Nobody breaks cycles on their own, kiddo. It’s usually with a lot of help from the people they love, the people who give them something to be better for.”
I extricated myself from his arms and sat forward, spearing my hands through my hair with a deep sigh.
“Oh my gosh, more crying?”
My head lifted, and at the sight of Gavin, wide-eyed at the edge of the family room, I let out a watery laugh. “A little bit.”
His shoulders deflated. “Does this mean we have to talk about what happened now?”
Pops patted me on the back. “I got this one. Come here, kiddo.”
Gavin let out a dramatic exhale as he trudged toward the couch. “Is this gonna be one of those adult talks that I just want to be over?”
“Probably,” Pops answered.
I held open my arms, and Gavin snuggled into my lap. He was almost too big for this. But almost still fit, and I’d hold him close for as long as he’d let me.
“Your mom told me about what happened. It upset you, huh?”
He nodded. “I don’t like it when she’s sad.”
Pops pursed his lips, giving my son a thoughtful nod. “I just made her cry too.”
Gavin’s body went still. “You did?”
“Yup. Said something important, something that needed to be said, and it made us both cry a bit.” He furrowed his brow and studied Gavin’s expression. “Sometimes when you’re having an important conversation with someone you love, the tears just mean you’re feeling something really big.”
Gavin thought about that for a moment. “My teacher said we shouldn’t bottle up our emotions. It’s unhealthy or something.”
Oh good, I’d had the healthiest fucking day of my entire life, then. Yay me.
Gavin tilted his head, then glanced up at me. “Does that mean you . . . you love Archer? Is he your boyfriend?”
My throat went bone dry. “He’s not my boyfriend, honey. But I do care for him. A lot. And today we had a hard conversation about whether we can stay friends, because our lives are so different.”
His little brow furrowed. “Just because someone’s life is different doesn’t mean you can’t be around them. Isn’t that what you always say? That it’s good to be around people who are different than you? It’s how we learn.”
Innocence had a way of cutting so effectively through all the bullshit. “You’re right. I do say that.” I smiled. “I think maybe I need to take my own advice a little bit more.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “You’re pretty smart. For a mom.”
Pops laughed. I rolled my eyes but kissed Gavin on the cheek. “Thanks. I think.”
“So what are you gonna do?” Gavin asked.
“About what?”
He gave me a duh look. “About Archer.”
“You’d want me to talk to him again?” I asked carefully. “Even after today?”
Gavin dropped his gaze. “Yeah. I think maybe I should apologize for pushing him. That wasn’t nice.” He raised his eyes. “Do you like him? Like, like him like him?”
Turned out, it wasn’t as hard as I thought to say what I was feeling. Not now, after I’d peeled back something I didn’t know I’d been hiding behind.
I was still raw. Stripped down to the bone. If I had the ability, I’d sleep for a week after what I’d just experienced. But it wasn’t hard to look back and see why I’d fled, why I’d warred so mightily with myself, without even knowing the reason why.
It wasn’t about Archer. It wasn’t about his job.
Not really.
It was about me. About finding a balancing act between the life that I knew and a life that seemed like a fantasy. A life he’d thoroughly anchored himself at the center of. A life that would always remain just out of reach.
“Yeah. I do.” I exhaled. “I like him a lot.”
“Good.” He smiled. “He likes you too. He always stares at you when you’re in the room.”
My heart rolled unsteadily in my chest, and to my surprise, the ache wasn’t nearly as bad as before. “Does he?”
“Yeah. He’s not very good at hiding it. I should probably give him some tips.”
I arched an eyebrow. “And how do you know about all this?”
“Mom,” he groaned. “I’m not talking about my crush with you—but trust me, I’m way better at it than he is.”