Page 67 of My Favorite Mistake

“I know it does.”

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

His brow furrowed. “My dad?”

“You’re sad because you and your dad are still fighting.”Fightingwasn’t the right word, but her brain seemed to be missing part of her vocabulary. “You were fighting back then. You’re still fighting now. You’re upset about it. I can tell.”

“I’m not upset about that.” The sensation of his hands disappeared from her cheeks and was replaced by a heavenly cold, damp feeling on her forehead that compelled her to close her eyes again.

“What’s wrong then?”

“I don’t know.” His tone belied his words.

“You do, but you don’t want me to know.”

Silence permeated the room for so long Liza felt the weight of sleep tugging her deeper into the pillow.

“I’m not happy with myself,” Connor finally said, his voice giving her a subtle jolt that tugged her back into alertness. “I’ve spent the past two days taking care of you, and it makes me angry that I didn’t care of you before.”

“You never needed to take care of me, Connor.”

“I gave you my word that I would. Then I didn’t follow through. And then you went through things that made you need someone to take care of you. I should’ve been there.”

Pressure mounted at the center of her forehead as she gathered her brows. “What things?” She knew, but she knew he didn’t.

“You told me you went through a hard time.” The cool, damp sensation lifted off her forehead, and Liza opened her eyes. Connor held a cloth, unfolding it and refolding it, and then placed it back on her forehead. “The day we went to Oscar’s.”

“I’m not your responsibility. I sure wasn’t back when we were so young. We were hasty because we were young. I was naïve. You were ambitious and full of a sense of duty. We were too young to understand that it was just a hormonal and emotional whirlwind.”

“I wish you didn’t believe that, Liza.” His voice had an edge that cut like a razor. “But I don’t blame you for believing it because everything I did proved it to you.”

“We were young,” she said again, grasping at straws to maintain coherence. “We’re old now. It doesn’t matter. You slept on my couch for two days when you didn’t have to. That should make up for whatever you thought you should’ve done a long time ago. You don’t need to be hung up on what you did to me back then. You only knew me for six months. It’s been ten years. That’s only like…” Math was suddenly extremely hard. “A ridiculously small percentage of time.”

“And?”

“And in the big picture of life, that’s insignificant.”

“It’s not insignificant tome.” His troubled blue eyes flashed. He looked away and rubbed the heavy stubble on his cheeks before resting his chin in his palm. “But again, I don’t blame you for believing that. I know what I did. I did it on purpose. For reasons I realize now are really stupid. But I know history is written in ink. I can’t erase it, and I’m not going to expect you to cross it out and act like that somehow makes it go away.”

Liza closed her eyes as the sensation of furrowing her brow was making her head split. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Connor was silent for a beat before he exhaled loudly. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t be harping on this right now. I shouldn’t be harping on it at all. There’s nothing I can do about it now.” He rubbed the cloth across her forehead and then wiped her cheeks and neck. “I guess my point is I have a lot of regret. And that’s what’s bothering me.”

She felt the mattress lift as he stood up, and she shifted onto her side, pulling the sheet close around her shoulders. “I hope you feel better.”

“I’m fine.” She heard the beep of the thermometer and then felt the stroke of his fingers along the base of her chin. “Sayah.”

Liza opened her mouth and let him go through the motions of taking her temperature. The thermometer sounded a long, high-pitched beep.

“It’s still about 101. Why don’t you sleep a bit longer, and then I’ll try to bring you the soup again?”

“Hmmm,” was all she managed to articulate.

Connor tucked the blankets around her and then gave her back a firm, but gentle rub as he kissed her head again. A moment later, she heard the door softly close.

Her head swam with a floating sensation as his words drifted around the inside of her mind, colliding with each other as she fruitlessly attempted to make sense of them.

The only thing she could gather was the idea that, despite his abrupt, callous discard of her long ago, Connor was a good man, and he recognized that what he did was wrong. And that he didcare for her. He just didn’t care for her in the way he’d promised he would.

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