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‘You were a kid, Tak.’
‘She was my mother.’
‘She wasn’t doing the job of a mother and you resented her for it. Of all people, I can understand that, Tak. Believe me. You were taking responsibility for your siblings when that wasn’t supposed to be your job, and she left it to you.’
‘But only because my father left her to do it. It should have been him I hated. Not her.’
Effie shook her head, her hollow laugh catching them both by surprise. ‘It doesn’t work that way. She was the one you trusted. The one you had expectations from. He wasn’t. It was the same for me.’
He looked at her. Hard. As if he was trying to see right down to her very soul.
‘Trust me, Tak,’ she murmured softly. ‘I understand where all that came from. And why.’
‘Then you understand why I can’t be with anyone, then. Why I would only end up hurting them, destroying them.’ Bitterness leeched out of his voice, along with regret. ‘Destroying you.’
‘No. I don’t see that at all.’ She softened her words with a smile.
‘Then you’re a fool.’
‘Possibly. But I think I just see the real you, whilst you’re judging your childhood self on the standards of an adult. And I think you do too, or else why would you be here now?’
‘I just came to apologise,’ he repeated, but it lacked conviction even to his own ears.
The worst of it was that he wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe this version of himself which she claimed she knew. Of a man who might be worthy of her.
‘I can’t be with you.’ He frowned. ‘You have a daughter, responsibilities. I would only let you down and resent you for them.’
‘Really? Are you sure? Only so far you haven’t done either. When I needed somewhere to stay you stepped up. When I told you about Nell you asked me about her. When I confided about that shoplifting you gave me advice. It even worked—’
‘You’re not listening,’ he broke in abruptly. But only because he’d realised he was beginning to listen to Effie and believe in her version of him.
‘I am listening. I’m just pointing out all the ways I know you’re wrong. Not to mention the peace treaty you negotiated between myself and my daughter, and the fact that you took her to that bowling alley party. You’re a good man, Tak. You always have been.’
‘I’m not,’ he muttered, but it had lost more of its vehemence.
Slowly, gently, Effie bent her head forward until her forehead was pressed to his.
‘Yes. You are. You fight for your family, and when you find the right woman you’ll fight for her, too.’
And she said it with such certainty, such ferocity, that Tak felt all his walls beginning to tumble, stone block by stone block. As if her love was a wrecking ball which could topple even the best-built defences.
Love.
The word jolted him. Did she love him? Did he love her?
Possibly, he realised with a start. Perhaps he had even from that first night.
‘I’ve already found her,’ he heard himself say instead.
And then, because he didn’t know what more to say, he did the only thing he could think of to do.
He snaked his hand up to the back of her neck, tilting her head until their mouths fitted together as though it had been inevitable from the very start of their conversation.
He poured everything he had into that single kiss. As if it would convey all the thoughts he couldn’t articulate. As if it would make every word she was saying about him come true.
It was a kiss which went far deeper than anything he could have said, and it might have gone on for an entire eternity. Maybe two.
But it didn’t. Ultimately it had to end.
