Chapter 24 #2
It hurt to hear him say things like that when I loved him so much. His good qualities were a mile long and I couldn’t even think of a single one for his parents.
“It’s why I don’t like to talk about them.”
“And why you don’t have any photos of them,” I finished for him.
He nodded.
“The only one who saw value in me was my grandfather. He was the one who tried to love me when they couldn’t.”
His words tore at me. I touched his hand, needing him to feel that he wasn’t alone.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I couldn’t imagine how he must have felt.
“It is what it is.” He shrugged it off.
“It’s why you spent so much time at our house.” Knowing parts of his past made it easier to understand him.
“When I met your family, I saw what a real family was like. Loving parents who loved their kids unconditionally. ”
“But your grandfather loved you.”
“As much as he could, but he had limited experience in that department.”
My lip trembled. It was so painful to hear or to even think about him as a small child without the parents he deserved. I touched his cheek.
“You are a good man, Mark. No matter what happened in your childhood or the crappy parents you had, you are one of the best people I know.” I searched his eyes.
He frowned. “I’m not. There are things you don’t know about me. Things few people know.”
It sounded ominous but I didn’t believe it for a second.
“There’s nothing you can say or do that’ll change that.” I shook my head, refusing to believe him.
He would do the right thing no matter what the situation. It was who he was. He was the guy in high school who fought the bullies. Not once had I known him to make a decision I would question.
“You told me you loved me.” His eyes held mine, and suddenly I felt winded.
I hadn’t expected him to bring that up but, while we were on the subject, I was going to be honest—more honest than I think I had ever been with anyone. He needed to hear it.
“I did. It’s true. I love you, I think I always have.”
“You shouldn’t. If you really knew me, you wouldn’t.”
“What do you mean? I know you.” I had known him for years.
“No, you think you do but you don’t.”
I rubbed my temple slightly, making sure not to touch my stitches. “Are you having second thoughts about us?”
His mother’s words echoed in my mind. Was this his way of letting me down gently? It felt unbelievable that we had come this far for it to end now .
“No.” His voice was confident, which made me feel some relief. “I’m too selfish to let you go.”
He was making no sense. He studied me, but I refused to believe anything he was saying.
“You are a good guy.” I put my hands on my hips, determined to win this conversation. The sudden movement pulled sharply at my still tender ribs.
“Ouch.” I put my hand to the side that throbbed with renewed pain.
Mark was up and beside me in a flash. “I should be taking care of you, not arguing with you.”
“I’m not an invalid, and stop treating me like I’m going to break.”
“You had a serious accident,” he argued.
He steered me to his room. Sometimes I loved it when he took charge and other times it annoyed me. Today I was somewhere between the two extremes. He pulled the covers back and I sat down carefully. He removed my shoes and made me lie down.
“You’ve had a long afternoon and you need to rest.”
I had an uneasy feeling sitting in the middle of my chest and I couldn’t shake it. I studied him as he pulled the covers over me and tucked me in.
“Promise me you won’t push me away,” I said to him quietly. “I don’t think I could take it.”
He stilled. Letting someone in like this wasn’t something he ever did.
“I won’t,” he promised, leaning over to kiss me briefly on the lips. “Get some sleep and I’ll make sure there’s food when you wake up.”
When he got up to leave, I touched my lips, savoring the kiss he had just given me, feeling—despite his words—that this might be one of our last.
I was too worked up to sleep but I lay on my side and watched him leave the room. I loved him so much, but he didn’t feel worthy of it and I couldn’t understand why.
Had his parents screwed him up so bad that he couldn’t allow someone to truly love him?
When he came back to check on me, I pretended to be sleeping. The bed sank beside me and I felt his fingers touch my face. It took all my self-control not to open my eyes. Instead, I kept my breathing steady so he wouldn’t suspect I was awake.
For a while he was quiet. I felt his thumb brush lightly over my cheek.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered so softly I barely caught it, “but I can’t change what I’ve done.”
I wanted to argue but I remembered I was pretending to sleep. The emotion was raw in his voice and it touched my heart. He had never been vocal about how he felt about me but hearing him now left me with no doubt he cared, a lot.
There wasn’t anything I could learn about him that would make me let him go. I had loved him for so long and I had never believed he would feel the same. The fact that we were together and we both cared about each other was all I had ever wanted and there was no way I was letting go of that.
For the first time, I had someone to share my life with, the good and bad bits. And I wasn’t going to give that up for anything.