Chapter Thirteen #2
“I’ve always been afraid there was something wrong with me.
” His dark eyes were intense, and she could tell that he was wishing he could turn to stone rather than finish what he was saying.
But that he was determined. That he had put his foot on the path and he wasn’t going to deviate from it.
“Something wrong with what I felt. And I pushed it all down. I always have. I’ve been through stuff that would make a lot of people crazy.
But if you keep shoving it on down, it never gets any better.
” He shook his head. “I’ve been holding on to grief.
Holding on to anger. I didn’t know what else to do with it.
My feelings about my parents, my feelings about Elizabeth, the baby.
It’s complicated. It’s a lot. And I think more than anything I just didn’t want to deal with it.
I had a lot of excuses, and they felt real.
They even felt maybe a little bit noble? ”
“I can see that. I can see it being preferable to grief.”
“Just like you said, Maddy. You put all those defenses in front of it, and then nothing can hurt you, right?”
She nodded. “At least, that’s been the way I’ve handled it for a long time.”
“You run out. Of whatever it is you need to be a person. Whatever it is you need to contribute, to create. That’s why I haven’t been able to do anything new with my artwork.” He rolled his eyes, shaking his head slightly. “It’s hard for me to...”
“I know. You would rather die than talk about feelings. And talk about this. But I think you need to.”
“I told myself it was wrong to make something for my dad. My mom. Because they didn’t support my work.
I told myself I didn’t deserve to profit off Elizabeth’s death in any way.
But that was never the real issue. The real issue was not wanting to feel those things at all.
I was walking across the field the other night, and I thought about grief.
The way that it covers things, twists the world around you into something unrecognizable.
” He shook his head. “When you’re in the thick of it, it’s like walking in the dark.
Even if you’re in a place you’ve seen a thousand times by day, it all changes.
And suddenly what seemed safe is now full of danger. ”
He took a sharp breath and continued. “You can’t trust anymore.
You can’t trust everything will be okay, because you’ve seen that sometimes it isn’t.
That’s what it’s like to have lost people like I have.
And I can think about a thousand pieces that I could create that would express that.
But it would mean that I had to feel it.
And it would mean I would have to show other people what I felt.
I wanted... From the moment I laid my hands on you, Maddy, I wanted to turn you into something.
A sculpture. A painting. But that would mean looking at how I felt about you too. And I didn’t want to do that either.”
Maddy lifted her hand, cupping Sam’s cheek. “I understand why you work with iron, Sam. Because it’s just like you. You’re so strong. And you really don’t want to bend. But if you would just bend...just a little bit, I think you could be something even more beautiful than you already are.”
“I’ll do more than bend. If I have to, to have you, I’ll break first. But I’ve decided.
.. I don’t care about protecting myself.
From loss, from pain...doesn’t matter. I just care about you.
And I know that I have to fix myself if I’m going to become the kind of man you deserve.
I know I have to reach inside and figure all that emotional crap out.
I can’t just decide that I love you and never look at the rest of it.
I have to do all of it. To love you the way that you deserve, I know I have to deal with all of it. ”
“Do you love me?”
He nodded slowly. “I do.” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a notebook. “I’ve been working on a new collection. Just sketches right now. Just plans.” He handed her the notebook. “I want you to see it. I know you’ll understand.”
She took it from him, opening it with shaking hands, her heart thundering hard in her throat. She looked at the first page, at the dark twisted mass he had sketched there. Maybe it was a beast, or maybe it was just menacing angles—it was hard to tell. She imagined that was the point.
There was more. Broken figures, twisted metal. Until the very last page. Where the lines smoothed out into rounded curves, until the mood shifted dramatically and everything looked a whole lot more like hope.
“It’s hard to get a sense of scale and everything in the drawings. This is just me kind of blocking it out.”
“I understand,” she whispered. “I understand perfectly.” It started with grief, and it ended with love. Unimaginable pain that was transformed.
“I lost a lot of things, Maddy. I would hate for you to be one of them. Especially because you’re the one thing I chose to lose.
And I have regretted it every moment since.
But this is me.” He put his fingertip on the notebook.
“That’s me. I’m not the nicest guy. I’m not what anybody would call cheerful.
Frankly, I’m a grumpy son of a bitch. It’s hard for me to talk about what I’m feeling.
Harder for me to show it, and I’m in the world’s worst line of work for that.
But if you’ll let me, I’ll be your grumpy son of a bitch. And I’ll try. I’ll try for you.”
“Sam,” she said, “I love you. I love you, and I don’t need you to be anything more than you.
I’m willing to accept the fact that getting to your feelings may always be a little bit of an excavation.
But if you promise to work on it, I’ll promise not to be too sensitive about it.
And maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle.
One person doesn’t have to do all the changing.
And I don’t want you to anyway.” She smiled, and this time it wasn’t forced.
“You had me at ‘You’re at the wrong door.’”
He chuckled. “I think you had me a lot sooner than that. I just didn’t know it.”
“So,” she said, looking up at him, feeling like the sun was shining inside her, in spite of the chill outside, “you want to go play Yahtzee?”
“Only if you mean it euphemistically.”
“Absolutely not. I expect you to take the time to woo me, Sam McCormack. And if that includes board games, that’s just a burden you’ll have to bear.”
Sam smiled. A real smile. One that showed his heart, his soul, and held nothing back. “I would gladly spend the rest of my life bearing your burdens, Madison West.”
“On second thought,” she said, “board games not required.”
“Oh yeah? What do you need, then?”
“Nothing much at all. Just hold me, cowboy. That’s enough for me.”