He closed his eyes, cutting her off from the view of his emotions. “I know that now.”
“But you didn’t reach out. Didn’t try to reconnect.”
“I assumed you hated me after I ended things like that.”
“I did. For a long, long time. I knew something was wrong. You don’t come out of that hellhole without being screwed up in so many ways,” she said, choking back a sick laugh. “And I guessed it had to do with PTSD. Intrusive thoughts. Dreams. Nightmares.”
“Never intrusive thoughts,” he insisted, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I never had actual...images...or fantasies of....”
He seemed to need her to know that. She nodded.
“Just because you dream something doesn’t mean you want it to happen.”
“Jesus, Suzanne, it was the opposite. I couldn’t get the fucking dreams out of my sleep. So I stopped sleeping.”
“Which really helped,” she said with a wry smile. “I’m sure.”
“I went mad. Crazy. And the fleeting sleep I did have was filled with dreams of hurting you.” He looked at her with such rawness, such tender pain, that Suzanne felt the wind knocked out of her. Once in a while, during litigation, Suzanne had moments where every thought in her head drained out of her at once, abandoning her to a world of eyes and judgment. She would stand still, horrified by her muteness, completely incapable of putting together a coherent sentence.
Over the years she’d learned to weather those moments, and to trust that her brain’s hiccup would end.
She had no idea her heart could hiccup, too.
“You hurt me emotionally in unfathomable ways to prevent yourself from hurting me with your hands?”
“You could put it that way.”
“I just did.”
“Then yes.”
“I wish you’d told me. I wouldn’t have left.”
“I knew that. Which is exactly why I did leave. If I’d stayed, I would have dragged you through everything. Every crazy bit of it.”
“I had my own crazy, too.”
“Not like me, Suz. Not like me.”
Haunted men have a similar look. Their eyes go hollow and ragged. Women, too, except the look is more subtle. Muted. Trained from childhood to smile, to please, grown women who go through trauma have a pained friendliness that belies what’s underneath.
Men aren’t held to the same standards.
But Suzanne could still see the trauma in him.
“Has ten years been long enough?”
“For what?”
“To heal?”
“Yes. I have better tools in my coping toolbox. I know how to handle life. I didn’t at first.”
The isolation, the loneliness, the outright madness he must have felt all those years ago, driven to leave her in order to protect her, made her ache.
And pissed.
But mostly sad. So sad.
Another sliver of anger peeled off her, floating on the wind, carried far away like wood shavings in the hands of a fine woodcarver.
This was a breaking point. Years ago, he’d broken her. She’d put herself back together and gone on, but even now she had to admit to herself how much she hadn’t gotten over him. How the hole had remained, though she’d learned to live with it. His revelation meant nothing.
Truly.
“Do you know how hard it was to leave you? In my own twisted logic, I was sure I made the right decision. But people who aren’t thinking right are, by definition, unable to make good decisions.” His look was feral. “I was a lost cause. I was damned either way, so I thought that picking the one way that wouldn’t damn you, too, was the best choice.”
“And I hated you for it. All these years, I’ve hated you for it.”
“I understand.”
“And loved you, too. Not for making that decision. Just for being you. Just—”
“I know,” he said softly, respecting the space between them, not closing. She loved him for that, too. “I know.”
“Look at me,” she demanded, forcing his eyes to stay on hers. “You just told me your biggest secret. Your biggest fear. And I’m still here. Right here.”
His throat shook as he swallowed.
“See? Whatever you thought would happen, didn’t.”
He nodded, closing his eyes, the wave of emotion that coursed across his skin a kinesthetic sign of the emotional tsunami underneath.
“You never looked me up?” she asked.
“I knew you went to Michigan for law school. Then I stopped looking.”
“You had no idea I’ve been in Boston for more than seven years?”
He shook his head, then winced, holding his palm against his jaw. “No.”
“We’ve been in the same city for seven years and never crossed paths.”
“We did indirectly. Who do you think drove Declan and Andrew to those family trust meetings?”
The space between them closed as she took a step toward him. “I had no idea.”
One step. He took one step, too.
The space was halved.
“I would never hurt you, Suzanne. Never. I’d die before I’d let anyone hurt you, including me.”
“I know.”
“And I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
Could she do this? The funny part was that the dreams he had—hurting her?—didn’t matter. Not one iota. It was the secrecy. The shame he felt in telling her. Was that still there?
“Were you going to tell me? Before Kulli beat you to it?”
“Yes.”
She believed him, and not just because she wanted to believe him.