Chapter 43
NOT HOLDING BACK
“Iknow you’re mad at me,” Alana said the next afternoon.
Her parents left this morning and picked up Brennan to bring him back to Boston so he could get his car and then take the ferry back. He was alone, so she was assuming Becca was still with his mother.
“I’m not mad,” he said.
“Disappointed then,” she said.
“I’m definitely that, but we don’t have to talk about it now either.”
She adjusted the pillow behind her on the couch and moved the ice pack back in place where it’d dropped, using another pillow to keep it there.
“I want to talk about it. Too many times in my life I put things off. I’m not doing that anymore.”
Just like she shouldn’t have avoided the texts from Jonathan.
If she’d just responded to him or called, she could have avoided all of this. Not even had to see him again.
“You don’t need to get worked up.”
“I’m not,” she said. “Or I won’t if you don’t.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Jonathan has been texting you?” He put his hand up when she opened her mouth. “First off, I’m not jealous. Nothing like that. I’m disappointed that you felt you couldn’t trust me with that information. I don’t know why and maybe that upsets me the most.”
She sighed. She shouldn’t have because her hand went to her side.
It hurt to take deep breaths, but Hudson told her it’d get better each day if she took it easy.
She was reminding herself it was a bruise, not a break.
“It’s not that I didn’t trust you,” she said.
“Please don’t think that. He texted me about a month ago.
Nothing more than asking how I was doing.
I deleted it. I didn’t care. I heard nothing else for a bit, and then the day you got the call from Rene, I was talking to Kelsey, and he asked me to call him.
I deleted it too. I had nothing to say to him. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it was one-sided and, in my eyes, nothing major. I couldn’t imagine what he thought he had to say to me one year later. And anything it was I didn’t care about. What we had was over.”
“Then you could have told me,” he said.
“You have enough on your mind with Rene and Becca,” she said. “I honestly wasn’t purposely not telling you. He didn’t text me again after that day and I thought it was done. I’m assuming my father told you what it was about?”
Her parents didn’t want to get into it too much last night and wanted her to rest.
Her mother was the one who told her what was going on this morning before they left.
“He did. Said that Jonathan was upset over his job and blaming you and your father.”
“It’s always been all about his job,” she said. “I knew that and should have figured that out myself. The biggest mistake I made yesterday was not dealing with this directly with him prior.”
“Which is why you want to do it with me now?” he asked.
“Yes. Sit. I don’t enjoy angling my head up to you. My neck is sore too.”
He eased himself to the couch’s edge, his movements as careful as if he were handling a sleeping child, terrified of disturbing her.
“If you don’t feel good we don’t need to talk about this.”
“We do,” she said. “I’m not holding back or keeping things from you or inside. I’ve done it too much in my life. I should have called him to find out what his problem was and gotten it over with so he didn’t feel the need to come here and whine.”
“Whine?”
“That’s what he does best. We didn’t fight about things. Rarely. When I left him, I packed up what was in his place and didn’t look back. I did the same with his stuff in my place and left it by the door. He begged and pleaded he was sorry, that he couldn’t control how he felt and he was confused.”
“That’s a crock of shit,” he said.
“I said the same thing. Susette and he didn’t last very long, but he didn’t tell me that. I found out from someone else. I didn’t care either. That’s his life. He’s gone from mine.” She lifted her arm, snapped her finger and shouldn’t have made that movement.
“Your father said he was going to take care of it. I know you hate that.”
“I don’t need someone to deal with those things,” she said. “But he’s going to do what he wants. Do I think my father played a part in this with Jonathan? I don’t know and don’t care enough either. He’s gone from my life. I hate I wasted so many years waiting for him to give me what I wanted.”
She put her head down when she said that.
Just a few months in, she didn’t want to think she was wasting her time with Brennan.
They were compatible in so many ways. Had the same dreams and goals and she wondered if she tarnished what they had by not telling him about Jonathan’s texts.
He came to her right away when he got the call from Rene and she didn’t give him the same courtesy.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s going through your mind?”
“Did I ruin things with us by not speaking up? Tell me if I did. I really wasn’t trying to keep it a secret. It was a few texts that I deleted. I don’t want anything from my past to disrupt my future, but I think it might have anyway.”
“No,” he said. He moved closer to her and reached for her hand. “You didn’t ruin things. I’m hurt and my pride took a hit that maybe you didn’t trust me.”
“It has nothing to do with trust.”
He squeezed her fingers gently. “Trust me enough that I could handle this too. I know your first thought was to protect me from more stress, right?”
She nodded. “It was my problem. Well, I didn’t even think it was a problem, but it was mine to deal with. And when I thought of that last night, I realized you didn’t hesitate to tell me what was going on with Rene. You put more faith in me than I did in you. I’m wrong about that.”
“I’m glad you see my side of it,” he said.
She could see the hurt in his eyes. The sadness too.
She hated she caused any of it.
“I’m sorry. I got in my head and overthought it. I should have told you and let it go. I could have done it without it adding weight to your mental load.”
“The thing I love about you and our relationship is that we can talk about things. That we can work it out when something comes up. Those are the things I wanted in my life. In my future with a partner.”
And she just proved that she didn’t always provide that.
“Which is another reason you’re upset. Because I didn’t do it this time. And it hurts even more because it’s what I want and I’m the one who broke that dream.”
“You didn’t break it,” he said gently. “We’re human. That’s what it comes down to. No one is perfect and no one will be. You know I’ve always wanted a family.”
“I know that. The same as me.”
“And my mother told me she mentioned to you I took a dull boring job because I had this fear that I’d never want to put a family through what my mother went through with my father’s job. Right?”
“Are you upset that I never told you she said that?”
“No. I think it was an unspoken thing in my mind. I never said those words to my mother, but a lot of my life was not taking risks. Not doing things that could hurt me physically. It could be why I’m so anxious about Becca and her activity level.”
“Always carrying her,” she said, closing one eye.
“I don’t want her falling, but the truth is, you learn from mistakes.”
“No one can prevent things that happen in life. Can we try not to put ourselves in dangerous situations? Sure. We can,” she said. “But yesterday is a good example of shit happening anyway.”
“Exactly,” he said. “I thought of that too on the flight over. I’ve had this worry so much in my life, but I can’t control it all. I can try to and I will with the right things.”
“Like with Rene,” she said. “I know I pushed you to take the first step and not ride it out.”
“I needed that push. That is an instance that I feared the outcome. Where I was a little like you and put my head in the sand and hoped it went away.”
“Ouch,” she said. “I deserved that. See, we’ve got that in common too.”
“That’s why I’m not mad over you not telling me about Jonathan’s texts. And maybe this is a lesson we both need. We complement each other. We push the other when it’s needed too.”
“We do.” She pointed to her lips. “Can I have a kiss? It will make me feel better.”
He stood up and walked closer to her, then got on his knees next to the couch, his lips touching hers. “It will make me feel better too.”