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“Not like what you’re thinking. This was more a case of cheating myself.”
“Now I’m really confused,” she admitted, picking her cards back up and gesturing for him to take his turn.
He did, liking the card he drew, and tossing one of the useless ones from his hand onto the table. “I was cheating myself of what you and I could have had, because I was scared of how I feel about you. Scared of us.”
There. He’d admitted the truth to her. A big truth that left him vulnerable. But it wasn’t enough and he knew it.
“When I got the job offer from Vanderbilt, I felt I couldn’t say no. To do so would mean admitting that you were more important to me than my career or anything else.”
She took her turn, quickly drawing and discarding. “I never wanted to stand in the way of your career.”
“You didn’t. But the truth is my career was only an excuse to leave.”
“Why did you need an excuse to leave?”
He picked up a card, tucked it in beside
another card, then discarded. “Because I didn’t deserve you or the happiness I’d found with you.”
“Because?” she asked as she snatched up the card he’d discarded.
Part of him questioned their sanity. Here they were, having the most important conversation of their relationship, and they were playing cards while doing so. Yet wasn’t that what he’d intended to some degree?
Maybe because he’d needed something to focus on besides what he was admitting to her.
“Because I destroyed my parents’ lives.” The admission spilled free from his lips much easier than he’d expected. Because he was telling Savannah. Because he knew he had to tell her everything before the past could be healed. God, he hoped the past could be healed. “How could I be so happy when, because of me, they’d been so miserable? I was afraid I’d do the same thing to you as I’d done to them.”
It wasn’t exactly fear he saw in her eyes, but the emotions glimmering there were definitely not happy stars and rainbows.
“No, afraid is too mild a word,” he corrected. “I was terrified I’d do the same thing to you.”
“What did you do to your parents?” Her question came out as barely more than a whisper.
He took a deep breath and spoke the truth. A truth it had taken him too many years to accept. “Exist.”
Savannah’s brows rose and she lowered her cards. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“But I sure didn’t understand you. How did existing make your parents miserable and how does that affect me?”
Here went everything on the line. He’d lay it all out there and what she did with it was up to her.
“There’s a lot I haven’t told you, that I haven’t told anyone. My parents married because my mother was pregnant with me. They hated each other,” he continued. “I’m not sure it was that way to begin with, but definitely from the time I can remember, they detested each other.”
“That’s sad,” she said and her sincerity echoed around them.
“Very. I always wondered why they didn’t divorce.” He raked his hands through his hair. “I wanted them to divorce. My dad had planned to go to medical school. He had a scholarship for his undergraduate and excelled at school. When my mom got pregnant, he married her, took a job at a local coal mine, dropped down to going to school at night. He lost his scholarship when he went from full-time to part-time. Eventually, he quit going altogether. He never forgave my mother for ruining his dream, and neither of them ever forgave me for destroying everything.”
“I’m sorry,” she offered simply.
“Me, too. They both lived in misery. My father was determined everyone else should be at least as miserable as he was or as close as possible. He pretty much succeeded.”
“That’s terrible,” she empathized. “I can’t imagine placing that type of emotional burden on a child.”
Charlie could all too well.
“My father was determined that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes he’d made. I hear his voice in my head, telling me to always put my career first, to never let anyone stand in the way, and I didn’t.”
