Chapter 20
BINX
I t can’t be more than sixty degrees in the cabin—I was so distracted by scribbling down my darkest confessions that I let the fire in the woodstove go out—but I’m sweating.
Beads of sweat form on my lip and the hollow of my spine is sticky beneath my shirt. Meanwhile, my heart is beating in my stomach, and I can’t seem to pull in a full breath.
I’ve never said what I’m about to say out loud.
Even writing it down made me feel sick.
But I want to do this. I want Seven to know, without a doubt, that he isn’t alone in having done things he’s not proud of. Hopefully, that will make him feel better about himself moving forward, even if he decides I’m a monster he doesn’t want anywhere near his family.
“So, I…” I start, my voice breaking on the second word. I pause, clear my throat, swallow, and will myself to get this done as quickly as possible. “I’m just going to read what I wrote,” I say, directing my focus to the page in my hand. “It’ll be easier that way.”
“All right,” Seven rumbles, his broad back still turned to me. But I can hear the compassion in his voice, and it makes me even more anxious. I don’t deserve compassion, not for this, anyway.
“My grandmother was one of my favorite people,” I read, grateful it does seem to be easier to read than to speak off the top of my head. Still, just saying the word “grandmother” sends pain spreading through my chest. It always does. “She was unconventional for a woman, especially for her time. She loved to tinker with machines. Toasters, washing machines, cars—you name it, she could fix it. She helped my grandad run his auto body shop and had a side hustle fixing appliances. In another time, she probably would have been an engineer or something, but she grew up in a super traditional Catholic household in the fifties. Girls were supposed to get married and have babies, or maybe teach school or go into nursing, that was it. She was the first person to tell me I didn’t have to play by the rules. If I didn’t want to go to church, I didn’t have to. If I wanted to wear my brothers’ old clothes and play sports and cut my hair short, I could. She always pushed back against my mother when she tried to force me into fluffy Easter dresses and pink tennis shoes.”
“Sounds like a badass lady,” Seven says.
I nod, even though he can’t see me. “She was. But she was also so kind and compassionate. She always reminded me that my mother had been longing to have little girls through the birth of all my big, stinky brothers. She helped me see that my mother wasn’t doing these things to torment me and Mel and Wendy Ann. It was just that she had a dream that didn’t quite match up with reality. Dreams are hard to let go of, even when two of your daughters are tomboys and one of them finds blocks and robots way more fascinating than ballet or baby dolls.”
Seven grunts and my lips flicker up.
“Yeah, I know you’re not Mom’s biggest fan,” I say. “I don’t blame you. I’m not very happy with her right now, either.”
“You’re a wonderful person and daughter,” Seven says. “It’s crazy to me that she can’t see that. It hurts to see her hurt you.”
My brow furrows and the back of my nose starts to sting. “Thanks, but…” I suck in a breath and exhale in a rush, “But we’ll see what you think of me after I’m finished with this.” He starts to speak, but I cut him off, “Please, just let me finish. I’m at the hard part, and I really just want to get it out and then burn this piece of paper.”
“Okay,” he murmurs, before falling silent again.
I take another bracing breath before I continue, “Gran was my cheerleader and my teacher and one of my best friends. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to become the person I wanted to be without her. When she got cancer when I was a junior in high school, I was devastated. I quit the softball team so I could spend more time with her after school. I’d take her to chemo and bring her home again. We’d watch movies and go through her old photo albums and just…shoot the shit for hours. Sometimes, other family members would come over to hang out, too, but it was mostly me and Gran.”
I press my lips together, fighting for control, and continue in an only slightly wobbly voice, “When the first round of chemo didn’t work, and she relapsed a year later, I was the one who fought to help her keep living at home, even though she was so weak. But she didn’t want to move in with my parents or have a nurse with her all the time. She was a private, independent person.”
“Sounds familiar,” Seven murmurs.
“Thanks,” I say, willing myself not to cry. If I cry, it will only make this take longer, and I’m so ready to be done with it. “While she was waiting to start chemo again, we took turns staying with her. One night, my mom had been on duty all afternoon and was positive Gran was taking a turn for the worse. She made me promise to call for an ambulance if I heard her gasping for air the way she had several times earlier that day. I said I would, but a few hours later, when Gran started having trouble breathing again…” I curl my free hand into a fist, my nails biting into my palm as my heart punches at my ribs. “I didn’t call the ambulance. I did what she asked me to do. She said she was done fighting. She was ready to go, so I …” I bite my bottom lip, horror swelling inside of me like a poisonous balloon about to pop. But this is the truth, and it’s high time I told it. “I let her go. I stood there and just…watched while she died.”
