Chapter Eleven #2
His words hit her with the force of bullets.
But for some reason, they didn’t hurt. Not really.
She could remember distinctly when David had broken things off with her.
Saying that she had never been anything serious.
That she had been only a little bit of tail on the side and he was of course going to have to stay with his wife.
Because she was the center of his life. Of his career.
Because she mattered, and Maddy didn’t. That had hurt. It had hurt because it had been true.
Because David hadn’t loved her. And it had been easy for him to break up with her because he had never intended on having more with her, and not a single part of him wanted more.
This was different. It was different because Sam was trying to hurt her out of desperation. Because Sam was lying. Or at the very least, was sidestepping. Because he didn’t want to have the conversation.
Because he would have to lie to protect himself. Because he couldn’t look her in the eye and tell her that he didn’t love her, that she didn’t matter.
But she wasn’t certain he would let himself feel it.
That was the gamble. She knew he felt it.
She knew it. That deep down, Sam cared. She wasn’t sure if he knew it.
If he had allowed himself access to those feelings.
Feelings that Sam seemed to think were a luxury, or a danger. Grief. Desire. Love.
“Go ahead and offer it. You won’t. You won’t, because you know I would actually say yes. You can try to make this about how damaged I am, but all of this is because of you.”
“You have to be damaged to want somebody like me. You know what’s in my past.”
“Grief. Grief that you won’t let yourself feel.
Sadness you don’t feel like you’re allowed to have.
That’s what’s in your past. Along with lost hope.
Let’s not pretend you blame yourself. You felt so comfortable calling me out, telling me that I was playing games.
Well, guess what. That’s what you’re doing.
You think if you don’t want anything, if you don’t need anything, you won’t be hurt again.
But you’re just living in hurt and that isn’t better. ”
“You have all this clarity about your own emotional situation, and you think that gives you a right to talk about mine?”
She threw the blankets off her and got out of bed.
“Why not?” she asked, throwing her arms wide.
She didn’t care that she was naked. In fact, in many ways it seemed appropriate.
That Sam had put clothes on, that he had felt the need to cover himself, and that she didn’t even care anymore.
She had no pride left. But this wasn’t about pride.
“You think you have the right to talk about mine,” she continued.
“You think you’re going to twist everything that I’m saying and eventually you’ll find some little doubt inside me that will make me believe you’re telling the truth.
I’ve had enough of that. I’ve had enough of men telling me what I feel.
Of them telling me what I should do. I’m not going to let you do it.
You’re better than that. At least, I thought you were. ”
“Maybe I’m not.”
“Right now? I think you don’t want to be. But I would love you through this too, Sam. You need to know that. You need to know that whatever you say right now, in this room, it’s not going to change the way that I feel about you. You don’t have that kind of power.”
“That’s pathetic. There’s nothing I can say to make you not love me? Why don’t you love yourself a little bit more than that, Madison,” he said, his tone hard.
And regardless of what she had just said, that did hit something in her. Something vulnerable and scared. Something that was afraid she really hadn’t learned how to be anything more than a pathetic creature, desperate for a man to show her affection.
“I love myself just enough to put myself out there and demand this,” she said finally, her voice vibrating with conviction.
“I love myself too much to slink off silently. I love myself too much not to fight for what I know we could have. If I didn’t do this, if I didn’t say this, it would only be for my pride.
It would be so I could score points and feel like maybe I won.
But in the end, if I walk away without having fought for you with everything I have in me, we will have both lost. I think you’re worth that.
I know you are. Why don’t you think so?”
“Why do you?” he asked, his voice thin, brittle. “I don’t think I’ve shown you any particular kindness or tenderness.”
“Don’t. Don’t erase everything that’s happened between us. Everything I told you. Everything you gave me.”
“Keeping my mouth shut while I held a beautiful woman and let her talk? That’s easy.”
“I love you, Sam. That’s all. I’m not going to stand here and have an argument. I’m not going to let you get in endless barbs while you try to make those words something less than true. I love you. I would really like it if you could tell me you loved me too.”
“I don’t.” His words were flat in the room.
And she knew they were all she would get from him.
Right now, it was all he could say. And he believed it.
He believed it down to his bones. That he didn’t love her.
That everything that had taken place between them over the past week meant nothing.
Because he had to. Because behind that certainty, that flat, horrifying expression in his eyes, was fear.
Strong, beautiful Sam, who could bend iron to his will, couldn’t overpower the fear that lived inside him. And she would never be able to do it for him.
“Okay,” she said softly, beginning to gather her clothes.
She didn’t know how to do this. She didn’t know what to do now.
How to make a triumphant exit. So she decided she wouldn’t.
She decided to let the tears fall down her cheeks; she decided not to make a joke.
She decided not to say anything flippant or amusing.
Because that was what the old Maddy would have done.
She would have played it off. She would have tried to laugh.
She wouldn’t have let herself feel this, not all the way down.
She wouldn’t have let her heart feel bruised or tender.
Wouldn’t have let a wave of pain roll over her.
Wouldn’t have let herself feel it, not really.
And when she walked out of his house, sniffling, her shoulders shaking, and could no longer hold back the sob that was building in her chest by the time she reached her car, she didn’t care. She didn’t feel ashamed.
There was no shame in loving someone.
She opened the driver-side door and sat down. And then the dam burst. She had loved so many people who had never loved her in return. Not the way she loved them. She had made herself hard because of it. She had put the shame on her own shoulders.
That somehow a seventeen-year-old girl should have known that her teacher was lying to her. That somehow a daughter whose father had walked her down Main Street and bought her sweets in a little shop should have known that her father’s affection had its limits.
That a woman who had met a man who had finally reached deep inside her and moved all those defenses she had erected around her heart should have known that in the end he would break it.
No. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t the love that was bad. It was the pride. The shame. The fear. Those were the things that needed to be gotten rid of.
She took a deep, shaking breath. She blinked hard, forcing the rest of her tears to fall, and then she started the car.
She would be okay. Because she had found herself again. Had learned how to love again. Had found a deep certainty and confidence in herself that had been missing for so long.
But as she drove away, she still felt torn in two. Because while she had been made whole, she knew that she was leaving Sam behind, still as broken as she had found him.