Page 122 of Hero for the Holidays

And now it meant...What can I give you? How can I be there for you? How can I build my life around yours?

Because the same two people could have the same passion, and find something more. Because the same two people could say the same words, and mean something different. Because the same two people, who had once been too young, too immature, could make a family. They could. With time. And healing. With a willingness to look at where they had gone wrong, and to change.

“I love you so much, Fia. I love you.”

She cried out, her internal muscles convulsing around him. And he kissed her. On her nose, her cheeks. Her mouth.

“I love you,” he said again.

She shuddered and shook, and he held her after.

And it was okay that she didn’t say the words back. Because his feelings weren’t tied to them.

Finally, he knew that it was love. That he wanted to give it without expectation. Without a need for a response, because it wasn’t about tricking her into doing something or feeling something or being something. It was just about him loving her. And yes, he wanted to be in her bed.

Yes, he wanted.

But it wasn’t a trade.

He had been hoping for the baby to hold them together. And when that had been removed, it had knocked the wind out of him. Taken the power out of what he had professed as love.

He wasn’t looking for glue now. Love was enough as it was.

He fell asleep holding her. And when he woke in the gray light of dawn, Fia was gone.

FIASATATthe top of the hill, out by the cabin. Waiting for the sun to rise. Waiting for something to undo the oppressive darkness winding through her soul. Waiting to feel whole. He loved her.

Landry King loved her. She knew for a fact it was the last wall she couldn’t demolish, the last door she couldn’t beat down.

She knew for a fact that it was the thing she was afraid of.

And so she sat there, in that place where they had run underneath the stars holding hands, when they were sixteen, and thirty. When they were younger, and older. And she cried. For the girl she’d been and the woman she was, who still didn’t quite know how to have all this.

How to feel it all.

She knew what she wanted. It was clear.

It was right there. And yet she had felt safer these last few weeks with a portion. It felt manageable. It felt like something the world wouldn’t take away.

And just as the sun rose, there in the distance, she saw him walking up the hill. The bastard Landry King. His hat on his head, the gold lining his body. He looked like an angel. Except Landry had never been her angel.

“Hey, baby,” he said. “What are you doing up here?”

“Running away,” she said, wiping at tears on her cheeks.

“Why are you running from me?”

“Because it can’t be real. I can’t be. Because I gave you everything I had once. Just you. And if I give it all again, then what’s going to be left? I don’t know if I know how to love you and keep my sanity. I’m afraid. Because what’s going to happen if I do something that breaks us again? And this time I was in the middle of it. It’s not fair, because you’ve apologized to me. Over and over again, but I cannot forget what it felt like to look at you and see that you didn’t love me anymore. I will never forget that, Landry. And the worst thing is that not only did I see the love leave your eyes, I couldn’t even fight for it. Because I didn’t think I was worth it anymore. And I fixed that. I found better for myself. I trusted myself and I believed myself. But I just...”

“What is it?” he asked. “What is it that you need, and I will give it to you. I’m listening. It matters to me.”

“I know it does. I know.”

“What do you need from me? I will love you with no expectations, Fia. I will never leave you. You don’t have to love me back. You don’t have to agree to marry me. We don’t have to have sex. I just love you.”

“Why?” she asked. “I don’t understand why, and if I don’t understand why, how the hell am I ever gonna trust that you’re not going to take it away? Everyone has left me. My father left because he found another woman. My mother left because she had to go find herself. And you left me when I did the only thing that I knew to do. I have had to keep it together, to hold it together for everybody around me... But everybody leaves me.”

“I am sorry. I will never forgive myself for that. Because you deserved better.”

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