Chapter 20 #3
“Is that what you want me to do? You want me to pick you apart? Want me to tell you you’re not good enough?
Confirm all your worst fears?” He scoffs, shaking his head.
“I’m not doing that. I’ll never do that because it’s not true.
None of it is true. All those voices you hear in your head saying you’re not good enough?
They’re fucking lying. You are good enough.
You don’t need to change yourself. You don’t need to ‘be better,’ whatever the hell that means.
And you really don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.
Not for me and sure as hell not for anyone else. ”
He doesn’t have to clarify that he’s talking about my parents deciding my future for me all those years ago. I hear him loud and clear.
“So, no, I’m not going to sit here and let you tell me all the things I’m not supposed to love about you because those things don’t exist, not to me.”
“But they exist to me, Callum. Just because you tell me you love me doesn’t mean I automatically love myself.
Just because you say I’m smart, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel like the dumbest person in every room I walk into, because I know how hard I had to struggle to keep up in school.
It doesn’t mean I don’t know I’ll never be as clever as my parents, and just because you say I’m beautiful, it doesn’t mean I’m not aware of what other people say about me when they see someone like me on your arm. ”
His eyes flare at the reminder of the words uttered about me so long ago, the ones I’ve never forgotten, not for a single second.
His knuckles turn white as he grips the table. “Fuck, I wish I could bash that guy’s face in.”
“I know. I know you do, and you have no idea how much I love it. When you stuck up for me back then, I should never have been mad at you for losing the game. I should have thrown my arms around your neck and told you right then that I loved you. But I didn’t.
I was so damn embarrassed and scared, and all I wanted was to be worthy of you.
To be worthy of my parents. To be enough. ”
His face crumples, and he slides off the table, dropping to his knees and pushing between my own. He cups my face, wiping at the tears I feel rolling down my cheeks.
“Is that what drove you away? Not feeling like you’re good enough?”
“Yes. No. I’m not sure.” I take a deep breath. “All I know is that I felt…I felt stifled. I felt like I was looking through a glass window, watching my life pass by. I was living it, but I wasn’t really in it. And that would have been such an easier pill to swallow if you weren’t so amazing.”
“But I wasn’t amazing. I should have—”
“No.” I shake my head. “Please, don’t. Don’t try to make it so you’re at fault. You’re not. I’m the villain in this scenario.”
“You’re not,” he says, pushing my hair out of my face as I wipe my nose with my shirtsleeve.
“You’re just…shit, I don’t know, Clover.
I just wish you had said something to me.
I wish you had told me how you were feeling.
Because I would have given it all up in a fucking heartbeat—hockey, the chase of lifting the Cup, the long weeks away—all of it.
I would have walked away if it meant keeping you. ”
I scoff. “And that’s the problem. You would have, and I would have let you.
I’d let you make sacrifices for me because I’m selfish.
Because I’m insecure. Because I need reassurance.
I would have let you. But in the end, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, and eventually I’d resent you.
I don’t want that. I never want that. I can’t ask you to give anything up for me.
I never could. So, I left. I needed space.
I had to figure out who I was beyond being a hockey wife, beyond what my parents expected of me, and beyond you.
I needed to learn to love myself without your love attached to it. I needed to know myself.”
“And do you? Do you know who you are now? Do you love yourself now?”
I exhale heavily because that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
Do I love who I am now? I got everything I wanted.
I was just offered an incredible position as editor-in-chief.
I have a husband with a successful career who could easily take care of me so that I’d never need to work a day in my life.
And I have friends who love me and cherish me.
Sure, some of them are new ones, but I know they’re there for me.
I have it all, yet if I walked in the bathroom and looked in the mirror this instant, I still would feel like I wasn’t enough. I thought running away and becoming a new, better me would change that. I was wrong. So fucking wrong.
“No,” I tell him honestly. “But I’ve made peace with that. I’ve accepted that I’m still learning every day, that it’s not a destination, but a journey.”
He blinks, and I realize how red the whites of his eyes are and how so damn close he is to crying. I hate seeing him like this, and I hate being the cause of it even more. He doesn’t deserve it, and I don’t deserve him.
He drops his forehead to mine, exhaling heavily as he whispers, “Fuck, Clover.”
And yes, fuck indeed. We sit like that for a long time, Callum holding on to me, breathing me in, and me trying to wrap my head around what’s happening.
“So what about us?” He pulls away, moving back to the table, and I tuck my hands beneath my legs to stop myself from reaching for him. “Where does that leave us now?”
I rack my brain, trying to find the perfect answer, but nothing comes.
I lift a shoulder. “I…I don’t know.”
He sighs, dragging a hand over his face, then through his hair, leaving it messy. I so badly want to reach over and fix it, but I’m not sure I have the privilege to do so right now.
When he looks at me, my heart beats overtime.
Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump.
“I love you, Clover. I always have. That’s never changed, no matter what.”
I smile softly. “I know.”
“I’ll wait. If that’s what you want from me, I’ll do it.” He rolls his tongue over his lips. “I’m…I’m not going to stop loving you, okay? No matter how long it takes, I’ll be here.”
I choke back a sob. Asking him to wait is wrong. I shouldn’t do it. He deserves someone who knows who they are. Someone who doesn’t let so many other people have a say in their life. Someone who is…well, enough.
And I really want to be that person.
“You don’t have to say anything now. Just…think about it, okay? Think about what you really want, and don’t make the decision for anyone other than you. Not your friends, not your family, and especially not me. Just you, Clover, okay?”
But doesn’t he know he is my friend and my family and the one person I want more than anything in this world? I can’t say that, though, not until I figure out me. So I don’t.
“Okay,” I say.
Callum gathers me into his arms, holding me tighter than he ever has before, like he’s afraid he’s about to lose me, and I’m gripping him just as hard for the very same reason.
We stay like that a long time, and I never do decide who is holding up who.