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I didn't say anything. Obviously, she needed to get things out, and I was going to let her.

"You’ve heard the stories. My parents in prison. But I lived it. The thing is, my mother chose herself. Every single time. She dressed it up as love for my father, but it was just self-obsession. She was a narcissist, through and through. Except when it came to my father. Him she put first, that was the order of things. Norville first, then Wanda, and occasionally she’d remember she had kids. For a long time I was terrified I was made the same way."

I was shocked. That was the last thing she was. The absolute last. But I needed to listen. To understand.

She exhaled. "I'm not. I know I'm not. But in my youth, I was self-centered. People got hurt because I only cared about myself.”

“All kids are self-centered. It’s the nature of the beast.”

“Chloe wasn’t.”

“Maybe not in a way you understood, but I bet she could tell you times she was.”

She shrugged. “But that’s the past. I know I’m not that way anymore, or at least I try not to be, but there are still moments when I'm not sure I'm worthy of someone like you." She finally looked at me. "Someone who is as good as you are."

I turned to face her.

"I see you, Zoe."

"Adam."

"I want to see all of you, and I think you’ve shown me a lot of who you are. Even the cranky parts who doesn’t like spreadsheets, and I heard about how you upcharged that asshole. That is something I totally approved of.”

“You don’t think that was a tiny bit wrong?”

“Not in the slightest. He deserved it. Are those your sins these days?”

She shrugged. “Probably.” She looked down at her feet. “I resented Chloe for getting to take Olivia home.”

I could barely hear the words. “That’s just being human. If you didn’t, I would say you didn’t have a heart. How do you feel now?”

She looked up at me with a smile that swallowed sunshine. “Like the bestest aunt in the world.”

“Your so-called bad parts are your human parts that are most lovable. Now tell me. Do you love me?”

"I adore you," she said. The words were careful. "I adore you, and I'm working on believing I deserve to."

"That's all I'm asking." I said it and meant it. "I'm not asking you to get there on my schedule. I'm asking you to trust that I know my own mind. And what's in my mind is you. You and James and this life I'm trying to build here."

The tear that slid down her face, she didn't try to stop.

She turned back to the ridgelines. I kept my arm around her.

We stood like that until she was ready to go.

She didn't say much on the way down the mountain. I watched her from the passenger seat without making it obvious. She was processing. I'd been around enough people under pressure to know the difference between silence that was stuck and silence that was working. Hers was working.

When we hit the main road back toward Jasper Creek, I asked, "You okay?"

"Yes." She said it without hesitation. "You gave me a lot to think about."

"Good stuff, I hope."

She glanced at me. "Yeah. Good stuff."

I watched the familiar outskirts of town appear. The feed store. The turnoff toward Maverick's.

"You know that thing you said. Adoring me."