5. Billie #2
He was quiet for a long moment, staring down at his hands. "I don't know either," he admitted. "I've been alone for so long, moving from place to place for so long, that sitting still feels... foreign. Dangerous, somehow."
"Dangerous how?"
"Because sitting still means feeling things. Thinking about things. Wanting things I've convinced myself I don't deserve."
The vulnerability in his voice made my chest tight. This was closer to the boy I'd once known than anything I'd seen since he'd been back. Open, uncertain, willing to admit he didn't have all the answers.
"And what do you want?" I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop it.
He looked up at me then, and for a moment his expression was completely unguarded. I saw longing there, and hope, and a fear so deep it made my heart ache.
"I want to stay," he said quietly. "I want to be part of this family, to be the uncle Cade deserves, to make amends for the time I stole from them. But I don't know how to want those things and not be selfish about it."
"How would wanting those things be selfish?
" It hurt to talk to him like this and yet I couldn't seem to stop myself.
Couldn't seem to stop myself from caring.
Gage had always been the kid who looked at the things he didn't think he was entitled to, and those things were always the love that someone, usually me, was so desperate to give him if only he'd say yes.
"Because what if I'm kidding myself? What if I stay and hurt them again? What if I'm not capable of being the person they think I am?" He gestured toward the laptop. "At least if I leave, if I keep moving, I can't disappoint anyone else."
There it was. The core of his confusion. He wanted to stay, wanted to build a life here, but eleven years of running had taught him that leaving was safer than risking failure.
"And you don't think running to Montana would disappoint them?
They've been searching for you to bring you home, Gage.
Booker opened his home up to you. You don't think throwing that back in their face wouldn't be disappointing for them?
" I could tell from the look on his face that this wasn't an argument he was ever going to accept and I sighed in defeat before returning to the professional argument I probably should have led with in the first place.
"Montana has a pretty high injury rate for bridge work," I said, settling back into my chair. "Especially for someone who's still recovering from traumatic injuries."
"I heal fast."
It didn't escape me that he'd avoided saying anything about my earlier comments, but if he wanted to brush past them then fine. I was his physical therapist, I wasn't his best friend. Not anymore at least.
"You heal well when you follow medical advice and don't push beyond your limitations," I corrected. "But Gage, taking a job like that right now could undo months of progress. Is running away worth permanent disability?"
"I'm not running away," he said, but there wasn't much conviction in his voice.
"Then what would you call it?" I asked gently, wanting to kick myself for not being able to just let it go.
Why was I fighting so hard for a man who didn't want me to fight for him?
He was quiet for a long moment, and I could see the internal war playing out across his features. The boy who'd always needed to feel useful warring with the man who'd learned that caring about people meant risking their rejection.
"I call it being realistic," he said finally. "About what I deserve and what I don't."
"And what don't you deserve?"
"This," he said, gesturing around the room. "Them. Family dinners and acceptance. Forgiveness I haven't earned. The chance to be someone's uncle when I helped cost them their father for ten years."
"What about what they deserve?" I asked. "Don't they deserve to make their own choices about forgiveness? Don't they deserve to have their brother back if that's what they want?"
He didn't have an answer for that, but I could see that the question had hit home.
"Your next session will be Friday," I said, standing and gathering my things.
"Same time. And Gage? Your family is going to be at that investor meeting all day tomorrow.
Long day, important decisions about their future.
" I paused at the door, not looking back.
"Try not to do anything stupid while they're gone. "
The drive back to town was a blur of conflicted emotions and professional second-guessing. I'd crossed lines today that I shouldn't have crossed, said things that went far beyond physical therapy, let my personal investment show in ways that could compromise everything.
But seeing those job sites on his laptop, seeing the evidence that he was already planning his next escape, had shattered something inside me. Not my heart. I'd been guarding that too carefully for it to break again so easily.
No, what had shattered was the professional distance I'd been hiding behind. The careful clinical approach that had been protecting me from the truth I didn't want to face.
I was falling for him again. Not the memory of who he'd been, but the man he was now.
Broken, confused, desperately trying to do the right thing even when he couldn't figure out what that was.
The man who wanted to stay but was terrified of wanting it.
The man who loved his family so much he was willing to sacrifice his own happiness to protect them from his perceived toxicity.
It was pathetic really. A few weeks and I was right back to that lovestruck teenager who had stars in her eyes when it came to Gage Farrington.
Maybe I'd never get over him. Maybe him leaving would be the best for me as well as him.
And maybe I was just terrible enough to look past the hurt it would cause his entire family if he did.
Because this was the only way I thought I was ever going to survive Gage Farrington walking into my life again.
Tomorrow, when his family was away and he was alone with his doubts and his laptop full of escape routes, I'd have to figure out whether I was strong enough to watch him make the same mistake twice.
Whether I was strong enough to let him go if that's what he chose.
Or whether I was foolish enough to fight for someone who might never stop running long enough to be caught.