12. Caius #3
There's a pause, a weighted silence that stretches between us like a held breath. Then her voice cuts through it, quiet but sharp as a blade.
"Can't or won't?"
I don't move. Except I do. I don't lift my head from the door, but my fingers find that library card sitting there in my pocket as if it’s screaming silently for me to get a fucking clue.
My mother’s question hangs there in the air, deceptively simple, and I feel something twist hard beneath my ribs.
"What's the difference?" I ask, even though some part of me already knows the answer. Already knows she's backed me into a corner I can't charm or joke my way out of.
"Everything." I hear her chair scrape back, feel her move closer. "Can't means it's impossible. Won't means you're choosing the fear over the love. So which is it?"
I turn around, lean back against the door. She's standing in the midst of her kitchen with her arms crossed, looking at me like I'm still that angry nine-year-old who didn't know how to accept kindness without expecting a cost.
"I told her I lied about choosing her," I say quietly, the confession dragging itself up from where I've been trying to bury it.
"I looked her straight in the eye, saw the trust there, saw her open and vulnerable, and I made her think everything we had was fake.
Every touch, every moment, every goddamn feeling.
I convinced her it was all just some twisted game. "
The words taste like ash in my mouth. I can still see the exact moment something shattered behind Hallie's eyes, the way her face went carefully blank like she was trying to protect herself from a blow that had already landed.
"So tell her the truth," Mom says simply, as if it's that straightforward. As if I haven't already scorched the earth between us.
"She won't believe me." I shake my head, feeling it settle over my shoulders.
"Why would she? I've spent years deflecting with jokes, keeping her at arm's length, acting like she was just Ryan's little sister.
And then when I finally had her, when she gave me everything, I threw it back in her face and told her it meant nothing. What kind of man does that?"
"Then make her believe you." Mom closes the distance, cups my face in both hands the way she used to when I was small and scared.
"That girl doesn't want fancy dinners or expensive gifts.
She wants you, Caius. Grease under your fingernails, terrible jokes, all of it.
She fell in love with who you are, not who you think you should be. "
"Ryan will never?—"
"Ryan will come around. He loves you both too much not to.
" Her thumb brushes over my bruised jaw, gentle despite the frustration in her eyes.
"But you have to give him something to come around to.
Right now, all he sees is his best friend playing games with his sister's heart.
Show him it's real. Show Hallie it's real. "
I close my eyes, let her words sink in past all the defenses I've built. The ones that say I'm not good enough, not worthy, not capable of keeping something this precious without breaking it.
"I don't know how to do this," I admit, my voice rough with something that might be fear or might be hope, I can't tell the difference anymore.
"The big gesture thing. The romance. All those grand declarations people make in movies.
I'm a mechanic makes terrible jokes. I don't... I don't know how to be the guy who sweeps her off her feet. "
Mom's expression softens, and when she speaks again, there's amusement threading through the frustration.
"You've been romancing that girl since you started inventing car problems just to see her.
" A smile creeps into her voice, transforming her features from stern to almost conspiratorial.
"Blinker fluid, Caius? Really? You told a librarian, a woman who reads for a living, that her car needed blinker fluid? "
Despite everything, the panic clawing at my chest, Ryan's fist still echoing in my jaw, the terror of potentially losing the best thing that's ever happened to me, I feel my mouth twitch. The corners lift in something that wants desperately to be a grin. "It worked, didn't it?"
"Because she loves you, you eejit. Not because you're a smooth talker." She drops her hands, steps back. "Now. The wedding starts in eighteen minutes. You can either keep running, or you can go get your girl."
I look at her, this woman who saved me when I was nine years old and has been saving me ever since. Who taught me that family isn't blood, it's choice. That love isn't something you earn, it's something you accept.
Something you fight for. I finger the card again.
"If I do this and he punches me again?—"
"Then you take the punch and keep going." She shoves my shoulder toward the door. "Now move before I get my wooden spoon."
I'm already halfway out the door when I hear her call after me.
"Caius?"
I turn back.
"For what it's worth?" Her smile is soft, proud. "She's not the only one who's better than you think. You've just been too stubborn to see it."
The door closes behind me, and I'm running for the truck.