Chapter 17 #2
Remembering the day we’d finally had it out, the way I’d broken down as my wee girl cried over losing me, tears stung my eyes all over again. “No … I told her how sorry I was, how much I’d missed her, how much I love her.”
Iona nodded. “And have you stayed in her life since she came back into yours?”
“I see her almost every day.”
“And when she needs you, are you there? If she calls, do you pick up?”
I nodded. “I will never leave her again. I’ll die first.”
Iona gave me an almost affectionate smile.
“Surely, it stands to reason Robyn sees all of that in you, Mac. And that is why she has forgiven you in order for you to move forward. We can’t take back the past. We can’t go back.
But we can change our future, and it sounds to me like that is what Robyn has done.
And if she, the person wronged in all this, can forgive you, Mac, then the best gift you can give to her is to forgive yourself. ”
Her words pierced my chest like a blade, and I scrubbed my hand over my mouth as I stared out at the river and nodded my agreement.
“Every time you have a negative thought about your past with Robyn, I want you to immediately remember something positive that occurred between you, from either the past or the present. Pull up a good memory of the two of you together, one where you’re there for her.
I want you to do that every time. Every time.
And eventually, hopefully, you’ll start to see yourself as the father you’ve become. A good father, Mac.”
“What makes you so loyal to Lachlan?”
I shrugged. “He was the first person since working in private security who treated me as an equal. He was this upcoming movie star, a few years younger than me, young enough that shit should have gone to his head. And it never did. He was always thinking about home, about his family, about Arro. Everything he did was for them. Soon enough, because we shared a similar sense of humor, views on the world, liked the same sports, movies, music, we became great mates. And it didn’t take long for me to realize Lachlan viewed me as his family too.
Every discussion about the future, about transforming the estate into what it has become, I was always in those plans. He never forgot about me.”
“He didn’t abandon you,” Iona surmised.
“He never abandoned me,” I agreed. “He was the first person in my life who didn’t.”
“And how did you feel about him starting a relationship with Robyn?”
“Angry at first. But I didn’t believe I was entitled to feel that way.”
“Did you feel betrayed?”
“No …” I shook my head. “I knew right off that there was something different about the way he was with her. I’ve watched Lachlan go through many women over our years together, and I’d never seen him act that way …
he was completely gone for her. No, it wasn’t betrayal that made me angry, it was fear.
I was afraid he’d fuck it up and hurt her, not just because I hated the idea of her hurting, but because if she’d wanted me to make a choice between them, I would have chosen her.
I would have lost my friend to make amends with my daughter.
So I was angry that he’d put me in that potential position. ”
“Rightly so. But you obviously have come to terms with their relationship?”
“I trust him. I knew, for the sake of our friendship, he wouldn’t have pursued Robyn unless he had genuine feelings for her. And I know that he’ll be there for her always, because that’s who he is. And I want that for her.”
“Do you not think Lachlan would want the same for you? For Arro? Do you think he would stand in your way?”
“I think we need to talk about it when the time comes, but no, I don’t think he’ll be a problem.”
“And you want the time to come, Mac? You want to pursue a romantic relationship with Arro?”
I swallowed hard, my pulse throbbing at the thought. “I do. But I … I need to know that I won’t hurt her again like I did. I need to know that I’m the best possible version of me before I go to her.”
Iona nodded thoughtfully. “And why do you love Arro?”
I raised an eyebrow, not expecting the question. “Why is it necessary to know that?”
Used to my questioning her questions, Iona’s lips twitched. “Well, mostly because you feel guilty for loving her, and sometimes that kind of darker emotion is so overwhelming, we lose sight of the actual love itself.”
Elbows resting on my knees, I clasped my hands together and bent my head. Staring at the floor, my breathing shallowed as I struggled to make sense of the complicated emotions surrounding Arro.
“Mac …” Iona’s voice was gentle. “Forget all those other feelings. Forget the guilt, forget the notion that you don’t deserve her … forget everything and just concentrate on Arro and why you love her.”
Memories, one after the other, passed through my mind.
“She … at first I didn’t even notice her, beyond the fact that she was Lachlan’s wee sister.
He adored her, and so she automatically became a person I vowed to protect.
” I thought about the moment it all changed.
“When their dad died, Arro was there. She wasn’t even twenty-five years old when he died in her arms at the beach.
Heart attack. She … she blew me away with her strength.
I don’t think she even understands how strong she is.
And by that, I mean she knew she needed her family around her.
I think of when I lost my dad, and I felt so alone, and that loneliness was almost a wall.
I was convinced no one else could understand what I was going through, so I pushed my gran away.
I fell in with lads who most definitely didn’t want to talk about fucking feelings …
and it was the worst thing I could have done.
