Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
I swallow hard against the thickness in my throat. Are my eyes still leaking? I’m burning with mortification. I can’t believe this is happening. “I’m a grown man, and now you know that someone else made me a victim. I hate that I was helpless.”
“You were a child.”
“Not forever. I was older, and I got bigger. But I still couldn’t stop it. I was weak. I still have so many weaknesses. And I hate it.”
“No.” Her hands flutter over my temples. “That’s not what weakness is. And even if you do have one or two or a thousand, who cares? Who gives a shit? What’s pride? Pride is nothing. Pride is so dumb. It gets you nowhere. Everyone is strong and weak sometimes. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter.” She looks like she wants to give me the one thing I’ve had far too little of in my life—affection. But I can’t hope. I can’t believe in that.
“I became exactly what he wanted me to be. Some hard asshole.”
“No. No.” I screw my eye shut. That word. No. Such a simple but profound word. I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear it and how I needed someone who wasn’t close to me to tell me that it wasn’t and isn’t my fault. That I’m not, and never will be, my father.
“Darby…”
“You protected your mom and your sister.” Her hands in my hair are so, so sweet. “You made sure they were safe, and you gave up your body and a pain-free future to do that. He could have killed you, and you still stayed so that he wouldn’t go after them. After all of that, you worked so hard, and you built your company from nothing. You made sure those struggling companies and all those people with all those dreams still get to keep them. You never took it from them. Not their hope. Not their reason for dreaming in the first place. You never made them pay more than they could afford. You have so many charities that the company supports and ones that you support personally, and I know you care about all of them. And the rest? I would be surly too if I were in pain all the time.”
“Darby—”
“No,” she breathes. “Just wait a second. This is the good part that I was getting to.” Her eyes are shining furiously. “There has to be hope. Other people have had concussions and head trauma. There has to be someone or something…We just need to find them. We need to ask.”
“We?”
“Yes. We. Us. Together.”
I shake my head. I won’t do it. I won’t get those stupid tests or take pills that turn me into someone I’m not. “No.” I swipe at my eyes. She’s still sitting on my lap. I should set her gently on her feet and put distance between us. I should not let her be out here offering me comfort like a toddler. I’m a grown man. I’m not pushing her away from me. I want to cling to her and smell the caramel and vanilla in her hair for just a few seconds longer.
“You are the bravest man I know.”
“You must not know many—”
“Leon! Shut it!” Ahh. I nearly smile. The toughness. Giving it to me straight, which is the only way I’ll accept it. “You know what else I know? I…I care about you.”
My heart stops, and I find that my cheeks are still wet. I can’t believe her. No one should have to care about me. This is exactly what I have never wanted for anyone. No one should have to bear the burden of another person. That’s all I would be—a burden. I was a burden last night, and I’m a burden this morning. Care, feelings, tenderness, soft emotions—they’re not for me. Never for me. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve her soft looks, her compassion, and the way she said she was breaking apart last night. I don’t deserve her pain, and I’m sorry that I caused it.
“Was that between the menial tasks I made you do for a year and when I was puking and groveling on the floor last night, or was it—”
“Yes.” She cups my face. She won’t let me hide or self-destruct. “Yes, between when I first met you and now, and I won’t let you devalue it or tell me that I can’t feel that way. You think you’re beyond goodness because someone beat that notion into you? Well, I will help you believe that you deserve all the goodness, and I won’t stop. You are not anything less than worthy. You are beautiful, you are a wonderful person, and you are not alone. I’m going to care about you, Leon, and I’m not going to stop.”
“Please don’t say for better or worse.”