Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 141425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Well, I do. I’m mostly the chastened one, because I’m the asshole.
“Stop this snipping. Now, let’s talk,” Mom says, with authority and love. “I understand you prefer to grunt like a caveman. But I’m not going to let you swing your arms and scratch your chest. Why did you break up with a woman you clearly care so deeply about?”
I consider the question for about two seconds, then jump in with the cold, unvarnished truth. “The kids asked us to get married. Married! She practically choked when they said that. Her eyes popped and she bolted from the room. So yeah, I did the right thing. Because she doesn’t need more stress in her life. She doesn’t need a guy with two kids. She doesn’t need a boss who’s also a boyfriend. She doesn’t need to have her job in question. Don’t you two get it?” I ask, exasperated all over again.
Miles nods, nice and long, then strokes his chin. “So you assumed you knew what was best for her. How’d that go for you?”
My chest tightens, like someone’s tied a belt around it. “She shut down. She didn’t even fight me on it. Hell, she was probably glad.”
My mother stares at me, like she can’t believe I’m selling this line. Boppity does the same. She’s so over me. “Tyler, do you really believe that?” my mom asks. “That she was probably glad?”
“Yes!” I shout, doubling down.
“Why?” she asks. Boppity barks. Cindy barks louder.
“Because of how she was acting,” I say, annoyed I have to rehash this hurt all over again, but rehash it I do, letting them know what went down the night my heart splintered into pieces.
When I finish with how Sabrina was just petting the kitten at the end, Miles stares at me with ferocity in his expression. “Did it ever occur to you, even once, even at all, that maybe she wasn’t shutting you out because she didn’t care? Maybe she shut down because she was already dealing with enough from her father?”
Mom gives me a sympathetic look. “Sweetheart, that has to be so hard for her,” she says, and her words are a jolt.
They’re jumper cables restarting my engine. “Wait,” I sputter. “You’re saying she just went along with it?”
Boppity lifts her chin and barks again at me. It sounds like you idiot in canine.
“Listen to your fur sister,” Mom says.
Miles chuckles under his breath, then mutters, “Yeah, Little Falcon.”
“Tyler, her father showed up that morning,” my mom says. “Do you think maybe that threw her off? Maybe it sent her spinning? Maybe it made her feel like her world had tipped upside down. From what you’ve said, he’s never supported her.”
“It’s so much worse than that,” I hiss out, the venom back in my voice. “He puts her down. He blames her. He twists everything. He accused her of having an affair with me before she almost married that tool.”
“That’s my point, sweetheart,” Mom says, reaching up to ruffle my hair. “She must have been hurting so much.”
Miles clears his throat. “And then, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Right after she has a run-in with the man who makes her feel worthless, she pulls back from you just a little. Maybe out of self-protection. And you assume that means she doesn’t want you,” Miles adds, pulling no punches.
How did I miss it? “Shit,” I mutter, dragging a hand through my hair, feeling like the world’s biggest idiot. She was robotic, yes. But she was also overperforming. She was making a million dishes at dinner. She was telling me every little thing she did for the kids. She was—a stark realization slams into me—making a spoken list for me of every damn thing she’d done. Like she used to do to track her skating performance. And she was in full skater mode Sunday night.
I didn’t connect the dots. She was protecting herself because of him. She was trying to be perfect for me because he’d been horrible to her. And then I proceeded to presume it was all about me—but it was all about her and him.
My heart aches horribly with all the hurt she must carry over that man.
And I didn’t even connect the dots. “I’m the world’s biggest idiot,” I mutter.
Miles holds his arms out wide. “At last, he learns!” Cindy twirls around Miles in a little doggie victory dance.
“Seriously. I am,” I add as my stomach drops and I replay how quiet she was when she told me about his visit. Like she could only get out a few words, here and there. She wasn’t holding back from me. She was holding in a dam of hurt, while clutching a kitten like a shield.
I should have been her shield. Not a little baby cat.
“What do I do now?” I ask, feeling utterly helpless, like I did when Parker was sick and I was hundreds of miles away.