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“Or if the genetic heart defect I inherited from my grandfather suddenly stops my heart.”
“You have a heart defect?” I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I wanted to take her in my arms as if that could protect her somehow. But, at the same time, I wanted to pat down her whole body to make sure she was okay. Then I remembered how I’d worn her out over the weekend and how she had panted so fucking hard to regain her breath.
I grabbed her shoulders. “Jesus fucking H Christ, woman. You’re telling me this now, after all the exertion I put you through this weekend. I wouldn’t have been so rough—”
“Oh, relax.” She rolled her eyes. “Modern medicine has come a long way, and I had surgery for it when I was nine.”
The tension in my shoulders eased. “Are you sure? Promise me you’re healthy?”
“Yes. Yes. That’s beside the point. All I’m saying is that anything can kill me at any time. You can’t protect me from that. And being with a so-called safer man doesn’t guarantee my happiness.”
I let my hands slide off her arms. “You wouldn’t be happy with a monster like me.”
“Monster?” Her eyes bore into me, analyzing me as if she could see into my most secret thoughts. “Oh, I see what’s going on now.”
Good. I needed her to know who I really was without coming out and saying the words. “The things I’ve done would give you nightmares for the rest of your life.”
She palmed my cheek, her hand warm and comforting. “You don’t believe you deserve to be loved.”
What the…? “Are we having the same conversation here because it doesn’t sound like it to me?”
Her thumb stroked my cheek soothingly. “You think no one could love you, the real you.”
I didn’t deserve the gentle touch of her hand, but I couldn’t bring myself to pull back from it. Something deep within me craved this comfort. “Exactly.” My tone was grave. “Just as I said before. No one could love a monster.”
“You’ve got it backward. What youthinkand what youbelieveare two different things. Youthinkno one can love you because you’re a monster, as you put it. But that stems from yourbeliefthat you don’t deserve love. Not because of what you’ve done or who you are. But because of your past.”
Why did I feel like I was talking to a shrink instead of the woman I had railed for two days straight? “My past is part of who I am. The things I’ve done—”
She shook her head. “Not that past. I meant, your parents. Your mom, the one person who should have loved and protected you, left you.”
I should have never told her about that. I had opened up to her in a moment of weakness, and now she was using it against me. “She had her reasons.”
“Of course, she did, but it doesn’t make it less painful to a child. That kind of trauma scars a person emotionally for life. More so than the scars on your face.”
The last thing I wanted was her pity. “I’m not wounded.”
“Yes, you are. But so is everyone else in one way or another. Your trauma has created this ingrainedbeliefthat you, Hawk, as a person, no matter what you’ve done or not done in your life, are not lovable. Because if your own mother couldn’t love you, then who possibly could?”
My chest tightened, making me short of breath. And for the first time in years, I felt like I’d lost control over my biorhythms. What the fuck was this?
“So, this belief takes root in your subconscious, creating a reality that, no matter what, you’re not lovable. It wouldn’t matter if you lived the life of a saint, you’d stillbelievethat you did not deserve love, and your psyche would come up with a bullshit excuse as to why not.
“In your case, your excuse is that no one could love a monster. A convenient lie told by your mind to protect you from getting hurt again. Youthinkthat if you let someone in and they discover the real you, they’ll never be able to love you.”
Dizziness swirled in my head. I had enough of the psychobabble. “You’re spewing nonsense.”
“Your mind will always come up with an excuse to make sure that belief stays valid. Because it wants to protect you.
“But it’s all a lie. A lie subconsciously created by a young child who was in so much pain that his mind didn’t have a choice but to fabricate this lie. To avoid ever having to feel this agony again.”
“But here’s the real truth.” She palmed my cheek with her other hand, cupping my face in both hands. “Hawk. You are deserving of love. You deserve to be loved.”
Hope flooded through me in an overpowering way to the point that I felt like the room was spinning. I shut my eyes, trying to regain control. My heart ached, wanting it to be true. Could someone truly love me even if they knew everything about me?
Suddenly, the memory of Jimmy’s brain splattered all over the floor filled my mind. That fucking slithering darkness choked out the hope from my heart. Even if I was deserving of love, it was too late. “Love can’t exist in darkness.”
“You’re right. There is no love in darkness.” She kissed my forehead. “That’s why you need to let love in so it can chase the shadows away.”