A sob escapes my lips, but before I can reach for a tissue or press the heels of my hands to my eyes to stop the tears, Seven is somehow in front of me. I don’t remember seeing him move. One second, he’s on the other side of the island, with his back turned to me; the next, he’s dragging me against his chest and holding me so tight, I can barely breathe.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, the love in his voice making me feel even worse.
I try to squirm free, but he’s got me in a lock. “I’m not a sweetheart, I’m a murderer,” I sob against his hard chest.
“No, you’re not. You’re the badass she raised you to be,” he says. “You honored her wishes, even though what she asked was way too much to put on a seventeen-year-old kid.”
“I was eighteen,” I say, curling my fingers into the soft fabric of his shirt. “I was about to graduate.”
“Same difference. You were a kid,” he says. “But you were probably the only person in her life with a heart big and brave enough to let her go with dignity.”
My face crumples again. “It wasn’t dignified. It was awful. She gasped and writhed on the bed. It was…horrific.” I shudder and Seven hugs me even harder.
“That was just biology, a body fighting to live even though the spirit was ready to go. That’s just how humans are wired. I promise you that she was so proud of you. You did the right thing.”
I fight to swallow past the fist shoving up my throat. “I don’t know,” I rasp. “I’ve always wondered if she ch-changed her mind at the last minute. If she died hating me for being a monster.”
“Never,” he says without a beat of hesitation. “She loved you. And she was what, seventy? Eighty?”
“Eighty-two,” I mumble. “She didn’t have Mom until she was thirty something. It was late for back then.”
“Eighty-two years is plenty of time to know your own mind,” he says. “And it sounds like she knew hers better than most. She wouldn’t have asked you to do what you did without a lot of thought. She knew what she wanted.” He pulls back, gazing down at me. “Don’t doubt that. She wouldn’t want you to. You saved her from a life that was causing her nothing but suffering. You were her hero.”
Fresh tears stream down my cheeks. “I loved her so much. I couldn’t say no. She’d already asked me twice before that week not to call the ambulance if she started to go. She’d decided she didn’t want to go back to the hospital or try chemo again. She said she was r-ready.”
He brushes his palm over my forehead, smoothing my hair back. “And she was. It’s time to let this go. You aren’t a murderer. You’re a brave woman who did a very hard thing to help someone you loved. Like you always do.”
I sniff. “This isn’t why I told you. I didn’t want you to comfort me or…absolve me or whatever. I wanted you to know that I have crazy shit in my past, too. If anything, I’m not good enough for you, not vice versa.”
He shakes his head, the love in his eyes unwavering. “Nope. Not even close. You’re one in a million. One in a hundred million. The world doesn’t deserve you.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “At least half the people I know think I’m too much. Too loud or too bossy or just…weird.”
He cups my face in his big hand, making me feel tiny the way only he can. “Courage can seem weird in a world full of cowards. I’m sorry I was one of them.”
“Was?” I squeak, a tiny flicker of hope sparking to life inside my chest. “Does that mean you’re not going to be one anymore?”
“I’m going to try,” he says. “And when I fail, I trust you’ll let me know it’s time to step up my game.”
Another sob spasms in my chest, but this one is all relief. “Really?”
He nods, his brow furrowing as he brushes his thumb across my jaw. “When I was driving around before, after I thought you’d left, I kept thinking that I was too broken for you. That I didn’t have the hope for the future that younger people have. That I was too beaten down by life to be good for you. But now I’m starting to think maybe that’s a good thing.”
I frown. “I don’t understand.”
His lips press together for a beat before he adds in a slower voice, “I know how cruel the world can be. I’ve had enough experience by now that a lot of the time, I can see it coming, and shift direction before it can knock me flat. I was so busy thinking of all the ways that loving you could knock me flat, I didn’t stop to think about the other side of this.”
My brows pinch closer together as I give another little shake of my head, still not certain where he’s going with this.
His lips curve. “I can use my experience with getting body slammed by life to keep it from body slamming the woman I love. I can keep you safe from the things that tried to take my hope away. Maybe not all of them, but at least some. And maybe I can keep them from taking yours.”
