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‘Don’t look at me like that, Louis.’
She braced herself for the platitudes.
‘How? How did she die?’
As though he could read her. She cast him a ghost of a grateful smile.
‘Placenta percreta. The placenta had grown through the uterine wall and invaded her bladder. They couldn’t do anything. Everything ruptured and she bled out.’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t imagine...’
‘I content myself with the knowledge that she got to hold me, at least for a few moments. And she told my father to love me and made him promise to tell me every time I needed him to that she was grateful for the chance to meet me.’
‘Did he?’
‘No. He never told me. He tried to, in his own way, but he couldn’t bear talking about her. In the end it was my grandparents who used to tell me but it wasn’t the same. I always felt he blamed me, deep down. And so I blamed myself. When my brother died, my father retreated even more and so I took on that responsibility, too.’
He shook his head, his fist balled as though he was angry on her behalf. As if he wanted to protect her.
As if he cared.
‘I didn’t tell you this because I wanted your sympathy.’ She made her voice crisp, unemotional, telling herself that she’d dealt with that pain even though she could still feel it, rattling the heavy chains on its prison door, even now.
‘I told you because I wanted to show you that I let that experience drive me to become a doctor. To become someone she would have been proud of. I know you play the bad boy because you think it’s somehow your punishment, but honestly I think that’s nonsense.’
She knew he was about to stop her but she held her hand up to silence him. If she didn’t tell him now, she’d never get the chance to say it.
‘You were seven, a child. You can’t hold yourself responsible for someone else’s happiness. You could be doing so much more. Even if you can’t do it for her, you owe it to yourself to be the kind of man you have the potential to be. If only you’d forgive yourself.’
He’d only felt helpless once before in his life. The night his mother had turned her back on him.
Louis was determined tonight wasn’t going to be the second time.
But seeing Alex so distressed, and knowing how worthless her father had made her feel—not by hurling the kind of vicious jibes that his own father had but by staying silent and withholding his love—made Louis furious, powerless and mournful all at once.
And yet he couldn’t let her off so easily.
‘You talk about me forgiving myself. But have you?’
He could tell by the rush of panic in her eyes that he was right.
‘Of course. That’s why I can volunteer at Rainbow House. I’ve confronted my ghosts.’
‘I don’t buy that, Alex. I know you volunteer to maintain that last connection with your father. But if you forgave yourself then you wouldn’t need to hang onto him. You’d tell yourself that it was time he met you halfway.’
‘Who said I didn’t enjoy volunteering there for myself?’ she blustered.
‘You. You’ve never once given that as a reason. You’ve always linked it to your father.’
She stilled. He thought she’d even stopped breathing. Then she blinked rapidly, as if tears were stinging her soulful eyes, and guilt poured through him.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘But you were right,’ she whispered. ‘I’m just as tethered to my past as you are. I wanted to help you see that you weren’t helping anyone by punishing yourself. I thought I could help you move on.’
He didn’t remember standing up or crossing the room to scoop her into his arms. But suddenly they were there together and all he could do was to hold her body close to his, try to make her feel safe and secure. And cared for.
So what did that mean?
