AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh? What has he said?” After everything that’s happened, I’m worried.
“All good things. You’re kind, fierce, passionate. He likes you a lot. Says you’re the one.”
“So he says.”
“What do you think, Catherine?”
This feels like a trick question. Even if it isn’t, I have no idea how to answer her. Like a child, I shrug my shoulders. “Things are very complicated.”
“Life is only complicated because we make it so. Really, everything is quite simple.”
I nod and turn back to the ocean. Mrs. Cooper stands beside me, looking out at the dark sea.
“It’s a scary place, isn’t it? I’d never swim here. Too risky with all those sharks,” she tells me.
“Nah. I love the ocean. I mean, I wouldn’t go in at night. But during the day, the water is crystal clear. You can see all around. There’s nothing to be sca…” It dawns on me then, what she’s trying to do. I look at her with narrowed eyes. “Are we still talking about the ocean?”
“Were we ever?” Her eyes soften as she takes my hand. “I’d never met anyone like Dean. I’m sure by now you’re aware he came into our lives a little older.”
“It may have come up,” I say, picking at a splinter in the railing.
“He told me you got informed about his past.”
“It’s all true, then?” I want her to lie.
“It’s not my place to tell you. What I will say is that he’s more than a good man. He’s a great man. He always fights for what he believes in, and what he wants. And he’s set his eyes on you. I don’t know you, Catherine. I don’t know if you’re worthy of my son. But I have to trust that he wouldn’t waste his time. That’s why I’m going to ask for a favor and give you some advice.”
“What’s that?” I ask, looking at the woman who doesn’t look that much older than me.
“Don’t waste his time. If you don’t want him, fine, he will move on. Because move on he will, Catherine. If you want him, don’t cheat yourself simply because you can’t see through the water. Give him the chance to make that water crystal clear.”
She leaves me standing there, pondering what she’s said. I know this, of course. It’s all I think about. I’ve gone around in circles trying to change the way I feel. Nothing I do makes me care less.
My mind made up, I head in to find Dean. He’s sitting at one of the large round tables all alone and somber, looking down at floor. I stand so close to him the hem of my dress touches his hands, and he looks up.
“Tell me,” I whisper, because I need to know that he’s worth this vulnerability. That I’m not losing grip on who I am for nothing.
He takes my hand and guides me down to the chair beside him. The green of his eyes glistens as he begins to speak. “I’ve dated a lot of women, Cat. Have loved only one. But I always knew she wasn’t The One. None of them were. All my life I’ve wanted to find what Charles and Marissa have. I knew that if it ever came to me, I’d know it, and would never let go.
“Then I saw you and thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” he says, making me smile. “After that first kiss, when I looked into your eyes, I felt your soul. I knew you were the one. Something screamed at me that we were cast from the same mold.”
“All that from my eyes?” I ask.
“It was a little scary, actually. My instincts told me not to let you go, and they’ve never failed me. Finding out who you were, then getting to know you… When you told me about your past, how your mother didn’t care for you, and how you fought for your daughter confirmed my gut was right. We are the same.”
“Tell me how we’re the same, Dean. Because I didn’t steal. I didn’t take away from anyone.”
“Life hasn’t always been good to me, Cat. My parents didn’t want me either. They preferred drugs over their five children. They tell me my grandmother did what she could, took us in many times when we were near starvation because we weren’t being fed. Then, when I was about four and she couldn’t care for us anymore, she called child protective services.
“All five of us bounced around foster homes, then back to my parents when they were well enough. They’d fall back into their old ways, beat the shit out of us, and we’d end up back in foster care. My mother overdosed on heroin when I was nine, and my father took it out on me and my younger brother, Brandon. We both ended up in the hospital. Brandon never came out.” Dean stops, swallowing hard, trying to compose himself.
“I am so sorry,” I say, touching his forearm, hurting for him. “Is your father still alive?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “He died three years ago, in prison. Heart attack.”
“What about your other siblings?”
“Hannah and Nelly were much older than me. They grew out of the system first. Hannah is in California and Nel in Boston. We talk occasionally, but I think they see me as part of a past they’d rather forget.”
