Chapter Fourteen #2
He interrupted her, not letting her finish, ignoring the hurt on her face.
“Let me tell you what love is to me. A continual slog of violence. Blind optimism that propels you down the aisle of a church and then into making vows to people who are never going to do right by you. And I don’t even mean just my wife.
I mean me. You said it yourself. I was a bad husband. ”
“Not on the same level as your father,” she argued. “Not like your wife was a bad wife.”
He shrugged. “What did she get from me? Nothing but my money, clearly. And what about in your family? They’re normal, and I think they might even be good people, and they still kind of mess you up.”
“I guess you’re right. Loving other people is never going to be simple, or easy.
It’s not a constant parade of happiness.
Love moves. It shifts. It changes. Sometimes you give more, and sometimes you take more.
Sometimes love hurts. And there’s not a whole lot anyone can do about that.
But it’s worth it. That’s what it comes down to for me.
I know this might be a tough road, a hard one.
But I also know that love is important. It matters. ”
“Why?” he asked, the question torn from the depths of his soul.
He wanted to understand.
On some level, he was desperate to figure out why she thought he was worth all this. This risk—sitting before him, literally naked, confessing her feelings, tearing her chest open and showing those vulnerable parts of herself. He wanted to understand why he merited such a risk.
When no one else in his life had ever felt the same.
“All my life I’ve had my sketch pad between myself and the world,” she said.
“And when it hasn’t been my sketchbook it’s been my accomplishments.
What I’ve done for my family. I can hold out all these things and use them to justify my existence.
But I don’t have to do that with you. I don’t think I really have to do it with my family, but it makes me feel safe.
Makes me feel secure. I don’t have to share all that much of myself, or risk all that much of myself.
I can stand on higher ground and be impressive, perfect even.
It’s easy for people to be proud of me. The idea of doing something just for myself, the idea of doing something that might make someone judge me, or make someone reject me, is terrifying.
When you live like I have, the great unknown is failure.
You were never impressed with me. You wanted my architecture because it was a status symbol, and for no other reason. ”
“That isn’t true. If I didn’t like what you designed, I would never have contacted you.”
“Still. It was different with you. At first, I thought it was because you were a stranger. I told myself being with you was like taking a class. Getting good at sex, I guess, with a qualified teacher. But it wasn’t that. Ever. It was just you. Real chemistry with no explanation for it.”
“Chemistry still isn’t love, Faith,” he said, his voice rough.
She ignored him. “I want to quit needing explanations about something magical happening. I wanted to be close to you without barriers. Without borders. No sketchbook, no accomplishments. You made me want something flawed and human inside myself that scared me before.”
“The idea of some flawed existence is only a fantasy for people who’ve had it easy.”
She frowned. “It’s not a fantasy. The idea that there is such a thing as perfect is the fantasy. Maybe it’s the fantasy you have. But there is no perfect. And I’ve been scared to admit that.”
Tucking her hair behind her ear, Faith moved to the edge of the bed and stood before continuing.
“My life has been easy compared to yours. You made me realize how strong a person can be. I’ve never met someone like you.
Someone who had to push through so much pain.
You made yourself out of nothing. My family might come from humble beginnings, but it isn’t the same.
We had each other. We had support. You didn’t have any of that.
“I don’t want you to walk alone anymore, Levi. I want to walk with you. From where I’m sitting right now, that’s the greatest accomplishment I could ever hope to have. To love and be loved by someone like you. To choose to walk our own path together.”
“My path is set,” he said, standing. “It has been set from the beginning.”
He looked down at her, at her luminous face. Her eyes, which were full of so much hope.
So much foolish hope.
She didn’t understand what she was begging him to do. He had thought of it earlier. That he could pull her inside and lock her in this cage with him.
And he might be content enough with that for a while, but eventually... Eventually she wouldn’t be.
Because this hatred, this rage that lived inside him, was a life sentence.
Something he had been born with. Something he feared he would never be able to escape.
And asking Faith to live with him, asking Faith to live with what he was—that would be letting her serve a life sentence with him. And if anyone on this earth was innocent, it was her.
Even so, it was tempting.
He could embrace the monster completely and hold this woman captive. This woman who had gripped him, body and soul, and stolen his sense of self-preservation, stolen his sense of just why vengeance was so important.
It was all he had. It consumed him. It drove him.
Justice was the only thing that had gotten him through five years in prison. At first, wanting justice for his wife, and then, wanting it for himself.
Somewhere, in all of that, wanting justice had twisted into wanting revenge, but in his case it amounted to more or less the same. And he would not bring Faith into that world.
She stood there, a beacon of all he could not have. And still he wanted her. With all of him. With his every breath.
But he knew he could not have her.
Knew that he couldn’t take what she would so freely give, because she had no idea what the repercussions would be.
He knew what it was to live in captivity.
And he would not wish the same on her.
He had to let her go.
“No,” he said. “I don’t love you.”
“You don’t love me?” The question was almost skeptical, and he certainly hadn’t cowed her.
He had to make her understand what he was.
“No.”
It was easy to say the word, because what was love?
What did it mean? What did it mean beyond violence and betrayal, broken vows and everything else that had happened in his life?
He had no evidence that love was real. That there was any value in it.
And the closest he had ever come to believing was seeing Faith’s bright, hopeful eyes as she looked up at him.
And he knew he didn’t deserve that version of love.
No. If there was love, real love, and it was that pure, it didn’t belong with him.
Faith should give that love to someone who deserved it. A man who had earned the right to have those eyes look at him like he was a man who actually had the hope of becoming new, better.
Levi was not that man.
“I can’t love you. You or anyone.”
“That isn’t true. You have loved me for weeks now. In your every action, your every touch.”
“I haven’t.”
