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“You honestly can’t tell how I feel about you by now?” he asks, shaking his head. He’s talking to me like we’re alone in the room.
I twist my lips to the side as I contemplate my answer. “The problem is that I’m not sure I can trust you.”
He starts to protest, but I continue. “I know you believe your feelings for me are genuine, but I think you’re just confused. You love the way I accept you for who you really are and that you don’t feel lonely when I’m around, and maybe you even love me for carrying your babies, but you’re notin lovewith me.”
He runs his tongue over his teeth, brooding silently, and Father clears his throat. “I’m not sure there’s a difference for him, Loren. What if the qualities you named are the ones he values most in a partner?”
I laugh shortly. “Yeah, sure. Blake Bourgeois has been secretly longing for a family all this time and was simply test driving every attractive woman in South Louisiana until he found the right one to bear his children.” And then I cringe as soon as the words leave my mouth. “I—I’m sorry. That wasn’t very nice. I didn’t mean it.”
Blake still looks wounded, though, and I’m kicking myself for being such a jerk. Why can’t I stop bringing up his past? I say I don’t care, and I think I mean it each time.
Maybe I’m the one who’s confused? Maybe I’m … jealous?
We sit in tense silence for what feels like a full minute. “If I’m being honest, your extensive dating history does bother me,” I admit after a while. “Not because it makes me think any less of you, but because it makes it impossible to imagine that out of all the women you’ve been with before and all the women you could have now, you would really chooseme.”
Blake’s face is still downcast. “Why?”
“No one else ever has.” I sniffle, and he reaches over to grab a tissue box from a side table. “Thanks,” I mumble before drying my nose.
“Lo, I’m sorry, but you are so much more worthy of love than your shitty parents and your misguided brother have let you believe.”
I furrow my brow. “And so are you,” I return. “Only you’ve convinced yourself otherwise.”
He lets out a sarcastic laugh. “Maybe you were right, though.”
“About what?”
“All the others, my history of casual dating and meaningless sex. I think I was just looking for something I’d only ever found with you.”
“What?” My mind is reeling now.
“It started with our first kiss. I was having such a hard time with my self-worth that night, and once I got that rush, as soon as I realized how much I enjoyed making you feel good, I was hooked. It’s all I ever wanted to do after that, and I’ve been chasing that same high for years. But it’s never been the same with anyone else. And I’d take it all back in a heartbeat if it’d make it easier for you to trust me.”
My breath catches in my throat at his confession, and I shudder. I had no idea he could possibly feel this way. It doesn’t even make sense. And yet, the way he’s looking at me right now, pouring his heart out, it’s so hard not to believe him.
He shakes his head. “You’re doubting me again, aren’t you?”
“I want it to be true,” I reply, swiping at my cheeks. “But you’re telling me you enjoyed one silly kiss more than sex with other women, women who are far more experienced, interesting, beautiful, and desirable than me. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Do you really want it to be true?” he asks, his voice even. “Is it just because of your insecurities that you can’t believe me, or is it that you don’t feel the same? Because none of those other women have ever come close to being as interesting or beautiful as you, and I’ve never found anyone more desirable—never.”
That one nearly knocks the wind out of me, but I continue on, doing my best to seem unaffected. “Blake, I don’t know what to say. You terrify me. You always have. You’re good at every damn thing you try, and you make it look easy. Every time I think I have you pegged, you reveal another layer, and it makes me want to fall even harder. Because I know what you are at the core: kind, sensitive, generous, selfless, humble. You put on a good show, but I know your heart by now. And it’s sogood.”
His shoulders rise and fall as he exhales, and I notice his eyes are misty now.
“It’s also why I can’t afford another risk, not when it’s too late to prove your feelings for me are real and not just a side effect of watching me have your babies. There are two tiny humans depending on me now, and I refuse to subject them to the same childhood I had, with parents who kept going through the motions and self-medicating because they were too chicken to admit that they felt nothing for one another.”
There’s another uncomfortable stretch of silence before Father clears his throat, making me wince. I’d forgotten he was there.
“Loren, have you spoken to anyone about this before?” he asks carefully.
I nod and wipe my nose. “I saw a therapist for a while when I was in college. Believe it or not, I’m better than I used to be,” I answer with a sardonic laugh, and Blake reaches out to clutch my hand again.
“Have you thought about forgiving your parents, even if they don’t deserve it, as a gift to yourself and to God?” the priest continues.
“I thought Ihadforgiven them, but apparently my therapist and I both underestimated my ability to hold onto a grudge.”
“Duly noted,” Blake says, though he’s smiling.
