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I shook my head. "I don't think so. Look, I understand what you're trying to say. I should move on and find someone to be happy with, but I'd only be settling. Claire made me feel strong and capable of anything. We saw eye to eye on almost everything. We were perfect together, and no one can replace that. She was ‘the one.’"
"I don’t believe that. She was ‘the one’ at that time in your life, and if circumstances had been different, maybe your whole lives. But life is different now, you’re different. So you don't replace it. You find something different but just as good. And no one is perfect, not even Claire."
"Like hell, she wasn't." I had to hand it to him; he had the balls not to back down at my angry glare.
"Holt, I know Claire was a wonderful woman," he persisted. "She was kind and sweet, and she loved you, and we all loved her. But you've allowed your memories to cloud over reality. And because of that, you hold other women up to an impossible standard that even Claire would fail to live up to at this point."
I started to stand up, but Cal put his hand on my arm and pulled me back down. "Sit your ass down and listen."
"Cal, don't be so mean." Carol's voice soothed. The couch shifted as she curled up on the other side of me. "You should listen to what he has to say, Holt."
Great. Good sibling, bad sibling - it was gang-up-on-baby-brother time.
"No, Carol. We've pussyfooted around him long enough. We talked about this, remember?"
"You've all been talking about me? Behind my back?” Didn’t they have anything better to do with all their time?
"We're worried about you, Holt," Carol said. "It's been a long time. More than long enough to move on. You deserve to be happy."
"I'm fine! And it's none of your damn business." I looked around for any person or any excuse to end this conversation before one of us said something we regretted, but everyone had disappeared.
"Bullshit," Cal burst. "We love you, so that makes you our business, especially after the hell we went through alongside you. Losing Claire was horrible. But you know what was just as bad? Losing my little brother right along with her.” He leaned closer to me and hissed, “You need to hear this. She's dead, but you aren't."
"Fuck you, Callum."
"No, fuck this 'poor you' attitude you have,” he roared. “You lost someone you loved. We get it. But it's been five years, Holt. How long are you going to put your life on hold?"
"I have moved on," I shouted.
"You changed careers, and thank fuck for that! But why don't you date? No girlfriends for you, just girls you screw and move on."
I scowled. He was right, and we both knew it, so there wasn't much I could say.
"There's no perfect girl out there. Even Claire wasn't perfect. Remember how she nearly fell apart and wanted to call off the engagement because you joined the Corps? That’s not exactly what I’d call a supportive girlfriend."
"That's because she was fucking scared for me! What would you know about what Claire was going through?"
Carol cleared her throat and leveled an eye at me. "Well, I do understand that it wasn't easy for her. We're not saying you two weren't in love. I'm saying love can look different with a different person, but that doesn't make it any less. And it doesn't deny what you had with Claire. Just don't close yourself off to possibilities because you compare everything to what you had with Claire."
I leaned my head back against the cushions and rubbed my hands over my eyes. "If I'd known today was going to be a fucking intervention, I'd have stayed home," I muttered.
"Cal, Carol, leave your brother alone." Our mom's voice had that no-nonsense tone that even as adults, we found difficult to ignore.
"But..." Cal tried anyway.
I didn't hear any other words but felt the couch shift on either side of me as it was relieved of two-thirds of its burden. I didn't need the benefit of opening my eyes to know the look my mother must have given my older siblings.
"They meant well, you know, even if they were a wee bit overbearing."
I cracked open an eye. "I know."
"They weren't wrong, either."
"You, too, Mom?"
"Dinna take that tone with me," she began. "I..."
I zoned out and began to wish for an emergency to come up at work so I could get the hell out of here. Even some mundane chore such as checking up on Madelyn Stone sounded preferable now. How bad had it become that I'd rather spend time with a released inmate than my family?
