Page 72 of Fighting For You
She shouldn’t be crying unless she was so happy it overflowed into liquid joy on her face. She shouldn’t cry unless she was in a state of such ecstasy her body had to surrender something and this was one way it released an overflow of bliss.
None of that made sense, but the madness in my mind had me howling at the crescent moon, yearning to stop her sadness.
“I’m sorry.” She pulled away and turned her back to me, shielding herself from my prying eyes.
With one hand soft on her shoulder, I eased her around, then pulled her into a hug.
“You don’t have to apologize for anything. You’ve done nothing wrong.” I bent and dropped a kiss to the crown of her head, desperate to soothe her.
Her arms slowly looped around my back and a trace of the gripping anxiety begging me to make everything better loosened.
“I hate that talking to him has me like this,” she said into my side, her words muffled but thankfully still intelligible.
“He was your fiancé. No matter how manyyears and miles between then and now, that’s still something that’s going to dredge up a lot of feelings, even if it had ended mutually.” Did I hate that it hadn’t been? Yes. But it wasn’t something I would ever say aloud.
She loosened her grip on me and tilted her head up so I could see her reddened eyes.
“That’s just it, though. I stopped feeling like it was one-sided not long after he’d left because even if I couldn’t let myself believe that he’d cheated, he’d walked away. I realized I’d forced it—that we never should’ve gotten engaged and if I hadn’t been so obvious about wanting that, maybe we wouldn’t have been so caught up in whatshouldbe happening. And I never wanted to be with someone like that. I wanted to be with someone who would fight for me.” Her jaw flexed against the emotion rising again and she breathed through the tears until they settled and then continued. “I hate that his leaving me felt like a confirmation.”
My heart thudded a steady rhythm and I braced for what would come next. “A confirmation of what?”
Her gaze cast down and her voice softened like maybe she didn’t want me to hear. “That I’m easy to leave.”
My heart tripped and before I thought better of it, I crushed her to me, mind scrambling for words to refute this.
Her words dripped with conviction, like his leaving her really had been proof for this theory and not the failing of a world-class idiot.
I slipped my hands to her hips and hoisted her onto the counter, pulling back to find her face tear-tracked and staring at me with confusion.
Cupping her face, I swiped my thumbs over her cheeks. “You are not easy to leave. Kurt was an idiot for leaving you, though I can’t say I’m sorry he’s out of your life. Andwhoever else has done this to you…” I swore, the anger and hurt for her nearly choking out my words. “They were wrong to do it, and such a fool. Because you… Jess,God, you’re everything.”
How could I make her see? How could I force away the shadows in her eyes and imbue the truth that she was wonderful and worthy of love and fidelity and every good thing?
Her lips trembled and her brow furrowed, and I braced myself for what would come, summoning the ability to speak words she could hear.
Her fingers found the placket of my shirt and she focused there as one brightly polished blue fingernail toyed with a button. She was buying time, swallowing down the tears threatening again.
“I hate that I’m crying on our second date.”
Her brown eyes tipped up to meet mine, a mess of emotions there I couldn’t decipher. I couldn’t right all the wrongs, but I could push her buttons enough to get her through them. “I told you not to apologize.”
A smile flashed at the familiar bossiness in my tone before she shoved me back with no force. “Fine, then. I’m not sorry. Now feed me guacamole.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Jess
Jude had surprised me.
Ha. No. Jude had broken my brain and then knitted it back together.
I’d voiced the ugly truth that’d hounded me, that I’d been running from for years, and he’d stayed steady despite the tears and pathetic levels rising to DEFCON 1.
And then the man fed me tacos. Like, reallyreallygood tacos with my choice of tortilla style and two different kinds of meat and all the fixings including delicious homemade guacamole.
He was just so…
So…
