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Shane stared out the window and was quiet.
Charlotte continued driving, allowing him privacy.
When he spoke, his voice was soft, full of pain.
“My parents grew to hate one another. Before they got a divorce, they used to fight all the time. It got pretty ugly. My job was to keep Austin away from them. He was four years younger and didn’t see or hear what I did, mostly because I made sure he didn’t.”
“I’m so sorry,” Charlotte said. “How awful for you. How old were you when they divorced?”
“I’d just turned ten,” he said. “Granny Liz was the one who took Austin and me in for summers and vacations. Understandably, I didn’t want to spend much time at home. So, when my mother placed Austin and me in a private school with lots of afterschool activity, I was more than happy to attend, so I didn’t have to be with her.”
Charlotte glanced at his haggard expression, and her heart went out to him.
Shane let a long sigh. “I’ve been to counseling and thought I’d put all that behind me. But after seeing those images of them fighting, their hatred, I realize it’s never really over.”
“But wasn’t their wedding one of those big society ones?” Charlotte said. “It was touted as a fairytale come true.”
“Oh, yes. A big deal in Miami,” he snorted. “As if that means anything.”
Charlotte thought of her mother in New York and their differences. She answered with more anger than she’d wanted. “Now you know why I want out of New York.”
Startled, he looked at her.
His confession had stirred something inside her. Feeling free to speak her mind, she said, “I had the opposite situation with my mother growing up. Guess everyone at the cove knows I had a brother who drowned not far from there. That’s why my mother doesn’t like to come to the cove to see Gran. I never really knew him. I was pretty much a baby when it happened. But I understood from an early age that no matter what I did, I wasn’t the child my mother wanted, that given a choice, she would’ve saved him, not me.”
Charlotte felt her lips tremble. She blinked back tears.
“I’m sorry, Charlie. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting you. That must have hurt.”
“Oh, my mother and I are friends of a sort now, but that feeling of not being wanted has never left me.” She blinked harder and then let out a sob that shocked her.
Charlotte quickly pulled over to the side of the road. Embarrassed, she unstrapped her seatbelt and struggled to get out of the car.
Shane’s hand came down on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Charlie. I understand.”
She turned to face him, and his arms came around her. Pain tore at her insides, and she gulped air in between sobs that racked her body. Years of hiding feelings of inadequacy emerged in a torrent of pain. Though she told herself to stop, she couldn’t.
Shane rubbed her back and let her cry.
When she finally lifted her face, she saw tears in his eyes.
She sat up and wiped her face with the tissue he handed her. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”
“You don’t?” he said.
Charlotte caught her breath, took a sip from the bottle of water he offered and sighed. “Actually, I do know. After hearing your story, I felt safe telling mine. Weird, huh?”
“No,” he said. “We were honest with one another. Like we promised. Remember?”
She nodded, feeling relieved. “I do.”
“That kind of friendship is what we need right now,” said Shane. Then, with a thumb, he wiped the last of her tears off her cheek.
“Yeah. Life is complicated,” she said, still surprised by how easily she’d let her feelings out with him.
Charlotte sighed, straightened, refastened her seatbelt, and then eased the car onto the highway. She concentrated on driving, hoping to settle her emotional outbreak. She was here to help Shane, not be a burden to him.
