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“No. I said you ate and you were bruised and sore but sleeping it off. I didn’t feel like that was too much of a lie.”
“If she didn’t ask, it wasn’t a lie at all,” he said.
“Why don’t you want them to know?” she asked.
“Because I worried them enough. I made the decision to get in the ring and that was the result. I shouldn’t have done it. I don’t need them or anyone else to see me like this.”
“Including me?” she asked.
“It makes me feel weak.”
“Too bad,” she said. “We are all weak at different points. And I’m not going to argue with you. I’d rather you get back to normal before I do that.”
“Thanks for that,” he said.
“But I will say one thing. You don’t like secrets. I didn’t keep one from you, but I feel like what you’re doing is keeping one from your parents. They love you and only care.”
He heard her. But he didn’t respond.
42
His Normal Self
Over a week later, Megan was at the gym after work.
It’d been a crazy day and she was blaming it on being Friday the thirteenth and everyone told her she was nuts.
But she couldn’t help it. It seemed like every time she turned around she found something she’d lost. Remembered something she’d forgotten. Heard someone was sick or got hurt. She even stubbed her toe this morning and broke her nail, ruining the pedicure she’d treated herself to a few days ago once the stress of Jonah was gone.
He’d made a full recovery that she could see.
He’d gone back to work on Friday, one week ago, as if nothing had happened to him. He wanted to go on Thursday, but he had no vehicle.
His truck was deemed totaled and he had to spend the day dealing with that and buying something new.
She’d gone back to work when she would have rather stayed with him, but his father had taken the day off to go truck shopping with him and she knew he was in good hands.
“I see the big man is back to his normal self.”
She looked at Patricia when she stopped at the desk to sign in. Everyone knew they were dating now. Not just the employees.
“Yes. It takes a lot more than that to knock him down,” she said.
She’d been so proud of herself for taking care of him and staying firm and by his side. He’d wanted her to leave a few times and she’d told him no. No way.
In her mind, if she was there then she’d know he was okay. She’d even told him that. That as big as he was, everyone had a weakness and he had to get over the fact she knew his.
She got it—he didn’t like her seeing him that way, but she didn’t care.
Even her mother told her how proud she was that Megan stepped up and cared for Jonah. Here, her whole life she’d been looking for some kind of acceptance and it came when she least expected it.
She didn’t even tell her mother about Jonah’s accident until the next day. She expected her mother to make some snide remark or something, but nothing came. Nothing more than compliments that Megan had matured—which she snorted at—and that they really believed she found the person she was meant to be with because times like that were when the strength came through.
Jonah had laughed when she’d shared that conversation, but she didn’t care. She’d told herself that she was going to put other people’s opinions of her in a closet and only focus on what made her happy, but there was part of her that was always going to want her parents' approval too.
“He’s told everyone what good care you’ve taken of him,” Patricia said.
“That was nice of him,” Megan said. She hadn’t known he’d done that. “I think that is what everyone would do if it was the person they loved.”
