Page 108 of If This is Love

“No, but I just hate that I…”

Skye waved her hand. “Never mind that. What I was asking you is the most important part of this. So,now…” She pressed her lips together and released my chin. “Whatexactlydid you do that makes you think‘this’is your fault?” She curled her fingers in air quotes to emphasize the wordthis, like she wasn’t convincedthiswas something I needed to apologize for. “What’s your fault right now, Ruth?”

“Well, it was just such a beautiful, wonderful moment, and then it was all ruined, and he got so upset that he was fighting with Gunner in his bathroom.” I sniffled, shrugging listlessly. “And then he was just yelling and hollering and telling me to leave. He was just having an episode, and I just made it all worse because I couldn’t do anything.”

“Butwhatruined it?” Liza gentle prodded. “Something had to happen to make it go from wonderful to ruined.”

“Welltruthfully…” Now this was just embarrassing. “Things got a little rowdy, and the headboard sort of detached from the bed, and there was a bunch of noise, and I honestly think it was just too loud and startling. It knocked him out of his head, and he came to completely disoriented. I think he thinks he—”

“So, you didn’t actually ruin anything,” Skye cut in. She stuck her neck forward and raised her dark brown eyebrows. “He got triggered by something at a really bad time and got confused and freaked out. So therealquestion here is why do you think you did something wrong at all?”

“I don’t know, and I…” I shook my head and sipped more wine. “Iknowit was just that there was a loud noise that startled him wrong, and it wasn’tme, but I can’t help feeling…” I huffed and set down the glass, covering my face again. “I just always feel like I did something wrong. If something goes badly, it has to be my fault somehow. Or I make things worse somehow. Or I don’t know.” I clutched my temples and squeezed my eyes shut. “I think I’m just way outside of my comfort zone because I haven’t been involved with a man since my husband, and I think this… this… whateverthisis that Gabe and I are doing is dredging up a bunch of my old crud. That’s what happened on Saturday, which is why he’s been all tied up in knots for days, which is why I went over there, and it all should’ve been perfect, but I’m ruining it with all my baggage, and I justhate myselffor that. And I don’t knowwhyI always go straight tohating myself.” A sob burst from my lips. “Lord, I am such amess, y’all.”

“Ohsis,” Skye cooed as she and Liza both fussed over me and patted me while I quietly cried. “It’s okay to be a mess among friends, especially when all your friends are a big mess, too.”

They patted me and hugged me, and made little remarks to get me to smile, and Skye handed me my wine while she stood up.

“I’m not going to lie, Ruth,” she said, pacing slowly across the living room, all the way from the kitchen side to the opposite wall that was packed with shelves of dozens of framed photos of Connor, Liza, baby Savannah, and all their sweet friends. “You saying something like that makes me think about what you said in that video.” She stopped pacing and pivoted to face me and Liza where we were still sitting on the couch, and she parked her fists on her hips like Wonder Woman. “The reason you start hating yourself istheirconditioning. Those awful people taught you to hate yourself like that. They wanted you to hate yourself because if you hate yourself, you have no self-empowerment. If you have no self-empowerment, they can control you. And those peopleneededto control you so you could fit nicely as a cog in the machine that kept their world turning. They needed to you to be docile and compliant because if you weren’t, it would’ve disrupted their comfortable world. And it did, didn’t it?”

Chills scattered up and down my arms. “Yes. It disrupted it quite a bit.”

“Yeah it did,” Skye underscored, crossing her slender arms across her chest as she started pacing again. “So, your reflex is to start hating yourself because that’s what they ingrained in you. They wanted you to hate yourself so you would believe they were the source ofnothating yourself. And they probably told you nobody outside of their four walls would love you, didn’t they? They probably told you it was way worse out there so you should just be grateful for this, no matter how awful it is. Did they say stuff like that to you, sis?”

I looked at my hands. “They did.”

“Well, you know who used to say stuff like that to me?”

I looked up at her.

“Mypimp.” She cocked one eyebrow. “And pardon my French, but where are all those cocksuckers now?”

I bit back the urge to snicker at her choice of words. “Prison.”

“That’sright.” She waved her hands wildly and then pitched over at the waist to pick up her wine glass. “Exactly where people likethatbelong. Because guess what, Ruth. Right and righteousness always prevail.Always.I know you know that because I might be different from you in a thousand different ways, but I know we believe in the same god. So I want you to ask yourself an honest question. Did you do anything tonight or eveneverthat you believe God is mad at you about? Like, deep in yoursoul, Ruth. Did you doanythingwrong?”

The answer rose from the depths of my heart instantaneously.

No.

“No,” I verbalized the truth that somehow felt holy and like I was getting saved all over again. Tears leaked from my eyes. “No, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No, youdidn’t,” Skye echoed like she was triumphantly declaring a victory. “You did somethingrightbecause it was whatyou wanted, right, Ruth?”

I shot up from the couch like an external force was propelling my body, and I pointed at her like she was preaching the gospel on Sunday morning right here in Liza’s living room. “I did somethingright.It wasrightbecause I wanted it and so did he, and nobody gets to make me feel different. Yes and amen!”

“Yes and amen!” Liza practically squealed, leaping up with me and thrusting her half-empty wine glass into the air triumphantly. “And!” She set down her glass and clasped my shoulders, staring at me below knitted brows. “Ruth, I don’t know what all happened, but I really do know Gabe pretty well, and he really does love you.”

The chills and intensity instantly sobered with one look in Liza’s eyes because it was the truth. He’d said it with his own beautiful lips not even an hour ago, and I’d known it for weeks before he said anything.

Tears flooded my eyes again. “I know.”

“And I know you love him, too,” she went on, lifting one hand off my shoulder to wipe her thumb below my eye. “And as a woman who loves a man who’s troubled like that, just hang in there. Remember that he does love you, but also that he’s fighting things a lot bigger than he is to love you back. He’s going to need time, especially if he’s feeling likehedid something wrong, which is honestly what it sounds like is going on.”

I nodded in silent agreement, reaching for her hand to squeeze it.

“Yeah,” Skye agreed, moving to stand closer to us. “That really does sound like what’s probably going on, and I have to say…” She gestured with her wine glass at the wall of photos of all our friends. “Like,yes, all of our beautiful, hot men are extremely high-maintenance sometimes, but it’s only because they’re all worried about not treating us like absolute queensconstantly.”

Liza snickered into her hand. “If that isn’t the damn truth…”

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