Page 85 of Healing Hearts
He stares at me for a beat, and I can see the wheels turning, as though he’s picking his words carefully. “Congratulations.”
“Trent.” I close my eyes at the ridiculousness of that word. “I know the timing—”
“Obviously, you can’t tell anyone now that I’m the father.”
“And you think people won’t be able to put two and two together? You were living in my house. I went to the station and told the police why the footage was deleted. People talk.”
He runs his hands along his face. “I’ll leave Little Falls and go back to Utica.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say, anxiety sloshing around in my stomach. “That’s your solution.”
“Have you seen the shop?” He gestures around him. “There’s no one here, Em. What am I clinging onto?”
“Clinging on?” I scoff. “You’re not clinging onto anything. You’re letting it all slip through your fingers like you don’t care about any of it.” I shut my mouth before the rest of what I’m thinking and feeling spills out.
“I’ve learned when to cut my losses,” he says. “There’s a difference.”
“There is, and it’s not the one you’ve created. Cutting your losses when going after something is doing more harm than good. When you were a kid, you went after something with your whole chest, and it blew up in your face. You chose wrong. But this situation and that situation couldn’t be further apart.”
“I hurt people then,” he says, “and I’m hurting people now. I can’t keep going after something that hurts people.”
“You think leaving doesn’t hurt? That leaving isn’t harmful? What about the people who’ve come to depend on this shop in Little Falls? The people who took a chance on you and your ability to fix things that were broken?” My voice catches, and I try to steady myself. I won’t cry my way through this conversation. “What about Amir?” My voice is so thick with unshed tears that I almost don’t recognize it. “What aboutme?”
“People in this town aren’t going to be nice about me being questioned, about the shop being under suspicion. Tell me people haven’t already said shitty things to you?”
“You know what made those shitty things people were saying worse?” I ask, stepping toward him. “Knowing that I didn’t have you standing behind me. You werenowhere. I couldn’t go home and tell you about the stupid thing someone said to me, or the terrible way someone made me feel. I was alone. I was alone when I had to explain to Amir why kids at camp were asking him about you going to jail.”
“You’re proving my point, Em. If I wasn’t in your life, none of this would be happening. Those comments are exactly why it won’t work.”
“No, you’re framing all of this in some warped way that only makes sense to you. I don’tcarewhat those people are saying if I’ve got you. I’ll face those questions and comments, and I’ll defend you with everything I’ve got. You have this—I don’t know—idea that you’re saving me and Amir, but you’renot. You’re just leaving us to face it alone.”
“If I’m in Utica, you’ll get it a lot less. Just ask Maggie.”
He says it with such certainty that I wonder if he and Maggie talked about it one time. And it reminds me how I once suggested that Maggie could use Trent and his past as a way to tank Grady’s bid for mayor. I close my eyes, and I try to breathe through that memory. My heart is squeezing so hard in my chest that I almost can’t catch my breath. The realization that I did that, suggested that, stings.
“I’m not good enough for you,” he says, and his jaw is set.
“Who says?” I ask, my eyes snapping open.
“Come on,” Trent says. “You think no one has made a snide comment to me about sinking the reputation of another Sullivan woman?”
“Okay, fine,” I say, feeling desperation creeping up my throat. “Are their opinions more important than mine? Who gets to decide whether you’re good enough? Because if it’s me—which is who it should be—then I call bullshit.”
Everything I say is true—I mean it with my whole heart—but it also feels like I’m scrambling for footing in this conversation. He seems so set in his stance that we can’t work, his opinion of what this looks like, what it should be.
“Who holds all the pieces when you’re not around anymore, Trent?” I can barely get the words out of the tightness in my throat.
“You’re killing me, Em,” he rasps, and his hands cover his face, shoulders slumped.
“I don’t want to kill you, Trent. I just want you to let me love you.”
“I’m a marked man,” he says, his voice rough with emotion.
He drags his hands down his face, and he looks as exhausted as I feel. I wonder if he’s been having trouble sleeping too. Every night, I stare at his side of the bed, and I wish him there so hard. When I close my eyes, I can almost feel his rough palm sliding along my waist, feel the dip in the mattress.
“Judy was dealing drugs on the side, and I didn’t know. But she’d have known the risks she was putting on me, on my shop. I can’t know that this won’t ever be a problem again. And I just…” He shakes his head. “I need to keep you and Amir safe from all of it.”
“You’renot a danger, Trent.” I take a risk and step closer to him. “Nothing that’s happened in the last week is something you brought on.”
