Page 71 of When He Saved Me
“Why’d you really send him away, Jamie?” he whispered into my hair as I sat beside him with my head buried in his chest.
“Because having him here hurts.”
“Why?”
“Because I love him so damn much.”
“And that hurts?”
“Yes, dammit!” I hissed. “It’s too intense.” I took a gulping breath, trying to get my sobs under control. “Right before Mom…died”—I stumbled over the word, hating everything it represented—“I felt so empty, so numb. I didn’t want to feel that way anymore, so I begged Finn to…to fuck me. I just wanted to feel alive again. Only it was too much. Too intense. Too raw. I felteverything.Fear. Pain. Grief. Sadness. Anger. Despair. It felt like I was drowning in all of it. Like I might never feel okay ever again.”
I took a few more breaths, still struggling to get myself under control. The floodgates had opened, and it felt impossible to stem the tide of my tears and my words. “So the next morning, I buried it. Buried all of it. I pulled away. I thought he’d take the hint, that he’d give up, and then I could be alone.”
“I thought you were afraid to be alone,” he said as a statement rather than a question, his arm still wrapped around me, holding me tight.
I whispered, “As much as I was scared of being alone, that would be better than…”
“…better than feeling everything else,” he finished for me.
I nodded, sniffling.
“But he didn’t take the hint, did he? He stuck.”
I nodded again. “It pissed me off. I kept pushing him away, but he kept coming back. I hurt him over and over, I could see it on his face, but he never wavered. Why would he let me do that to him?” I couldn’t understand it. I’d been awful to him, and he never wavered. I didn’t deserve his loyalty.
“Because he loves you.”
“I love him too,” I whispered, and I wondered if I’d spend the whole of my life aching with the pain of it. Of having him and hurting him and sending him away.
“Do you really want him gone? Out of your life?” He pulled back to look at me. “Do you really want to be alone?”
“I just don’t want to hurt anymore.”
“What about love? Joy? Happiness? Laughter? If you shut down all that other shit, you shut out the good stuff too.”
“I don’t know if I’m capable of those things anymore.”
He sighed. “Look, I’m not going to tell you it’s not going to hurt and that it’s not going to be hard, but youarecapable of those things. And shutting all that other shit down without properly dealing with it is only setting yourself up for something much worse later. Hurting Finn, pushing him away, doesn’t change the fact that Annie died. Those feelings are just going to find their way out another way, whether Finn’s here or not. But, Jamie”—at the sound of my name, I turned my head to look at him. The sadness, the empathy I saw in his eyes, nearly broke me open all over again—“if heishere, you don’t have to do it alone.”
The ramifications of what I’d done slammed into me like a punch to the gut. I nearly doubled over with the realization of it. I’d pushed away the person who mattered more than anyone else. The one who’d stuck by me through all my bullshit. Who’d helped take care of Mom, no questions asked. Who’d helped with the funeral arrangements. Who’d played piano at her funeral. Who’d suffered my silence and mood swings and the words I’d flung at him when I was lashing out. He’d not once pushed back or called me on my bullshit, instead absorbing every blow, pushing through the silence, and holding me up every step of the way. All those years his parents had neglected him, treated him like he was nothing, and I’d done the same thing.
No.
Shit.
NO.
Asher let go of me, jostling me as he dug in his pocket for something.
“Here,” he said, holding out a sloppily folded piece of paper that looked like it’d been pulled out of a spiral notebook. I could see little strips of paper on one edge where it hadn’t torn cleanly along the perforated line.
“What is it?” I asked, eyeing it skeptically.
“It’s from Finn. He’s the one who sent me over here.”
“Finn sent you?”
He gave me a small smile. “You gutted him, Jamie.” I flinched, my body flooding with guilt. “But even in the midst of his own pain, he still didn’t want you to be alone.”
