Chapter Thirty-Eight Don’t Deserve Her #3
I’ve laid the rot out in the open. I’ve shown her the broken, ugly foundation of the man holding her.
Now comes the part that’ll make her leave.
The part where she realizes the man she thinks is so strong is just a collection of old scars and inherited wreckage.
I brace myself for the shift, waiting for the sudden stiffness in her posture.
The quiet, polite way she’ll try to pull back and find space between us.
I wait for the hammer to fall.
The silence drags out, stretching between us until it feels like a physical distance, heavy and suffocating in the dark.
“Hey,” Hadley’s voice cuts through my panic. She shifts, rising up on one elbow so she can look down into my face. Her warm hand cups my jaw, her thumb sweeping over my cheekbone. “Julian, look at me. Keep talking to me. I’m listening. I want to know everything about you.”
“You don’t understand.” My eyes moisten with tears as I try to look away from her, but she refuses to let me go. “I’ve always just had myself when it comes to someone taking care of me. Except for her. I owe everything to Mrs. Clay. Every single thing, and I’m terrified that…”
“Tell me,” she insists.
“At the end of my senior year,” I begin, the raw emotion tearing at my throat.
“Mrs. Clay surprised me. She signed me up and paid for me to attend a major NAHL tryout camp. She didn’t have a lot of money of her own.
She lived on a fixed pension, but she sold her own jewelry, pieces gifted to her by her late husband, just to afford the entry fee and the bus ticket for me.
That was my big break. I made the roster for the North American Hockey League.
Spent a year there. Got scouted for an NCAA college team.
Played two years in college before I got an AHL contract at twenty-two, and finally moved up to the Night Hawks at twenty-three.
Dad died of alcohol poisoning the year after I left, and I couldn’t sell that house fast enough.
It was never my home. Not really. Mrs. Clay gave me the closest thing to a home I’ve ever had.
I owe my entire life to that woman…and I’m terrified she’s hiding how sick she really is from me. ”
Silence settles over the room again, but this time, it’s not heavy. It’s soft. Hadley stays frozen above me, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears as she absorbs the full scope of my reality.
Slowly, she leans down, pressing her forehead against mine.
“Julian,” she whispers. “What happened with your mom, your dad, and your brother…none of it was your fault. You were a child. You did not deserve to be abandoned, and you did not deserve to be hurt.”
I close my eyes. Her words are sweet, and I want to latch onto them, but…the truth is, I don't believe her.
For nearly twenty years, I’ve carried the quiet, unshakable conviction that the rot started with me.
I spent my childhood convinced that if I’d just been better, quieter, or less of a burden, Mom would have stayed.
If I weren’t so weak, my brother wouldn't have had to ruin his own body to shield mine. There’s a part of me that still thinks the beatings and the abandonment weren't injustices. They were just the tax I had to pay for existing. Hearing Hadley say I didn’t deserve it feels like listening to a language I don’t speak.
“Did you ever try contacting your brother?” she asks, her tone gentle.
I shake my head against the pillow, a hard, cold knot tightening in my chest. “No. He left. He knew where I was. He knew what Dad was doing to me. If he wanted me in his life, he would’ve come back for me. He never did.”
“Oh, Julian…”
“I wasn’t worth staying for,” I mutter. “I’m not worth keeping around.”
“That is not true,” Hadley exclaims, her grip on my jaw tightening. “Julian, look at me. That is a lie your father beat into you, and it is not true.”
I look at her, but I can feel my eyes going distant. The old defensive armor clicking back into place. I’m not listening. I can’t let myself believe her. Believing her means lowering my guard, and lowering my guard means getting destroyed when the end finally comes.
Hadley looks right through me. She sees the walls going up. Sees the way I’m retreating into the safety of my own isolation. She doesn't yell, and she doesn't argue. She just looks at me with heartbreaking tenderness.
She leans down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss against my cheek.
“I’m here,” she whispers against my ear, her arms wrapping around my shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere, Julian.”
I close my eyes and pull her tight against my chest, burying my face in her hair. She holds me tight, and even as her breathing evens out and I know she’s fallen asleep, she doesn’t let go.
I don't deserve her. She is too good for me. Eventually, everyone always leaves. Everyone always chooses something else…life, other teammates, loved ones, better options…over me. I’m just the guy people use until they find something better.
Swallowing, I reach for my phone and open the email from The Ironclads trying to confirm a meeting for tomorrow. The very same email I have been ignoring for weeks. I send a quick reply that I’ll be there, then toss my phone back to the nightstand.
Maybe it's better this way, I think bitterly, even as I hold her tight. Maybe it’s better if I leave first, because she’s going to realize what a broken, hollow mess I am, and she’ll leave me soon anyway.
People always do.