Page 48 of I See Red

Continuing to lace his fingers around my back, he holds no prisoners.

“Do yous think you’re ever going to choose?”

“What do you mean? Choose what?”

“Liam and Tayden. Do yous think you’ll ever make the choice between them?”

His words send a pit to my stomach, but it’s only there because I’ve been holding this answer in for more years than even makes sense. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, and Tayden and I are the truest form of that. The result will never change, leaving me forever living in my own insanity.

“I’m not sure. There are things I do know for certain and always have, but I think I hold on in hopes of finding a different outcome to the scenario. I’ve loved Tayden almost my entire life.I can’t imagine it without him, but I can’t imagine one with him either.”

“Why? Why can’t yous see a future?”

Taking a deep breath, my mind starts racing, trying to undo the spider web of that answer.

“That’s a loaded question.” Turning over, placing my cheek against his chest, my eyes search his, and safety is granted to me through his emerald greens. His fingers run through my sun-kissed hair. Something about him makes telling your truths feel a little less intimidating.

“I—um,well,there’re many versions of an answer to that question, and a couple people whom I’m sure would love to know it themselves, Olive being one. When I think about choosing, I think of how neither is perfect. They both feed me in different ways and withhold me from things in others. On one hand, Tayden is a family man. He grew up in this perfect world with a normal upbringing. Sure, his parents divorced, and that fucked with him, but he’s an amazing dad and human outside his indiscretions. At his core is his family though. Being with him would mean putting myself in a position where I have never been.Part of one. I always dreamed of being with someone who had a large family, and the nostalgia of what I imagine that to be like. I fucking crave and want it so desperately, but then I realize I wouldn’t even know what to do with it. I have never been a sister or a granddaughter, nor an aunt or a cousin. I never even knew what being a true daughter was, and I certainly have no idea about being a mother—nor do I desire to. In theory, Tayden brings me hope that one day I could learn to be all those things, that I could have that joy and experience unconditional love and acceptance like I so desperately try to make an effort to always give. It seems like a beautiful thing to have, and I believe it could be healing for me, but I know myself, and I would find a way to self-destruct it. I know it sounds so stupid, but I have visions ofhim and I sometimes dancing around our kitchen late at night, his daughter coming in wearing her jammies because we woke her, joining in and the three of us tirelessly dancing and laughing the night away. I imagine holidays with his family andIt’s beautiful.In theory, Tayden can give me all that, but when the coin flips on the other side, it is simply just fantasy. Because I’m not her. I’m not that version of myself I want to be, I’m very selfish at times and to attempt it would only ruin us, ruin me, and remind me of all I never had. In a way, I worry I’d become jealous and find a reason not to accept their love, and that would hurt him. He deserves someone who can be what he needs. Someone that fits into his life. So, I lock those dreams deep within me. I love the man while holding onto make-believe because it’s safer there. In a fucked-up way, I think I hold onto him because I don’t know how to survive without him. I can’t unlove him, but I can’t jump off the cliff with him either because loving each other is easy from a distance, but I imagine if we lived together, we both couldn’t present ourselves in the way in which we do with distance and through text. We’d really see each other good, bad, and ugly, and I’m not sure we would love like we do when the game is placed to the side and the masks come off. The perfect reflection we see now may be full of cracks or even shatter in day-to-day life together, and it’s not a gamble I wish to take because it’s one I may not survive the consequences of. One he may not either, and that singular thought makes my heart fucking ache. The short answer is that I don’t want to fail at being who I am to Tayden. Dissecting it even deeper, we are simply part children, still playing dress up and pretend, all while being half adults in a world with consequences bigger than a simple nineties childhood script rewrite. The hardest ones to let go of are the ones who got away; he’s that for me.”

Wiping a tear from my eye his voice cracks.

“Fuhking—hell baby girl. That’s a brutal amount of self-awareness. Yous and I aren’t so different, you know. Deep-rooted self-awareness has been brutal for me at times. It’s so pure, yet toxic, wrapped in a fuhked up bow, never knowing what will come when you unwrap it. Whether you’ll find self-preservation or self-destruction, can be fuhking exhausting. I’ve always known yous have it, but I guess hearing it makes me resonate with you even more. What about Liam?”

“What’s it you always say? Good and evil? It’s why we work. Honestly, It’s not much different. Simply the opposite, really.”

“Hows so?”

“Fuhking Liam” rolls off my tongue in an attempt to lighten the mood, imitating his accent, earning me a vicious punishing spanking.

“Valid.” Laughs escape me at the sting.

