Page 86 of Healing Hearts
“My past is always going to rear its head. I’m never going to escape the ex-con label.”
I’m close enough that I can touch him, and so I run my hand from his shoulder to his bicep. Even that brief contact makes everything in my body liquid, as though every ounce of stress and anger that’s been holding me up is seeping out of me. Trent closes his eyes, and his hands clench at his sides.
It’s wrong, manipulative, even, but I curl into his side, resting my head on this chest. His hand sinks into my hair, but his eyes are still closed.
“You smell like lemons,” he whispers.
“Stress cleaning,” I say, keeping my voice quiet like his.
“Those chemicals can’t be good for the baby.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I admit. Part of me has been trying to pretend I’m not pregnant because the idea of facing Trent felt too big, too ominous.
He draws me into a tight hug, and I sink into it, making fists in his shirt at the back, desperate for the contact, the scent of vanilla and motor oil swirling around my senses.
He sighs across the top of my head. “I love you,” he says it like it’s been ripped out of him. “God, I love you so much. It’s like, painful. And I’m sorry I can’t do what you want. But I’d always feel like I was ruining your life, and I can’t. I just can’t.”
I clutch onto him and push my face into his chest, willing myself not to cry. It doesn’t seem to matter what I say, and it’s the most painful and frustrating thing that’s ever happened to me.
“You didn’t ruin my life, Trent,” I say, as the roar of a truck echoes down the quiet street. “You healed it. You healed my heart.”
“I’ve never regretted what I did at nineteen more than I do right now.”
But I don’t need more of his regret and self-flagellation. He needs to learn to let his past decisions go, to see that those don’thaveto define this future. That he has some choice in that, some agency, despite what’s happened this last week. That it’s okay to want things in life and to move toward those desires with good intentions.
He’s so stuck in this warped sense of himself, of what he can offer. But he can’t see that the man he’s become more than makes up for the mistakes he once made. And I don’t know how to make him.
Brett climbs out of the truck with two coffees in his hands, and I step back from Trent.
“I want you in my life, and I want you in this baby’s life,” I say, making eye contact. “Maybe you should think about going to talk to someone.”
“Like who?” he asks, running a hand over the top of his head.
“A therapist?” I suggest as Brett gives us space by going into the front reception.
Trent grips the back of his neck, but he avoids making eye contact. “You don’t think I’m expressing myself very well?”
“I don’t think you’reseeingyourself very well.”
“I know who I am.”
“Do you?” I say, trying to get him to look at me. “Because to me, it seems like when you hold a mirror up to yourself, all you see are your mistakes and none of your accomplishments.”
“I know who I am,” he says again, his voice firmer.
I run my hands through my long hair in frustration, and I leave without another word. Right now, I’m not going to get through to him, and I don’t know what it’ll take to make him see reason.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Trent
I’m so rattled from Emily’s visit and don’t have enough work to distract me, so I roll up to Grady’s studio at the old train station to decompress. When I enter the building, the receptionist, Lola, grins at me.
“Trent Castillo, are you following in your brother’s footsteps now? Going to record a song or two?”
“Not much of a singer,” I say, going to the fridge and grabbing a soft drink. “What are you still doing here?”
“Sarah Telling is coming tomorrow with one of her proteges from Center Stage to record some kind of demo track. I’m just getting everything in order before I head out. Grady’s in the studio, if you want to head back. No one else is there.”
