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‘It was a much better opportunity. They needed the money.’
‘More than they needed you,’ I say softly. ‘They wanted money, not you.’
His expression is closed off. ‘No. It wasn’t like that.’
‘Yes, it was. They could have stayed in Sydney with you, but they ran away. They left you. Like everyone leaves you. Because you’re not worth staying for. Right?’
He opens his mouth to say something—something that I suspect would have been a curse-laden tirade, but then he clams up, eyeing me warily.
‘You’re not worth loving,’ I push on, hating saying these words but needing him to admit his wounds, to find them, hold them and weave through them.
‘They left—’ he grinds the words out ‘—because they had to. My biological mother, fucking bitch that she was, is the only reason they didn’t keep me.’
‘No, that’s not true, Noah. Lots of people get offered jobs interstate and decide not to go.’
‘Fine.’ He shrugs, like it doesn’t matter. He’s so good at this—this pain is one he has obviously ignored for a very long time. ‘They didn’t want me. That was nothing new. It wasn’t the first nor the last time I’d been kicked out of a home.’
‘But it was the only time it hurt,’ I say. ‘It was the only time you let yourself fall in love with your foster parents.’
‘Jesus, Holly. What do you know?’
‘I know that the day they left you something happened deep inside you that you still can’t change. You were heartbroken and ever since then you’ve kept your heart locked up in case you’re rejected again. I know you were set on a destructive path until you found programming and Gabe. That you found it easier to screw things up and be unlovable before anyone could reject you.’
His eyes narrow. ‘Thank you so much for the elucidating character sketch.’
I feel like the ground is tipping beneath my feet. It occurs to me that helping him like this might be ruining everything we share, but not helping him isn’t an option. I want him to be better. To be happy. To be capable of accepting love, to open his heart to trust and relationships.
‘Did Julianne stay in contact with you?’
‘She wasn’t allowed,’ he says, his expression rock-hard. ‘The foster system is very “protective” of its kids. Once I moved on, I was assigned to a new guardian. She wasn’t allowed to have my details.’
‘So you never heard from her again?’
A muscle jerks in his cheek, but he is quiet. Quiet for so long that I contemplate a new line of questioning. ‘When I turned eighteen,’ he says quietly, ‘she was able to get my contact information from the foster system then.’
My heart warms. This woman cares for him. Loves him. To have contacted him after so long shows she never forgot him. ‘What did she say?’
‘Does it matter?’ There is a bleak pain in his voice.
‘I think it does.’
His jaw tightens. ‘She said she thought about me every day since they left. That she wondered about me and hoped and prayed that I was happy. That I was with someone who loved me as much as she did. She said she wanted to see me again.’
Tears clog my throat, but I can’t give in to them. I am trying to be professional, and to treat him as I would any other patient. ‘How did that make you feel?’
I expect him to say happy or relieved. Instead, I get ‘Fucking livid.’
‘Livid?’
‘Yeah, Doc. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I didn’t want to see her. She was in my past.’
‘You were still angry with her. For leaving you.’
‘No! I just didn’t want to know her.’
‘When did you last hear from her?’
He scowls at me. ‘Two months ago.’
