Chapter 7 #2
She shook her head, a smile playing on her face. “I don’t want to go clubbing. You’re right, that’s so not me. And though I’ve been doing new things, going out and hurting my ears and subsequently my feet from dancing or standing in heels for too long isn’t really list worthy.”
He squeezed her hand. “Good to know. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s really on your mind, Holly? You can tell me anything.”
“That’s the thing,” she whispered. “I feel like I can, but I’ve never really told anyone this before.
” She met his gaze, worried once again that she was making a mistake.
“And we’re…well, I don’t know what we are, but going into depth about things like my childhood seems like something pretty serious, and I don’t know if we’re that. ”
There. She’d said part of it.
His face tightened a bit, and she wanted to kick herself.
Why did she have to bring up their relationship like that? No good could come from it.
“You can talk to me,” he said slowly, his voice a little hoarse. Apparently, he was going to gloss over the serious relationship part, and frankly, she wasn’t sure if that bothered her or not.
“Okay, then.” She took a deep breath. “So, I’m the good girl.”
He grinned at her then. “Not when I was spanking you last night.”
She blushed and shook her head. “That is not what I’m talking about, and you know it.”
“My mind is usually on sex one way or another. I can’t help it with you in the same room with me.”
She closed her eyes, holding back a laugh.
He sure wasn’t making this easy. “So, like I was saying…I’m the good girl.
The one that never does anything out of the ordinary.
I’m the nice one. The one that doesn’t step on toes.
I’m trying to change that, at least the ordinary part.
I don’t want to change how nice I am because I’m not going to be a bitch to make other people happy.
” She frowned. “That didn’t make any sense. ”
He reached over and tugged on her hair. “I get you. Keep going.”
“I never really went out before. I mean, I did some with Jake, but not really.” At Brody’s look, she winced. “Sorry. I know bringing him up is weird because he’s both of our friend, but he was really the first guy I went out with that pushed me a bit. But he didn’t push me enough. Not like you do.”
His eyes darkened. “I push? Because if I’m doing that, I need to know, Holly. I never want to hurt you.”
She shook her head. “I’m doing this all wrong.
You push me because I ask to be pushed. You show me what I’ve missed all this time hiding behind my sweaters and books.
I’ve always loved who I am because of what I’ve accomplished, Brody.
I’ve loved me because I was the one that had to do everything on my own.
I didn’t have anyone else to rely on. And because of that, I turned into someone with all these shields around me, so many that I forgot how to have fun.
How to live. You’ve shown me so much since we first met, and I’m always going to be grateful for that.
Because during all of that, you never once tried to change me. You let me be me.”
“That’s what you wanted, Holly. I’m not going to change you. I like the way you are. And since I’m me and thinking about sex even now, I like you in those cardigans. The buttons are hot as hell to undo when you’re biting your lip like you are right now.”
She snorted, a laugh threatening to escape. “You’re horrible, you know that?”
Brody shrugged. “You like it.”
“Yeah, I do.” She loved it. But this wasn’t the time to mention that. “Anyway, there’s a reason I’m like this, or I was like that.”
He didn’t say anything, so she continued.
“My mom got sick when I was a child. It wasn’t cancer, but it was a lung infection that got really bad for a while.
She eventually got healthy, but she wasn’t the same.
I think she got used to me being around to take care of her, and never wanted that to change.
So from the time I was seven until I turned eighteen and moved away to go to college on scholarships I applied for myself, I was at her beck and call.
Anything she needed, I was there for her.
Any time she felt like she was going to get sick again, it was this whole thing where I had to stay home from school and care for her.
I took her to doctor after doctor, who said that she was healthy, but she refused to believe them.
I lost what few friends I had when I was a child because I could never see them, and I almost had to stay back in school a year because I had missed so much.
Thankfully, I was getting good enough grades that somehow I slid through and graduated with honors, but it was close. ”
Brody frowned. “What about your dad through all of this? You never mentioned him.”
She sighed. “My dad was around to pay the bills and to eat the dinner I made for him every night. But that’s it.
They didn’t sleep in the same bed because Mom needed extra care, and Dad needed sleep.
If Mom felt like she might be getting sick at night, I was the one to wake up and deal with it.
My dad pretty much ignored me for that decade of my life, and frankly, he ignores me now.
I think they’re still living in the same house because I send a Christmas card to them every year and it doesn’t get returned, but that’s all I know.
I left to go to college and never went back.
It was the only way I could look at myself in the mirror every morning.
I had become a shadow of myself, and I didn’t like that person. ”
Brody reached out and cupped her face. “I want to find your parents and slap some sense into them, but that won’t help anything. I’m glad you found a way to escape, but hell, that was not a way to grow up.”
She shrugged. “It was what it was, and I got out. But I was so determined to go to school and get my degree and then my certification that I never really stopped being that shadow. I worked to pay for everything so I wouldn’t have to rely on anyone, and I eventually got a job that helped me pay for this place, but throughout it all, I stayed away from everyone else.
It’s only been in the past few years that I’ve actually started to have friends.
” She winced. “I know that sounds weird, but that’s me. Weird Holly Rose.”
He shook his head and frowned. “There’s nothing weird about you, Holly.”
But there was something odd in his tone. She couldn’t tell what it was, but when he smiled at her, it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He held her soon after, and she felt his heart under her ear, and yet he didn’t speak again about what she’d told him that night.
They didn’t make love that night either.
He didn’t sleep over.
Instead, he kissed her softly before saying he needed to head home to go to work the next day since he was on an early shift. She let him go because he’d mentioned that before, but had thought he’d do what he always did and sleep over anyway.
It didn’t make any sense…or it shouldn’t have.
She’d told him more about herself, tried to get a little closer to him, and he’d run away.
Maybe she’d been right, maybe she’d made a mistake in talking to him about things other than her list.
She’d fallen for Brody, but she was so afraid he hadn’t fallen for her.
And he never would.