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Ama had always been the right person for me.
It was time to tell her, since clearly she didn’t realize it herself.
“Don’t think I ever got a chance to tell you back then,” I said, not letting her pull back because I wasn’t sure I could get the words out if she was looking up at me. “I was just never good at saying shit like that back then. Still not my strong suit,” I admitted. “But I think you’re the only fucking reason I survived my childhood. If you hadn’t been there, giving a shit, being good to me, being a light in my very dark fucking life, I really think I’d be in a casket six feet under right now, not standing here.”
“You give me way too much credit,” she told me. “I was horrible to you.”
“Jesus Christ, no the fuck you weren’t.”
“I just didn’t see it. Or hear it, I guess. Until I said something to Eddie that I’ve probably said to you a hundred times without really hearing what I was saying, how you might interpret it. But he made me hear it.”
“Babe…”
“No. Let me say it,” she demanded, pulling hard against my hold, making me have to loosen it because I didn’t want her to hurt her arm trying to use it as leverage. “I never meant to make it sound like you weren’t good enough.”
“You never said that, Ama,” I insisted, though I had to admit that her words were a knife to the gut, worse in intensity than theactualknife wounds to the gut I’d recently gotten.
“No. But the things I said would have absolutely made you feel that way. Tell me I’m wrong,” she added, chin lifting up, sassy, always ready to have an argument, even in the middle of what was a heartfelt conversation, one that was long overdue. For both of us. “You can’t,” she added when I paused.
“Ama, listen, I was very aware of the differences between us, okay? Even before you ever made any kind of comment on it. For fuck’s sake, even my old man knew it and said it.”
“Your father was a complete asshole, so you really shouldn’t listen to anything he ever said.”
“He was a dick, but he was right about some things.”
“What did he say?” she asked.
“We don’t have to do this,” I said, pulling away, not wanting to talk about that.
“Seeley,” she said, grabbing my hand, forcing me to turn back. “What did your father say?”
“It was nothing. He just said what I already knew. That you were pretty and smart and going places.”
“And?” she prompted, knowing that wasn’t the end of it.
“And that I never had a shot with a girl like you,” I said, feeling my jaw getting tight.
“Oh, Seeley…”
“No. Don’t give me the sad eyes, Ama. I already knew that shit. I’d said it to myself a thousand times before. Fuck, a million times. You weren’t just a bright light in my life, Ama. You were like a star just waiting to shoot up.”
“And, what? You thought you would… pull me down?” she asked, and I just couldn’t answer that. We both knew what I felt. “Can I ask you something?”
“Don’t you think we’re both raw enough from all of this?” I shot back, feeling fucking flayed open. I didn’t need any salt in the wounds.
“One more question. Please,” she said, something small and breakable in her voice. And the part of me that wanted to protect her, would always protect her, didn’t want to say anything that would take a hammer to all of that.
“I think we’re done for—“
“Was it always the plan?” she cut me off.
“Was what the plan?” I asked, knowing she wasn’t going to give up. Not until we had it out. Not until she was satisfied. It was pointless to argue with her. It would only drag it out, not prevent it.
“Never seeing me again, never talking to me again, was that always your plan?”
Fuck.
So she’d figured that out.
