Page 33 of Love Me Boldly

His body tensed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him slowly readjust himself, curling toward me. His arm draped over the back of the couch. I was close enough he could run his fingers through my hair, and that was exactly what he did.

“Yeah?”

I shrugged. I might as well have sliced my body open right then and bled out in front of him for as vulnerable as I was feeling. Admittingthatwas hard enough. The why was harder.

“That must have been hard,” Graham said, fingers still running through my hair. His touch was gentle. Soothing.

I leaned back into the couch and faced him.

His eyes were on his hand in my hair. His curls were now dry and slightly frizzy and wild. He was stretched out, legs on the coffee table, one foot over the other. But for the intense way he kept his eyes on my hair and not me, like he didn’t want me to know he was listening, I would have thought he was uncaring.

Instead, he was giving me space. Time.

“She and I were at my gymnastics class. She put me in it when I was really young, like three or something. But she’d been a gymnast through high school and loved it. It was before class, and I was warming up and begged her to show me how she did her flips.”

It was the last really good, true, and pure memory I had of my mom. When she put me in gymnastics, she’d told me someday I could be better than her, maybe go to college on a scholarship or be in the Olympics. I’d been too young to understand then what that meant, but I remembered the way her face lit up when she talked about gymnastics and how much she loved it.

“What happened?” Graham asked. He glanced at me and waited.

I readjusted on the couch, the need to protect myself was strong, so I curled my legs up. “She tumbled. She fell. Landed wrong and broke her leg. Her body went one way, her leg went the other.”

He cringed but stayed silent.

“We had to call an ambulance and everything. Her bone justsnapped. I’ll never forget that sound. Or her scream.” I’d also never forget the smile she had on her face right before she agreed to try it. The way she crouched down low and kissed the tip of my nose. “Okay Holly, just for you…”

She’d taken off. Jumped. Fell. Screamed. And my life was shattered, right along with her leg.

“She had surgery,” I told him, “and apparently had some really good drugs for pain after. She couldn’t work for a while…and I don’t really know what happened next. I was so young, but eventually I realized she got hooked on those pills and then other kinds of drugs. She decided she needed to chase the high more than she needed to get clean and be a mom.”

The admission made my chest squeeze painfully tight, and all that pain rushed to my nose. My eyes. My sinuses.

“You know that’s not what she chose, right?” Graham reached out and cupped my cheek and my jaw.

One thumb swiped across my cheek to gather tears, and I leaned in closer, wanting that warm touch on my skin that felt rubbed and scraped until I bled. “People don’t choose addiction, Holly. You know that.”

Maybe. Maybe she didn’t.

“I used to hear them fight—my parents. Dad begged her to get help, and she refused. Said he wasn’t fun anymore. Said everything in her life was boring and tired and ugly and draining.”

She hadn’t specifically saidme, but how could I not take it that way? She’d worked at The Grille but was always home with me. Iwasher life.

And I drained her.

“I’m really sorry,” Graham said. “I’m so sorry you had to hear those things. It was the drugs talking, you know that, though. Right?”

“Well, she took off one day. Justpoof, gone. And none of it would have happened if I wouldn’t have been a spoiled brat and begged her to jump.”

I couldn’t stop the tears, and I closed my eyes, burrowing into a tighter ball until the weight of the couch shifted, and then Graham was tugging me closer to him. He set his hand at the back of my head, his other at my lower back, and wrapped me in arms so strong and tight I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been held like this.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered as I cried. “Maybe she wouldn’t have gotten hooked on meds without that jump, but she was still your mom. She wanted you to be impressed by her. She wanted you to think she was amazing. And she loved you, I’m sure of it.”

“I’m not.”

“I am,” he stated, and I swore his lips pressed to the top of my head. I cried, embarrassed at how I’d so easily folded into him, let him hold me for so long that even after the tears dried, it was hard to face him again.

“How’d your dad handle it?” he asked. It was said quietly, almost like he was scared.

“He fell apart. Needless to say, my dad didn’t have the mindset about being partners in a marriage that yours did.” I tried to joke, but it fell flat. Cringing, I pushed off Graham and wiped my eyes with the hem of my sweater.

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