Chapter Thirty-Six #2
“I know so,” I said. “The way you talk about her—it’s obvious. You look out for her without even realizing it. I mean, yeah, you’re annoying and rude, but you listen. You care. You make her feel safe. That’s...rare.”
He smiled then, but it was small, sad around the tips. “Sometimes I think I’m just trying to make up for Keenan.”
“You can’t replace someone. But you can love the ones still here. And you do that so damn well.”
“Careful, Lillian,” he murmured. “You’re starting to sound like you actually like me.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.”
For a while, there was only quiet. Then, out of nowhere, he said, “How did you know that your mom didn’t want you?”
I scoffed. “Because she told me.”
“Seriously?”
I nodded, eyes tracing the shadows across the wall. “I was seven when she said it. Not in anger—just...in exhaustion. Like I was another chore she hadn’t signed up for.”
I could still see it—the pretty vanity mirror in her room I was never allowed in, the smell of her hairspray clouding the air, the pain in my neck from sitting too still.
“I’d just been invited to my first birthday party.
She was furious the entire day. When we went shopping for a gift, for an outfit, when she was doing my hair—she complained through all of it.
‘Boy presents are easier to shop for, Lillian.’ ‘Boy clothes are easier to pick out, Lillian.’ ‘Boy hair is easier to brush, Lillian.’ Like my very existence was an inconvenience she couldn’t return.
” My voice trembled, but I didn’t stop. “I remember how she yanked the brush through my hair until my scalp burned. I can still feel it—every pull, every sting. After all her huffing and puffing, she met my eyes in the mirror and said it so calmly it almost didn’t sound cruel.
‘I never wanted this, Lillian. I never wanted you, but you came anyway. What am I supposed to do with you?’ Then she smoothed a pink bow into my perfect, painful hairdo and walked out like she hadn’t just rewritten the rest of my childhood.
That was the first and last birthday party I ever went to.
The last time I asked her to do my hair or help me pick an outfit. ”
I breathed in shakily, the loft thick and weighted with both our ghosts.
“I wore my brother’s hand-me-downs until I was sixteen and got a job.
They didn’t want me to work, so I did it in secret.
I used my first paycheck to buy an outfit that was the complete opposite of everything she’d ever made me wear.
” I paused. “Oh—right. You already knew that part.” My laugh came out awkward and strangled.
“I didn’t tell Sarah to say any of that, by the way. So embarrassing.”
“It’s not embarrassing,” he assured me.
The sweetness in his voice made it hard to keep looking at him. So I looked at the couch cushion instead, forcing myself to keep going.
“The point is that I built my entire life in defiance of her—every choice, every version of myself sculpted out of rebellion. I was obsessed with being her contradiction, obsessed with doing what she wouldn’t, saying what she hated, becoming everything she swore I’d never be.
That’s why I wanted to win the hospital initiative so badly,” I admitted.
“I don’t feel...deserving of any of this. Of my career. Of my success.”
The words left an acidic taste in my mouth, like I’d said something shameful, something I wasn’t supposed to confess.
“I know it looks like arrogance,” I went on, staring down at my hands.
“But really, I’m just overcompensating—feigning confidence so no one notices how much I’m still trying to prove that I’ve stopped chasing validation and started believing in myself.
Most of the time, I feel like an impostor walking around in a white coat that belongs to someone else.
That belongs to my mother.” I let out a humorless laugh.
“I guess I wanted to win because maybe then I could finally think I earned something for the right reasons. That I wasn’t just living in opposition to someone else’s disappointment. ”
He didn’t speak right away. His gaze softened, thoughtful rather than teasing, and when he did finally talk, his voice carried no judgment. “I get that,” he said. “When someone spends your whole life telling you who you’re not, it’s hard not to build your entire identity around proving them wrong.”
My throat tightened, but he kept going. “But Lillian, that’s not what you did.
You didn’t react to her—you became in spite of her.
You worked yourself into the ground for years, you studied until your eyes blurred, you graduated early, beat out thousands of applicants for your spot in medical school, got offered a full ride.
You showed up for every patient who needed you.
That’s not defiance—that’s devotion. That’s purpose. ”
He tilted his head, his expression somewhere between affection and disbelief. “You really think all that happened because your mother told you not to be a doctor?” He chuckled lightly. “I love you, but your brain is playing tricks on you.”
His smile deepened, but the warmth of it couldn’t stop the next truth from slipping out.
“It sounds simple when you say it like that, but...somewhere in all that rebelling, I still can’t help but wonder if I ever stopped fighting long enough to become anyone real.
If I lost track of the person I was supposed to become.
She’s been in control for so long, pulled the strings for so long that when they finally snapped, I couldn’t tell where her grip ended and I began.
I don’t know if there’s a version of me she didn’t create just to spite her.
I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know if I’ve ever known. ”
His fingers traced my cheekbone, then the corner of my mouth. “I know who you are, Lillian.”
My lips curved despite the sting behind my eyes. “Yeah? Who’s that?”
“You’re aggravating, and difficult, and impossible to reason with. You talk too much, and you never think before you speak. Your mood swings definitely give me whiplash, and you’re stubborn enough to argue with gravity if it dared to pull you in the wrong direction.”
A small, broken laugh slipped out of me, but he wasn’t smiling. His thumb kept moving across my skin.
“But you’re also brave,” he continued. “You walk through fire like it’s a hallway you’ve memorized.
You care so deeply it hurts to watch sometimes.
You don’t hide from your feelings—you let them swallow you whole.
And that’s rare, Lillian. Most people spend their lives running from what you face every day.
” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re kind.
God, you’re so kind. After everything she took from you, you still have this heart that keeps giving.
You didn’t let her ruin you. You didn’t let her turn you cold.
” His forehead touched mine. “That’s who you are.
