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Hearing someone else say her name, after nothing but my thinking it for almost two weeks, was like a bullet straight through my ribs. “I want her too,” I managed. “She has a job that can take her anywhere. And I willnotbe the man who makes her feel like she can’t. The man who makes her feel like she has to concede something shedoeslove, that she’s passionate about, for me. If she ever looks at me the way Angela did at the end ... I couldn’t live with myself.”
“Angela was the wrong person for you,” she said calmly. “That’s it.”
I gave her a look. “It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is.” She was unflinching. “She was the wrong person for you. She married a guy who ended up playing professional football, and boohoo, it was hard work and kept you away a lot and you made a shit ton of money doing it. I feel very little sympathy for her because that’s my right as your sister to vilify your ex.” Tansy nudged my shoulder. “Just like it was your right to punchmyex because you wanted to.”
“He more than earned that,” I said dryly.
“Agreed.” She shrugged. “We messed up. We picked the wrong people at first because we had no example of what a good marriage was supposed to be like. That’s on Dad because he chose not to talk to us about it. You know better now. So do I. The difference is that you’ve experienced something right and good and real. I haven’t had that yet.”
“You will.”
“I know,” she said easily. “Someone will snatch me up because I’m awesome.”
I laughed. It felt good. It felt easy and light after days and days of dark and hard.
“What are you gonna do?” she asked. “Because I’d highly recommend showering first.”
I sighed. “I was horrible when I left, and she was right to let me walk out.”
“You miss her?”
“Yes.”
“You’re in love with her?”
Fuck. I was going to cry. And if I cried in front of my sister, she’d hold it over my head for a solid decade. “Yes,” I managed.
Tansy grabbed my face in both hands. “Then tell her you’re sorry, and tell her all the things you just told me. A real apology. Not one of those bullshit ones that don’t really count. No excuses. Nobutsattached to it.”
“I ... I can do that,” I told her.
“I know you can.” Tansy clapped her hands together. “You done studying the past, so we can get your stinky ass out of my guest room?”
“I think so.” I swallowed. “I just needed to understand why, and I didn’t want to drag her into my shit if I couldn’t figure it out. She’d want to fix me, or try her best.” I smiled at my sister. “That’s what she does, you know? She sees a hollow wreck of a building and makes it whole again. Makes it a place where life can happen.”
Tansy smiled softly. “You’re not a wreck, Burke.”
“I was.” I stared down at the floor. “I just didn’t realize how much until Charlotte.”
“I really want to meet her.”
“The thought of you two together terrifies me to the depths of my soul.”
Tansy laughed. She sat back, eyed the letter on my nightstand. “You gonna open that?”
“Not yet.” I scrubbed a hand down my face. “I have a couple of things I need to do first.”
My list was short. Two things, really. Face down the two big, hard things that I didn’t want to face.
Chris.
And why Charlotte had every reason not to forgive me.
The first was mental.
The second ... that would require something a bit more strategic. I’d need a game plan.
