AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Savannah winced. “This is where I come in. It’s okay, Charlie,” she assured him. “I don’t want to stand in your way. I’ve never wanted that. I’m fine, I promise.”
Charlie took a deep breath, set his cards down and reached for Savannah’s hand, and wondered if she’d ever be able to forgive someone with as messed-up a head as his. He wouldn’t blame her if she couldn’t.
Still, he had to tell her everything.
“It’s not fine, Savannah. I’m not fine.”
She frowned at him. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve made so many mistakes over the past few months. I let you and I go on too long. When the job offer came, I didn’t want to go. I took it because I felt I had to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
“Me.”
She blinked at him. “From you?”
“My father was not a good person, Savannah.”
“You aren’t your father,” she reminded him.
“No, I’m not, but I am what drove him to that point. What drove my mother to that point. I wasn’t able to protect her from him. I tried and it only made things worse. A lot worse.”
“You were a child, Charlie. A blessing. It wasn’t your job to protect your mother. That was your father’s job.”
“He’s who she needed protecting from.”
Understanding of just how bad things had been dawned and empathy showed in her eyes. “Did he abuse you?”
Charlie’s jaw worked back and forth, memories of a fist crunching into the bones hard racking through him. “Only once.”
Her brow lifted.
“I stopped him from hitting my mother. For years, I’d blocked out what I didn’t want to deal with, pretending I didn’t know. One night, when I was fifteen, I couldn’t pretend anymore, and I stepped in, refused to let him hit her again.”
“Oh, Charlie,” Savannah empathized. “Surely that had your mother waking up that she needed to get you both out of that bad situation.”
“She got out,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “She killed herself that night, but not before telling me that it was my fault he hit her and my fault she was leaving. She died because of me.”
It was the first time he’d given voice to what he knew in his heart. He’d not been able to protect his mother and she’d taken her life to escape the reality of her world. A world Charlie had helped shape into the unbearable mess it had been.
Savannah gasped, then frowned. “I thought your mother died in a car wreck.”
“She did.”
“Oh.”
Oh. Charlie’s head dropped and he wondered why he was telling Savannah all this. He’d never told anyone. Maybe some things were better left unsaid.
“I’m not sure what to say.”
See, Savannah agreed.
“I don’t expect you to say anything.”
She pulled her hand from his and rested it protectively over her belly. The motion was very telling and he struggled to continue onward with his admission.
“Caring about another person terrifies me,” he admitted. “Being responsible for another person terrifies me.”