You just forgot for a while. But I see you. I always have.”
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. His breath mingled with mine, his hands cradling my face like he was holding me together.
Maybe he was. My chest burned with everything I wanted to say, everything I couldn’t.
So instead, I leaned in and kissed him tenderly—a question whispered against his lips, an answer whispered back—until the gooey mask tangled into my mouth mid-smooch.
I yanked it off impatiently, ignoring the fact that the timer hadn’t even gone off yet. “Yeah, no,” I muttered against his lips, smearing a little residue on both of us. “Not ideal for kissing.”
He chuckled, his grip sliding to the back of my neck, pressing at the base of my skull. When we finally pulled apart, I kept my forehead against his, still grinning at the ridiculousness of it all.
“You’re kind too,” I said. “You just won’t let yourself think it.”
He let out a breath, part laugh, part disbelief. “I’m not.”
“You are. You stood outside every evening, in public, where anyone could see you, taking pictures of the sky for me because you knew how much I loved them, and how rarely I got to see them.” I swallowed hard. “That’s kindness.”
His eyes softened, something unreadable flickering through them—regret, maybe, or wonder, or both.
“I didn’t do it out of kindness. I did it because every time I saw them, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.
I barely noticed the damn things before I met you, and then, I don’t know.
..you made everything in my life brighter. ”
“That’s worse,” I teased, and he laughed under his breath before kissing me again—vigorously this time.
“You don’t know what you do to me, Lillian,” he whispered. “Meeting you felt like God poured sunshine into a person and called it you. I lived my entire life thinking the world was gray, and then you showed up—like you were created just for me, like color was never meant to exist without you.”
I wanted to tell him that my sunshine had never felt like sunshine.
That it felt more like an annoying storm cloud—blustering, untamed, rolling in uninvited.
That people learned to carry umbrellas around me, bracing themselves, waiting me out.
That I’d grown up believing I was something best enjoyed in limited quantities, tolerated briefly, then awkwardly moved away from once the novelty wore off.
I wanted to tell him that I’d spent years dimming myself, apologizing mid-sentence, sanding down my edges before anyone else could complain about them. That if I was weather, I’d always been warned I was the kind that ruined plans.
But his gaze was boring into mine like none of that was true. Like I wasn’t something to endure. Like I was something that made the world warmer just by existing.
And laying there, locked in that look, I realized how terrifying it was to be seen that way, how dangerous it felt to want to believe him, to wonder if I ever could.
He brushed his fingers along my jaw, outlining the curve of my right cheek. “Is this where she hit you?”
I shook my head, turning my face just enough for the other side to catch the light. “This one.”
His touch followed, caressing the skin like he could wipe away the hurt. Then his lips replaced it—warm, soft, heartbreakingly gentle. “Anywhere else?” he murmured.
“No. That was the only time.”
But the look in his eyes said he knew better—that the bruises she’d left had nothing to do with skin.
“I know this won’t make up for everything you went through,” he whispered, voice thick, trembling just enough to shatter me.
“But I am...so sorry. I am so, so sorry, Lillian. If I could somehow erase those memories, those moments when you ever felt—even for a second—that you weren’t wanted on this earth, that you weren’t worthy of being loved, of being cherished.
..I swear, I would do it in a heartbeat. ”
Hot tears sprang to my eyes. I’d spent years waving off the things I’d gone through, smoothing over the past, shrinking it down into something manageable, something easier to carry, like the way my mother treated me was nothing.
It could’ve been worse, I always told myself, don’t be so dramatic.
But it wasn’t nothing. It was something. It was a lot of painful somethings.
And yet, his words, his acknowledgment, his apology for my mother.
..they reached that part of me I’d tucked away long ago.
The little girl I thought I’d buried stirred, blinking in the warmth of being seen, being heard, being loved.
I felt her there, quivering but alive, lifting her head at the sound of someone finally saying what she’d needed to hear all along. That it mattered. That she mattered.
“Your mother,” he said, a sardonic venom to his tone, “is, respectfully, a terrible woman. But she did one thing right. She gave me you. And I...I can’t ever go back to a life without knowing what it’s like to have you.
” He stared into me like I was the only thing worth seeing, his liquid caramel eyes swimming with devotion.
“She may not have wanted you, but I do. I’ll always want you.
I’ll want you enough to make up for all the moments she let slip away. ”
His mouth found mine again. Each kiss felt like it was trying to make a point, and I wasn’t sure which of us was winning. His lips moved to my ear. “Are you still hungry?”
I was still catching my breath. “No,” I managed. “Are you?”
“Starving,” he replied. “Not for food, though.”
A surprised laugh escaped me. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Yes,” he said, his tone dipping low, amusement threading through it. “But only when it comes to you. I don’t know how I’m going to focus on my lectures tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Because all I’m going to be thinking of is this.
” He kissed my forehead. “And this.” A kiss to my nose.
“And this.” His lips skimmed over my cheeks.
“Mm, and especially this.” The last kiss landed on my mouth, making my brain melt into a puddle of useless, love-drunk goo.
“What about you? Are you going to be able to focus at work?”
“Yes,” I lied. “I’m not as affected by you as you are by me.”
His smirk curved, slow and disbelieving. “Is that so?”
“Mhm.” The sound barely qualified as speech.
He trailed a hand down my arm, catching the hem of my tank top. “Well,” he said, tugging it up and over my head in one fluid motion, “I guess I’ll have to spend the rest of the day fixing that.”
I had some clever retort hovering on the tip of my tongue, but the words dissolved into nothingness as his kisses started to travel down south.
His lips traced a path down my neck, my chest, my stomach, each touch more intentional than the last, igniting a fire that burned through every nerve ending.
Somewhere between breath and heartbeat, I forgot how to speak entirely.