Heart melting, I wrap my arms around his waist. “I don’t need you to protect me, Seven. I just need you to love me back.”
“Well, tough shit, McGuire,” he rumbles. “Protection is one of the services I provide. It’s just the way I’m built.”
“I like the way you’re built,” I whisper, leaning into him, until my breasts are flattened against his chest. “I’m going to like it forever, even if you turn into a shriveled old man who needs me to carry him up the rock face on my back in a sling.”
He smiles, a soft, loving, trusting smile I want to keep on his face forever. “Hopefully, it won’t come to that, but thanks. In the meantime, I’ll do my damnedest to stay in peak physical condition, so I can keep up with my sexy younger girlfriend.”
I couldn’t fight the smile bursting across my face if I tried. “Girlfriend. I like the sound of that.”
“Me, too,” he says, his eyes shining. “I love you, Binx. I’m really glad you didn’t give up on me.”
“Never,” I promise. “Now help me burn my sins and take me to bed.”
“Done,” he vows, and he’s a man of his word.
We stoke the fire back to life and toss all my scribbles on the flames. Then he picks me up and carries me to bed, where we make love with a sweet, wild abandon that makes me feel closer to a person than I ever have before. When he comes inside me, crying my name, I wrap every limb around him, holding him close, never wanting to forget a second of this—the first night of our forever.
“Forever,” I murmur, kissing his shoulder. “I’m going to keep you forever.”
“Not if I keep you first,” he says, lifting his head to smile down at me. “How would you feel about cold sausages in bed?”
I shake my head. “Nah, I like my sausages hot.” I wiggle beneath him, humming happily at the feel of his cock still buried inside me.
He laughs. “Thanks, but seriously, I’m starving. Despair followed by hot sex makes me hungry.”
I nod. “Me, too. Let’s go eat all the things.”
So, we do. Then we turn on the speaker and dance to a John Denver song Seven says reminds him of me, and I cry a little.
But it’s a happy cry.
I’m so happy, nothing can bring me down.
N ot even arriving home Friday morning to find a five-page letter from my mother detailing all the ways I’ve let her down.
I simply burn the letter—very therapeutic, would highly recommend—and leave her a voicemail saying, “I love you, Mom, but I meant what I said at the cabin. I’m living my life in my integrity now, not yours. Also, Seven and I are a couple. I’m in love and so happy. I would love for you to be happy for me, but if you can’t, that’s okay, too. Keeping your lips zipped is an excellent second choice.”
I end the message with a sigh and tell Mr. Prickles, “Yeah, I know. It’s not nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I should have stood up to her years ago.”
Mr. Prickles agrees.
Then, he has a few choice words to speak of his own on the subject of the fur potato currently making himself at home in our space.
“I know, I know,” I say, watching Tater Tot tear apart one of the old dog toys Keanu Reeves left here the last time he slept over. “But turns out his bottom teeth need to be filed by humans.”
It’s some kind of birth defect, and that’s why they stick out so much. We noticed Tater Tot really starting to struggle to eat even apple slices by our last day there. It was like his lips were getting tangled up in his own teeth or something.
Seven called a vet friend of his to ask about it once Wendy Ann returned with our cell phones. He came out to do an exam and in just a few minutes delivered the news that Tater Tot was never going to be able to live successfully in the wild long term. Then, the vet said he would fast track my application to be on his animal rescue team, so I could legally keep the fur potato as a pet, so…
“He’s a sweetheart, really,” I add to my cranky cactus. “I promise. He’ll grow on you. Like a sweet, grunty fungus.”
Mr. Prickles shoots me a sharply needled look.
I lift my hands in the air. “I know, I hate rodents, too, but…look at him. He’s precious. And he’s had his shots and the vet filed his teeth. He’s at least fifty percent less creepy looking than he was before, and Seven promised to shift him over to living at his place as soon as we see if he’s comfortable around the chickens.”
Mr. Prickles rolls his spines and mutters something about poultry being for eating, not cuddling.
“Oh, come on, don’t be that way. You know Sprout loves her chickens.” I pick him up, cooing closer to his pokey little cactus belly. “And I love you. We’re going to find a way to blend into one big, happy family. I promise.”
And…we do.
T hree months later, I’m fully moved in with my new family at Seven’s place, where I intend to stay for the next hundred years.
Or however long the universe gives me.
No matter how long it is, I already know it won’t be long enough.