Chapter 10 #3
She tilted her head and smiled softly at me. “I was watching you this last hour or so,” she said. She wiped her eyes and straightened as though determined to put an end to her crying.
I almost didn’t register her confession under all the layers of guilt covering my mind. “Oh, yeah?”
“You’re like a social ninja. I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.
I felt a prickle of pride and lifted my dropped head. “I didn’t do anything,” I said, thinking back over the last few hours that were a whirlwind but also extremely typical for this sort of event.
Her eyes were fixed on me, still glistening from tears, her lashes long and wet. She was so earnest and brave at that moment, even though she was clearly shaken. I let out a quiet sigh and was about to rescind my offer to help when she started to speak.
“I’m so tired of being in the cold and dark, outside the warmth of the fire.
I’m so tired of feeling shame for not being able to live my life when people who have overcome so much worse seem to find joy.
I’m just so tired of wasting my life. I carry all this shame, and it’s like bricks on my shoulders, and it prevents me from leaving the house.
I know it sounds like I should be able to get over it, but I can’t. I have tried, and I have tried.”
“Oh, Sophie.” I sat down a few steps lower than her, even though what I wanted to do was bow at her feet in penance for wronging her. I wanted to grab her hands that had gone back to twisting in her lap. I wanted to kiss every finger in supplication.
She shook her head and placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
Then she cleared her throat and lifted her chin with a sort of prim determination.
“I want you to help me,” she said all at once. “You’re right. If anyone can, it’s you.”
Well, shit.
Just when I realized I could never be enough for this woman.
“I know you were trying to help, Pace. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” She looked where her hand still rested on my biceps, then quickly pulled it back. After one more light squeeze. “It’s not just . . . stuff like this.”
She paused; I waited for her to find the words. I learned a long time ago with Levi that I didn’t have to try to fill every silence. I could let her take a minute to find the words she needed to say.
“This life is the only one I get, and I just don’t wanna do this anymore.
I have tried on my own for so many years, so maybe I do need someone like you.
Someone who doesn’t question everything.
Who just leaps in and figures it out. But it’s not just about parties like this.
These are just building blocks leading up to the important things. ”
I nodded to show I was listening.
“It’s like, if I can knock out the things on that list, then I can build to the real things. The important things, you know?”
“I think so.” I nodded again.
“Grandma is going to need me one day. In the most altruistic and pure way a person can be needed at their sunset of life. I want to take care of things for her.”
The way she took care of me was left unsaid but heavy in the air.
“I need to be able to call about billing issues and scheduling appointments. And what about when I start a family? I want a husband and kids, maybe, if it works out. I can’t imagine a world where I have to take them to checkups and dentist appointments as things stand now.
I want to be better for the future me. I think this list can fix me. ”
I was about to say that she wasn’t broken, but what did I know about anything?
“I recognize that I won’t be able to ever live like someone like you, not really.
But I can be better. This illness has me trapped in here,” she said with a tap to her temple.
“Rationally, I understand that there is something broken in my mind, like a wound that won’t heal.
” She put her head in her hands and pushed back her hair.
“It makes me feel selfish and childlike.”
I wished I could be a person who knew the right thing to say.
I didn’t know what she saw in me. I had thought I knew what bravery was; I certainly witnessed versions of it every day in my job, but this was a sort of courage I’d never even thought about.
It made me ache with the need to help her. I could do this.
“It’s humiliating. It’s shameful. I want to be a person that people can rely on. Not a burden that depletes those around me,” she finished.
This was more than just a trivial list of things to do. This list represented a future for her.
When have I ever represented a future for anybody?
I wasn’t enough for her. I couldn’t help her.
I wasn’t enough for Levi. I hadn’t been enough for Kaylee.
My own family was rarely around. My palms sweated at the fear of letting someone down.
But her eyes were wide and full of shining hope, and this had been my dumbass idea from the beginning.
I’d rushed in without thinking, but now I would make things right.
“Of course.” I held out a hand to help her up. “Of course, I’ll help you, Sophie.”