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She let her eyes drop to the floor for a moment then seemed to steel herself and lift them to his gaze right away.
‘Like I told you that last time we were together, the worst part of it is that I knew Mama wasn’t well. And that’s what’s left me racked with guilt all this time.’ Her voice sounded so stilted and awkward that he couldn’t bear her discomfort.
He might not have known exactly how it felt—after all, how could you mourn the loss of something you never remembered having to begin with?—but he knew how it felt not to have a mother.
‘You don’t have to do this. You don’t owe me any more explanations,’ he ground out.
‘I do owe you more explanations.’ Her expression was so earnest, so fierce it was impossible not to feel himself getting swept up in her words. ‘Even though you didn’t tell me...how bad your father was, I knew you’d grown up without a mother and with a father who didn’t show much love. To be fair, it was easy enough to read between the lines and realise you’d had a something of a lonely childhood without much love.’
‘It was fine.’ Liam stiffened defensively. He tried not to but it was too ingrained. ‘Other kids have it worse. I’ve seen that all too often in the hospital.’
‘And yet other kids, like me, enjoy wonderful childhoods with loving families.’ She lifted her shoulders delicately. ‘I just didn’t appreciate that fully until these last few years.’
‘I’m glad that returning to St Vic...home,’ he corrected, ‘was so rewarding for you.’
And he truly meant it. If it came down to a choice between having her with him and seeing her happy among people who knew her well and loved her, there was really no contest.
‘Yet here I am, having spent the best part of a day travelling, to come and say these few things, which should tell you all you really need to know. Back on St Victoria you asked me why I didn
’t tell you I was leaving three years ago, and I didn’t answer. And then you accused me of playing games, trying to get you to run after me.’
‘You don’t have to say anything, Talia. It was wrong of me to accuse you of anything. I can only imagine how frightened and confused you must have felt,’ he assured her, but she cut him off with a gentle shake of her head.
‘The things is...’ She drew in a breath. ‘I don’t know that you were entirely wrong after all. I did feel guilty about my mother, it’s true, and my head was a mess when my father called. But now, with the benefit of three years on, and everything you said to me those last weeks, I wonder if there was maybe an element of truth to what you said.’
‘What kind of element of truth?’ he rasped.
He wanted to say more but no words came. What could he say?
‘I...’ She faltered, then picked herself up again, and he thought it was that strength that he admired most in her. ‘I knew I loved you, even three years ago. But I also knew that as much as you cared for me, you didn’t necessarily feel love. I certainly didn’t intend it as a test, but I think that maybe there was some tiny part of me that wondered—hoped, really—if my leaving would cause you to realise it.’
‘You wanted me to chase after you to St Victoria?’ he demanded, but the strange thing was that the idea didn’t rile him the way it had before.
In fact, he couldn’t really work out why he hadn’t done precisely that. Why, when he’d returned to his empty apartment and seen the gap in his closet, in his bathroom, in his life, he hadn’t chased straight after her.
Why he wouldn’t let himself feel that love—even now, when he so desperately wanted to—let alone act on it.
She was right, he had always pushed her away. Keeping her at arm’s length before she could get too close to him and hurt him. But the sad thing was that he didn’t know how to do anything else.
‘I didn’t envisage you racing to the island after me.’ She splayed out her hands stiffly. ‘I think I just wanted you to... I don’t know...realise that I mattered to you. Enough to do something about it. Call me. Tell me. Anything.’
‘I couldn’t,’ he stated flatly. ‘I can’t. That isn’t who I am. I don’t know how to.’
‘I know that now.’ He didn’t realise that Talia had slid off her chair until she was suddenly in front of him, crouched down, his face cupped in her soft—so soft—palms.
‘I am my father’s own son, incapable of loving. Only I’m worse, because at least he once loved my mother.’
‘No, Liam.’ Her eyes glistened and he braced against a sudden wave of emotion. ‘You aren’t worse. You never got to see what love was because he never showed you. Your father lost his wife and it’s tragic, I understand that. But when she died, you were born. A pure, innocent baby, who didn’t even get the chance to know your mother. You needed your father’s love more than ever. But, instead, he was too wrapped up in his grief.’
‘You have no right to judge,’ he gritted out, even as he felt the heavy weight in his chest rock and shift. It was still there, but for the first time he began to realise that it could be moved. He wasn’t sure he liked that. He’d grown perversely accustomed to it over the years.
‘I think I have every right,’ she argued. ‘Because it tears me up to see what pain his selfishness has caused you all these years. How his actions have made it so you don’t even know how to love or be loved, let alone want it.’
‘That isn’t true.’
Except that it wasn’t untrue either, was it?
He stared at her as though it could somehow explain to her what was going on in his head. But he knew it couldn’t. He couldn’t even explain it to himself. It was as though the very air was shifting around them. Pressing in on him. Making him...wonder.