“So when Arro let us be there for her, I admired her. I admired her openness. We started spending a lot of time together, walks on the beach, day trips here and there to take her mind off things. She came to me for advice about work, and we fell into a friendship as easily as Lachlan and I had. Arro always seemed more mature. I was nearly thirty-seven, and the fact that we could talk for hours made me forget her age sometimes.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Our days. Our views on politics and culture, places we’d been, places we wanted to go. Music, art, the village gossip, her worries about her family. We could debate without arguing, and it was fun. It was easy in a way I’d never experienced with a woman.”
“Did you ever talk about your family? Your upbringing?”
“I told her the basics. But not how they made me feel.”
“Why?”
“Because I liked the way she looked at me. Arro always looked at me like I was indestructible, like I’d take care of everything, like I could take care of everything.
I think I became addicted to how she made me feel because deep down, I felt the opposite.
I felt like such a fucking failure, and she made me feel … she made me feel like I was more.”
Iona was quiet a moment, and then, “Do you think you’ve confused loving her with that feeling, Mac?”
“No,” I bit out, shaking my head. “No, if that were true, I wouldn’t be here. I’d have walked away the moment she screamed she hated me.”
“She said that?”
I nodded, her words ripping through my chest. “After … after that night in my house.”
“Let’s go back to your feelings for Arro, then. It sounds like you became very good friends.”
“Aye. We did.”
“Were your feelings romantic then?”
“I definitely noticed her as a woman. I lied to myself for a long time about it, but Arro …” I smiled. “She’s innately confident and sexy. She could walk into a room wearing a bin bag and you’d notice her.”
“But you tried not to …”
“Aye. Then the New Year’s Eve we opened the club, I was having a bad night about Robyn.
It had hit me I was back in Scotland permanently, and she was farther away than ever.
I just wanted to be alone, but Arro found me and …
I’d known for months how she felt about me.
She couldn’t hide it. I wanted to ignore her, but that night, seeing that look in her eyes, I told her about Robyn.
To make her see that I was actually a piece of shit, and she could do better. ”
“But Arro didn’t see it that way?”
“No. She refused to think badly of me even knowing the truth, and I wanted to believe her. And when she kissed me, I wanted to drown in the way she saw me, so I kissed her back. And then I did my usual and pushed her away.”
“Did you know you loved her then?”
“Not then. A few months later. She avoided me after that, and I hated it. I missed her. We bumped into each other on the beach one night, and she brought it up, and even after I lied and told her I didn’t feel that way about her, Arro was kind and understanding, even in her disappointment.
So different from Stacey. That’s when I knew I was in love with her.
That I would never love anyone the way I love her. ”
I looked up to meet Iona’s gaze. “Which makes it so unbelievably fucked up that I could hurt her like I did. I led her on and then I punished her for coming on to me. The things that came out of my mouth … She’s right.
I treated her like she was a strange bloody woman who’d broken into my house.
I humiliated her. How do I come back from that, Iona? ”
“First, as always, we look at causality. Most of us say and do hurtful things we don’t mean because of something else that’s going on underneath.
For you, we’ve already concluded, it’s the negative thoughts wherein you’ve decided you’re unworthy, that you don’t deserve, that you hurt the people you love.
These were the reasons you rejected Arro the way you did.
It wasn’t out of cruelty, it wasn’t deliberate. Can we agree on that?”
I nodded. “But I tried to explain that to Arro, and she said it doesn’t absolve me of what I made her feel.”
“She’s right. It doesn’t. But I need you to know where your actions stemmed from in order to prevent it from happening again.
You can’t use that night to build a case against yourself anytime you feel overwhelmed by negative thoughts or the belief that you don’t deserve Arro.
Because you will have those moments, Mac.
This, what we’re doing here, is ongoing.
You will have to be self-aware and redirect negative thoughts into positive thoughts.
Just like with Robyn, anytime you and Arro have an argument or one of you hurts the other’s feelings—which happens in even the healthiest relationships—you can’t dredge up the night in your house to prove you shouldn’t even be with her.
You hold on to the good—how you were there for her when her father died, how you’ve upended your entire life to protect her against this current threat, how you’ve been there any time she’s called upon you to be there for her.
Can you think of a time when Arro asked you a favor and you didn’t come through for her? ”
Searching my memory, I realized I couldn’t. “No.”
“Actions speak louder than words.” Iona smirked.
“Yes, a cliché. But there’s such truth in it, Mac.
The good you’ve brought to Arro’s life can outweigh the bad.
Now, going forward, it is up to Arro to forgive you for that night, and she may or may not.
However, I suggest you give her the entire picture.
She needs to know you came to me, even though it was one of the hardest things you’ve ever done.
She needs to know this because she needs to know that you’re willing to do the work, Mac. ”