“Levi...” She pressed her hand to his chest and he wanted to hold it there. “You changed me. How can you look at me and say that what we have isn’t love?”
He moved her hand away. And took a step back.
“If there is love in this whole godforsaken world, little girl, it isn’t for me. You’ll go on and you’ll find a man who’s capable of it. Me? I’ve chosen vengeance. And maybe you’re right. Maybe there is another path I could walk on, but I’m not willing to do it.”
She stared at him, and suddenly, a deep understanding filled her brown eyes. He was the one who felt naked now, though he was dressed and she was not. He felt like she could see him, straight to his soul, maybe deeper, even, than he had ever looked inside himself.
It was terrifying to be known like that.
The knowledge in Faith’s eyes was deep and terrible. He wanted to turn away from it. Standing there, feeling like she was staring into the darkness in him, was a horror he had never experienced before.
“The bird is freedom. That’s what it means,” she said suddenly, like the sun had just risen and she could see clearly for the first time.
She turned away from him, grabbing her sketchbook off the bed and holding it up in front of his face.
“Look at this,” she said. “I have the real plans on my computer, but look at these.”
He flipped through the journal, until he found exactly what she was talking about. And he knew. The moment he saw it. He didn’t need her to tell him.
It was a drawing of a house. An aerial view. And the way it was laid out it looked like folded wings. It wasn’t shaped like a bird, not in the literal sense, but he felt it. Exactly what she had intended him to feel.
“I knew it was important to you, but I didn’t know why. Freedom, Levi. You put it on your body, but you haven’t accepted it with your soul.”
“Faith...”
“You never left that prison,” she said softly.
“I did,” he said, his voice hard. “I left it and I’m standing right here.”
“No,” she responded. “You didn’t. You’re still in there.
” She curled her fingers into fists, angry tears filling her eyes.
“That bitch got you a life sentence, Levi. But it was a wrongful sentence. The judge released you, but you haven’t released yourself.
You don’t deserve to be in prison forever because of her. ”
“It’s not just her,” he said, his voice rough.
“I imagined that if I changed my life, if I earned enough money, if I got married and got myself the right kind of house, that I would be free of the fate everyone in my life thought I was headed for. Don’t you think every teacher I ever had thought I was going to be like my father?
Don’t you think every woman in Copper Ridge who agreed to go on a date with me was afraid I was secretly a wifebeater in training?
They did. They all thought that’s how I would end up.
The one way people could never have imagined I would end up was rich.
I did it to defy them. To define my own fate, but it was impossible.
I still ended up in prison, Faith. That was my fate, no matter what I did. Was it her? Or was it me?”
“It’s not you,” she said. “It isn’t.”
“I can’t say the same with such authority,” he said.
“You’re not a bad man,” she said, her voice trembling.
“You aren’t. You’re the best man I’ve ever known.
But you can tattoo symbols of freedom on your skin all you want, it won’t make a difference.
Revenge is not going to set you free, Levi.
Only hope can do that. Only love can do that.
You have to let it. You have to let me.”
He couldn’t argue, because he knew it was true. Because he had known that if he brought her into his life then he would be consigning her to a prison sentence, too.
And if it was true for her, it was true for him.
He was in prison. But for him there would be no escape.
She could escape.
“For my part,” he said, his voice flat, as flat as the beating of his heart in his ears, “I’ve chosen vengeance. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
“Levi...” She blinked. “Can you just give us a chance? You don’t have to tell me that you love me now. But can’t you just—”
“No. We’re done. The house is done, and so are we. It’s already gone on too long, Faith, and the fact that I’ve made you cry is evidence of that.”
“Please,” she said. “I’ll beg. I don’t have any pride. I’m more than willing to fall into that virgin stereotype you are so afraid of,” she reiterated. “Happily. Because there is no point to pride if I haven’t got you.”
He gritted his teeth and took a step forward, gripping her chin between his thumb and forefinger.
“Now, you listen to me,” he said. “There is every reason for you to have pride, Faith Grayson. Your life is going to go on without me. And when you meet the man who loves you the way you deserve to be loved, who can give you the life you should have, you’ll understand. And you’ll be grateful for your pride.”
“I refuse to take a lecture on my feelings from a man who doesn’t even believe in what I feel.
” She turned and began to collect her clothes.
“I still want you to have my design. My house. Because when you’re walking around in it, I want you to feel my love in those walls.
And I want you to remember what you could have had.
” She blinked her eyes. “I designed it with so much care, Levi. To be sure that you never felt like you were locked in again. But you’re going to feel like you’re in prison.
Whether you’re inside or outside. Whether you’re alone or with me or whether you’re on the back of a horse or not.
And it’s a prison of your own making. You have to let go.
You have to let go of all the hate you’re carrying around.
And then you might be surprised to find out how much love you can hold.
If you decide to do that, please come and find me. ”
She dressed quietly, slowly, and without another word. Then she grabbed her sketchbook and turned and walked out of the bedroom.
He didn’t go after her. He didn’t move at all until he heard the front door shut, until he heard the engine of her car fire up.
He walked into the bathroom, bracing himself on the sink before looking up slowly at his reflection. The man he saw there...was a criminal.
A man who might not have committed a crime, but who had been hardened by years in jail. A man who had arguably been destined for that fate no matter which way he had walked in the world, because of his beginnings.
The man he saw there...was a man he hated more than he hated anyone.
His father. His ex-wife.
Anyone.
Levi looked down at the countertop again, and saw the cup by the sink where his toothbrush was. Where Faith’s still was.
That damn toothbrush.
He picked up the cup and threw it across the bathroom, the glass shattering decisively, the toothbrushes scattering.
It was just a damn toothbrush. She was just a woman.
In the end, he would have exactly what he had set out to get.
And that was all a man like him could ever hope for.