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“I think I already told you all of mine last night.” He raised one eyebrow wryly. “From what I remember.”
“That you think I’m a truffle? That’s your secret?”
He sank further into the mud, until it reached the tip of his chin. “My secret’s the crush I’ve had on you for a while now.”
My pulse quickened. I continued to look at him, with just my head turned in his direction. “For how long?” I kept my voice light and casual, but my thoughts were prancing around like a herd of deer in a meadow.
“That’s for a later conversation.”
“You’re no fun,” I said.
“Fine, I’ll tell you if you tell me a something I don’t know about you. I know there’s more to you than meets the eye.”
How right he was. There was only one thing that really mattered. A revelation that could potentially change how he perceived me. One that required opening my heart and bleeding in front of him. My mother’s suicide. If I was truly interested inthis man, sharing the truth about my past was a must. After all, it had made me into who I was now. My fear of abandonment, the constant search for belonging—all of it was because of the unimaginable tragedy that had changed my life that ordinary afternoon.
“Hey now, I’m only teasing.” He sat up, mud coating his torso like an impossibly sexy chocolate Caspian in my Easter basket. “You don’t have to tell me a thing if you don’t want to. I shouldn’t push.”
“No, there is something. It’s hard to say out loud. I don’t tell most people because once I do, they look at me differently.”
“I’m here now or whenever you’re ready.” He sank back into the tub.
I reached for the glass of water on the table between us and drank it all before setting it back in its place. Collapsing back into the mud, I stared up at the slatted ceiling. “I want to tell you, but I can’t look at you when I do it.”
“Okay, that’s fine.”
“And don’t look at me,” I said, glancing at him.
He closed his eyes. “Done.”
Satisfied we were in the right positions, I took in a deep breath. “When I was eleven years old I found my mother dead in our apartment. She’d taken her own life.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him rise up out of the mud. “God, Elliot, I’m so sorry.”
Although I knew he was watching me, I closed my eyes, unable to say the rest with them open. “She took a bunch of pills the doctor had prescribed for depression. In the weeks leading up to her death, they’d made her worse. It was the final tipping point. She’d struggled her whole life, and the illness finally got her.”
“You found her? That must have been unspeakably awful,” Caspian said.
“Yeah. I came home from school, and she was lying on the bed like she was taking a nap. She left a note for me, saying she was sorry and that she loved me.” My throat ached at the memory. “I was angry at her for a long time. But now I have a better understanding of the disease of depression. She didn’t see any other way.”
“Still, that’s horrific. And you were so young.”
“Yeah, middle school was bad enough, but I had to face it without her. It had always been just the two of us. Her parents and grandparents died in a car accident before I was born. I never knew who my father was. She said he was a fling and that he’d had no interest in a wife and child. That’s all she ever said to me.”
“Have you ever tried to locate him?”
“I have no way to track him down. I don’t even know his name.”
“You could do one of those tests,” Caspian said.
“What good would it do me now? When I needed him most, he wasn’t there. Aunt Biddie was and no one else. And anyway, maybe he doesn’t want to be found.”
“Do you know for sure he knew about you?” Caspian asked.
“I’ve no idea. My mother left me no information.”
“If you ever want to explore the idea, just let me know. I’ll be by your side every step of the way.”
I turned to look at him, shocked by his outrageous offer. “Why would you do that?”
