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“Not often. When I feel something, it can be intense. I’ve never had good impulse control, but I’ve been on meds for that for years.”
“Sorry, that must be hard to deal with,” I tell him.
He shrugs as he discards another pad. “Everyone has their problems. Mine are just a little weirder than most.”
“I’m an alcoholic,” I admit. “I haven’t had a drink in a long time now, but I know it would just take one bad day. If I hadn’t been in the hospital for a while after … After what happened with Frank Palmer, I would have bought so much booze and taken it home with me. I’ve never wanted to forget something so badly in my life.”
“It’s not just being in the hospital that stopped you,” he says.
“Oh, believe me, if I’d gotten out …”
He looks up at me, and I see a hint of understanding in his eyes. “You would have remembered how much you wanted to be present for your daughter. Maybe you would have bought alcohol. Maybe you would have poured it into a glass. You would have stopped before you drank it.”
Fuck me. The guy with no emotions is the one who keeps provoking mine.
He’s right that I would have thought about Secret the second I was about to actually drink.
There’s no way in hell I could have done it after that.
I’ve hidden from too much, drowning myself in booze.
The one thing that keeps me from sliding back is Secret.
My eyes fill with tears as E.A. finishes up cleaning my wound.
“I regret not raising her,” I admit. “I regret every drink that passed my lips after she was born.”
“You were too young,” he reminds me. “You weren’t ready.”
“I could have tried to be,” I tell him.
“No,” he says. “You weren’t ready for that kind of decision. Your mother thought she was doing what was best for you both. She didn’t give you a chance to think about it.”
“She gave me six months,” I whisper, as the first tears start to fall from my eyes.
He shakes his head. “She didn’t give you a day. One day without deciding anything, after the baby was born, and you would have been ready to decide. She didn’t give you the opportunity.”
Oh, my God. I don’t want him to be right, but he is.
“She thought I couldn’t handle it,” I murmur, knowing it’s true.
I was trouble. Look what happened when I tried to be smart and show my older, Alpha-chasing friends I could get what they couldn’t. I ended up pregnant.
I wasn’t supposed to be out that night. I definitely wasn’t supposed to be in the city, drinking in a nightclub with girls five years older than me.
“I don’t blame her for that,” I say, sniffing and wiping at my tears.
“She did what she felt was necessary going on the information she had. You shouldn’t blame her, but you shouldn’t blame yourself, either. You weren’t ready, and you weren’t given a choice.”
He discards the last pad and unwraps a square bandage like the ones I keep in my purse.
It’s hard to stop crying and keep still for him, but somehow, I manage.
“I don’t know how to stop blaming myself,” I admit, once he’s sticking the bandage in place.
“You feel guilty about the lie,” he says. “You’ve told her now, have you not?”
I nod, wondering how he got to be so insightful.
