My brows flew up. “Really? I’m supposed to believe that? You’re sitting here telling me that you’re in love with the man I’m with, and I’m supposed to believe you’re trying to do me a favor?”
“I’m not still in love with him. I’ve learned my lesson,” she said, eyes bright. “And yes, I am doing you a favor, because if you’re still in love with him after all these years, you’ve wasted just as much time as I have, because he’s not with you because he loves you. He’s with you because he believes he ruined your life.”
My mouth popped opened.
“When he learned you dropped out of college? Screwed him up in the head. When he found out you were seeing someone that your parents never met, it messed him up. When he found out you were single again, living all alone, he was torn up. Everything that ever went wrong in your life since that night you were shot, he blamed himself for it.”
Oh my God.
“You might think it’s crazy. You may not even want to believe me, but he would go to the ends of the earth for you,” she said, snatching her purse off the floor. “But not for the right reasons.”
My hands were starting to shake. “You need to leave.”
Kristen shook her head at me like I was a fool turning down a million dollars. “You need to ask yourself why now. Why is he with you? If he wanted you and loved you for all the right reasons, why did it take six years?”
There could be a thousand reasons why it took us six years to find our way back to each other. Each of them equally valid. But I knew Brock carried some heavy guilt over what happened to me. Everyone knew it.
“Not only does he feel like he’s obligated to you. He feels like he owes your father. It’s a double whammy for him. Getting with you is making up for how he believes he failed to be there for you and for your father.”
I flinched, because I’d thought that myself. More than once. It was like she plucked it right out of my darkest thoughts.
Kristen rose. “Don’t be like me. Don’t spend years of your life convincing yourself that he’s there for you because of the right kind of feelings.” She turned and then looked over her shoulder. “Good luck, Jillian.”
I sat there, not moving, long after Kristen left, unable to shake what she’d said to me. I couldn’t laugh it off or disregard it, because . . . because it made sense.
It made too much sense.
“Yesterday is ashes; tomorrow is wood. Only today does the fire burn brightly.”
—Old Eskimo Proverb
Chapter 33
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t even flip out after Kristen left.
I didn’t call Brock.
I finished my day at the Academy and then I drove home without getting the huge plate of cheese fries like I’d anticipated earlier.
I drove home and found myself standing in the second bedroom, staring at all the wonderful books I’d brought home.
Mostly I was just in a daze as I turned over in my mind everything Kristen had said. Never would I have expected she would show up and say those things. If only the part she’d said about herself was true, the bare-bones honesty was shocking. But some of what she’d said hadn’t surprised me.
I’d always feared that Brock was here, back in my life and with me, truly with me, because he felt like he needed to. And that hurt, that cut so deep it was nearly a physical pain.
That fear made it feel like a gorilla was sitting on my chest. That fear stole my appetite. That fear swept the successes from the last couple of days right out from underneath me.
And I hated that.
Part of me just wanted to ignore what Kristen had said to me, and that was a huge part, because that’s what the old Jillian would’ve done. The one who didn’t have a flicker of fire in her.
The old Jillian would’ve settled.
That Jillian would’ve pretended that everything was okay, because it was easier and safer than facing the pain, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to forget it. It had wormed its way into my head and it would stay there even if I forced myself to let it go, and it would haunt everything I did and every word Brock spoke.
Reaching out, I dragged my fingers across the smooth spines of the books and then dropped my hand.
But I wasn’t her anymore.
The conversation with Kristen preyed on the doubts I’d buried deep over the last couple of weeks. They were now brought to the surface, leaving my skin and soul feeling raw and brittle.
I couldn’t just pretend the conversation between Kristen and me had never happened. I couldn’t wish it away. I couldn’t be okay with that fear that had existed before Kristen walked through the doors. I would talk to Brock. I just didn’t know what he could say that would truly erase the doubt, because I worried that this was more than him.
That I was letting what Kristen said dig in deep, because of my own issues—my doubts, my confidence, my fears.
And I didn’t know if it was all on me, and if it was, how I was going to fix that.
* * *
A hand slipped over my bare arm, to my hip, pushing the covers down my legs. The rough, calloused palm grazed my thigh, sending a rush of tight, hot shivers over my skin.
“Babe.” A deep voice stirred the hair against my temple.
Feeling a hard warm chest press against my back, I blinked open my eyes. Confusion swirled as I turned my head sideways. “Brock?”
He kissed the corner of my lips. “You say that like you don’t know it’s me.” The drag of his rough jawline along my neck caused me to gasp. “Who else would be climbing into your bed at one in the morning?”