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He shook his head. How many other lies had he told to protect himself?
‘She didn’t die. She left.’
* * *
‘What? When?’
Xanthe stared blankly at Dane as he ducked his head and braced his hands against the desk. She felt exhausted, hollowed out, her heart already broken into a thousand tiny fragments. He’d said he loved her. But how could she believe him?
‘When I was a kid.’ He sighed, the deep breath making his chest expand. ‘Eight or maybe nine.’
‘I don’t understand what that has to do with us.’
He raked his fingers over his hair, finally meeting her eyes. The torment in them shocked her into silence.
‘I didn’t either. I thought I’d gotten over it. I missed her so much, and then I got angry with her. But most of all I convinced myself I’d forgotten her.’
‘But you hadn’t?’
He nodded, glanced out of the window.
Part of her didn’t expect him to explain. Part of her wasn’t even sure she wanted him to. But she felt the tiny fragments of her heart gather together as his Adam’s apple bobbed and he began to talk.
‘He hit her, too, when he was wasted. I remember she used to get me to hide. One night I hid for what felt like hours. I could hear him shouting, her crying. The sound of...’
He swallowed again, and she could see the trauma cross his face. A trauma he’d never let her see until now.
‘She was pregnant. He slapped her a couple of times and went out again. To get drunker, I guess. When I came out she was packing her stuff. Her lip was bleeding. I was terrified. I begged her to take me with her. She said she couldn’t, that she had to protect the baby. That I was big enough now to look out for myself until she could come back for me.’
His knuckles turned white where he held the edge of the desk.
‘But she never did come back for me.’
Was this why he had always found it so hard to trust her? To trust anyone? Because the one person who should have stayed with him, who had promised to protect him, had abandoned him?
‘Dane, I’m so sorry.’
Xanthe felt her heart break all over again for that boy who had been forced to grow up far too fast. But as much as she wanted to comfort him, to help him, she knew she couldn’t go back and make things better now.
‘Don’t be sorry. It was a long time ago. And in some ways it made me stronger. Once I’d survived that, I knew I could survive anything.’
‘I understand now why it was so hard for you to ever show weakness.’
And she did understand. He’d had to survive for so long and from such a young age with no one. His self-sufficiency was the only thing that had saved him. Why would he ever want to give that up?
‘But I can’t be with someone who doesn’t need me the way I need them. It was like that with my dad. And it was the same way with us. I waited too long to call him that day because I didn’t want to betray you.’
Her voice caught in her throat, but she pushed the words out. She had to stand up for herself. For who she had become. She couldn’t be that naive, impressionable girl again. Not for anyone.
‘I love you, Dane. I probably always will. You excite me and challenge me and make me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt with any other person. But I can’t be with you, make a life with you, if we can’t be equal. And we never will be if you always have to hold a part of yourself back.’
But as she opened her mouth to tell him to leave he took her wrists, first one, then the other, and drew her against him. He touched his forehead to hers, his lips close to hers, his voice barely a whisper. Tension vibrated through his body as he spoke.
‘Please give me another chance. I loved that girl because she was sweet and sexy and funny, but also so fragile. I thought I could protect her the way I could never protect my mom. And I love knowing that some of that cute, bright, clever kid is still there.’
He pressed his hand to her cheek, cradled her face, and the tenderness in his eyes pushed another tear over her lid.
‘But don’t you see, Dane? I can’t be that girl any more. You walked all over me and I let you.’