“Fucking Liam, he lets me be me. Every version of me is accepted by him, even the versions he’s never seen. I feel safe that he would either way. Even though I second guess it all the time, hence why I hide so much of my story from him. As you know, I don’t know a lot about him. I know he doesn’t have any family—none that he’s ever spoken of or mentioned. It sounds fucked up, I’m aware, trust me,butI find comfort in it. Ishouldwant him to have that, but selfishly, I feel less alone because he doesn’t. In a way, we are both unconnected nomads walking this earth, doing what we love while not having much requested of us from the world outside our home besides work. I love that we only really have each other. He doesn’t require deep emotion or conversation from me. He loves what I give him viciously with reserve, never asking more of me. Our relationship allows me to be broken, comfortable in my own fucking skin. There’s a certain comfort I have around him that I can’t quite explain, but it feels like home.Well, my fucked up version of home, not the version I crave or think I want like with Tayden, maybe not even theversion I actually need, but it’s safe. At times, his version seems more authentically me and what I can emotionally handle. Somehow, he understands me so fucking well.Sometimes too well.He reads me like a book, and I love that he can, always knowing what I need without it being requested of him. That’s certainly where he and Tayden differ at times. Liam knows so muchmoresomehow. On the other hand, the ways in which he allows and accepts my brokenness doesn’t force me to grow. He never questions me or asks more of me. I don’t think I could ever do anything wrong in his eyes, and that scares me because I am not perfect. I’m so far from it, so what is it that he sees? His unconditional love feels amazing, but I sometimes question if it’s helping me or simply allowing me to sit in my darkness. He’s like a soft emotional fucking landing when life gets too hard. I wish he’d fight with me more, but no matter what I do or how I do it, we never fucking do. The chaos I was raised in makes my soul burn for confrontation, but no matter which way I turn with him, I never find it. It’s like he knows I’m trying to create it but won’t cave to my demands.Fuck, I’m here in bed with you, and he’s fine with it. I’ve never lied to him about this or the others. I wish, at times, he’d be mad at me for it, but I love that he’s not. Selfishly. I do question who hurt him so deeply to find love in me more days than I don’t. What’s wrong with Liam? Nothing, and that makes me want to run all the while never walking away from him. So, to choose, I’m not sure I ever could unless I was forced to, and I fear if that day came as it did earlier today, I’d do as I did before I texted you—say goodbye, knowing hello is somewhere down the road again. But to choose forever? That’s life ending in my world. It can’t ever exist, or I may not either.”

“Yous are truly a complicated woman, baby girl, but a beautiful one, and they are both so lucky to have you, But, to play devil’s advocate, do yous ever think about yourself? You speak ofall the ways you fear failing them, but do yous ever think of how they fail you?”

This is why we are such good friends, Mr. O’Connor.A smile crosses my face at his evaluation of my words and those left in the unspoken spaces.

“Yes, but I’m not on their journey of healing or self-worth. I’m on mine, and I can only evaluate my own actions while trying to show myself some grace. Continuing to hold myself accountable as I attempt to untangle the web of who I am. My first goal in life was not to heal but to put myself in a position of never needing someone to survive. I did that in my work, and I built a fucking empire with the help of Red,of course, but it came at a cost emotionally. Pretending to have it all together when you don’t is harmful. Eventually, you lose yourself in who you are trying to be and forget who you were, leaving them to eventually implode. Everyone says fake it until you make it, but when the cameras shut off, the bank closes, and you go home. The mirror doesn’t see the knock-off version you created to feed society’s acceptance. It reflects the real you, and if you aren’t careful, that knock-off version will only create bigger holes in you than you began with, crossing a dangerous line until you are no longer comparing yourself to the standards of the world but comparing yourself to you, and that’s not a place so easily returned from. It’s one thing to compete with another human. It’s complete lunacy to compete with yourself because you pretend to be something you aren’t, leaving the core version of you feeling insufficient. That’s my truth. I’m the literal walking example of the consequences of that. Fractured and shattered, unsure of who I am. Lately, I have been questioning whether work is causing more harm than good in my life. I have the money to retire,so why do I hold onto it and put myself in the chaos I hate, constantly around other humans, instead of going home to Liam or my new home in Maine Tayden built and enjoy life andjust fucking heal? Anyways, now I’m just rambling, but yeah, I think about all of it from every angle five times over daily, but bottom line, I can’t let either go and it fucking sucks. I worry I harm them in more ways than I love them. Sometimes, I think about granting them both freedom from my complicated chains. I’m more undeserving of them than they are of me. Happiness terrifies me just like you; it’s not a place I know how to exist in, so I sabotage it when I feel it getting too close. So, do I ever think about me? Yes and no, because there are so many variables at play. How can someone think about someone they don’t even truly know?”

Lifting his head, his lips meet my forehead, the scruff of his beard tickling me as I grab onto it. Pulling his lips down to meet mine, our tongues softly intertwining.

“Thanks for not asking about you,” I whisper into his mouth.

Pulling back from me, his strong, massive hands grasp my cheeks.

“Baby girl, I know my place with yous, and I’ll always be here in whichever way you need me. Besides, neither of them can ever give you what I do.”

“Oh yeah, what is it you offer they don’t?”

Pulling my ear to his lips, he softly whispers, “S.W.A.G., baby girl.”

Laughter erupts from my chest, my palm finding his face as I shove it playfully back into the pillow.

“Yous so stupid,” I tease. “I won’t lie though. Sex with a ginger is top fucking shelf.”

“No, stupid is thinking Tayden built yous a fuhking house. That man has never gotten his hands dirty a day in his life,” he fires back, the curl of his accent at the end of each laugh turning me on.

“True, but in his defense, he did admit to hiring it out. Not all of us can live exciting lives being a big, sexy, drug-dealingIrishman, using realty as our front by day, and burying bodies for our family by night. Tell me, Mr. O’Connor, do you water board all your victims while you fuck them to get them to bare their souls?”

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