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“She’s got severe bipolar disorder and suicidal tendencies, among other issues. When she’s not in a phase, she’s fine. The life of every party, the center of every crowd. But when she crashes…” She shut her eyes. “It’s a chemical imbalance, often inherited.”
She conveyed her fear about that with merely a long, steady glance. “Have you been evaluated?”
“I’ve talked to a psychologist. He thinks I’m stable enough.” She laughed weakly. “She’d been fine for years and she thought she was ‘cured.’ Then after she left us, everything started piling up. She couldn’t find steady work, and she felt guilty—”
“As she should have,” he interjected, his hold on her tightening. “She abandoned her goddamn family.”
He knew all too well what it felt like to be left behind, and he’d had people to fill the void. From the sounds of things, she hadn’t. Not nearly enough.
“She knows she made mistakes,” she whispered, looking down as if those mistakes were somehow hers. As if they were her fault.
“Melinda and Bryan aren’t bipolar, are they?”
“They haven’t been evaluated. They don’t even know she is.”
“Do they know you see her?”
Again she shook her head. “No one knows, except you.”
He ran his fingertips down the side of her face, lifting it gently. “How long, Vic? How long have you been shouldering this alone?”
“For years,” she said, and he had to shut his eyes at the pain in her voice. God. What she’d gone through, all on her own. And he’d been griping at her about window treatments and magazine layouts while she’d been trying so hard to take care of the people she cared about. Her mother, Bryan, Melly, Jill.
Even him. Why else had she agreed to be his fake girlfriend when he knew down to the ground that it went against everything she stood for? She’d had her own reputation to think about after the gazebo incident, but that had been a relatively small concern. Talk would die down. But she’d wanted to help him. Lord knows why.
He wanted to beg her to give them a chance. A real one. He didn’t have the first idea how to make a relationship work, but maybe she could give him time to learn.
So many maybes. With every risk grew the likelihood of failure. And he didn’t fail. Ever.
She swiped moisture off her chin. “It hasn’t all been bad. She gets better, and those times are really good.”
“But it’s bad now,” he said gently, wiping away her fresh flood of tears. Each one twisted his stomach.
“Yes.” She rested her head on his shoulder and let out a shuddery breath. “I didn’t hear from her until several years ago. It was only when she went in the hospital the first time that she wrote to me as part of her therapy. She called the same day I received the letter. I was the closest one to her, her baby, and she told me she’d always loved me best. It sounds horrible, but God, I needed to hear that. Bryan and Melly got everyone else’s attention, and I wanted her all to myself. I’d missed her so much.”
“She manipulated you, because she knew you had a soft heart.” Though he’d done the same damn thing, so how was he any better?
“No, it’s not all on her. It’s my fault it’s gone on this long. I tried to tell Bry once, and he just shut me down. He’s had so many issues himself with his injury and God knows Mom’s not the way he remembers her. I didn’t want to add this to all he’s dealing with already. So when he asked me not to talk about her, I gave in. Same thing with Melly. They both think I just want to drive down memory lane and I didn’t push hard enough. I should’ve made them listen to me.”
“How do you make someone listen if they don’t want to?”
She had no answer for that, just a soft sniffle that clenched his gut. “I visited her in secret all these years, hoping she’d get better for good. And then she’d come home and I would be the hero, because I reunited our family.” She laughed harshly and stabbed her fingers against her eyes. “But she hasn’t, and now she has no one else but me, and there’s nothing left inside me for her. I turned my back on my own father when he was struggling because she convinced me he’d driven her away, when all along I knew it was her illness talking. Now I’m the guilty one, because I need a break.”
“And that makes you feel guilty because you think you’re like her. That you could leave someone you love. But you’re not.” He gripped her chin so she had no choice but to look at him. “I know you like I know myself and you’ll never be that cruel or selfish. You don’t have it in you, Vic. You’re the best person I’ve ever known.”
She huddled against him as if she wanted to crawl inside his skin. “I like when you call me Vic.”
“Vic,” he breathed, pressing his lips to each damp cheek. “Vic.” Her forehead. Each closed eye. “Vic.” Her chin. And finally her mouth, salty with her tears.
She swallowed, her amber eyes as bright as the tears that gathered beneath them. “Will you stay? I want a night where it’s just us.”
He wanted many more nights like that, and time was running short. His parents’ going-away party was next weekend at the same place they’d held the Value Hardware gala three-plus weeks ago. If he didn’t work fast, their fake relati
onship would dissolve for real.
“I think that can be arranged.” Forcing his dark thoughts away, he grinned and rubbed his palm over her hip. “Prepare yourself, little lady. I’m about to do one of those romance moves again.”
“Wait.” She pressed her hand to his cheek, drawing his eyes to hers. “You told me there were things you want to do to me.”
