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“Not entirely. You’re where I was not that long ago.” Silas’s dark eyes focused on Cade, as if seeking understanding. “You’ve grown content in savoring your pain.”
“That’s not true,” Cade argued. If it was, he wouldn’t be feeling regret about turning down Hope.
“How are things going at the garage?” Harry asked, abruptly changing the subject.
“What does my part-time job have to do with anything?” Cade demanded. Being the focus of this discussion annoyed him to the point that he was ready to walk. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t. These sessions were required as part of a condition for his probation.
“How many friends have you made at the shop?” Harry pressed.
Cade bristled at the question. “I have friends.”
“None that you’ve mentioned,” Ricardo said.
“Acquaintances, then.”
“Making friends threatens you in the same way Hope does.” Shelley made it a statement of fact.
“Hold on,” Silas said, raising his hand. “No need to get in Cade’s face about this. We’re all here for the same reason. If we can’t help one another, then we’ve lost more of our humanity than we realize.”
Harry leaned back and smiled, content to let Silas continue.
“By being loners, we feel like we’re handling life; we’ve built this fortress around ourselves. Involving others, inviting them into our pain, is hard. We resist. We don’t like it. We feel we can handle it on our own. We’re islands unto ourselves, not needing anyone.”
Silence filled the circle as they each absorbed his words.
“We hold on to our pain, our loss, our rejections, like a kid with a favorite toy. Why take the risk? Why get involved? It’s costly to let go of all the garbage we carry, the pain we’ve nursed like a colicky baby. That’s why we reject the very thing we want most. We’re afraid it might lead to something more, something good, and that’s what we find downright uncomfortable.”
—
Cade left the session with his head spinning. As hard as it had been to hear, he knew what Silas said was right on. He’d purposely avoided making friends with the other men at the garage.
Without fail, he went to work, did what was asked of him, and left at the end of the day, saying little to nothing to any of the crew. He hadn’t included himself in any casual chatter or jokes. He knew next to nothing about the others, and they knew zero about him. That was the way he liked it. Lunchtime was spent by himself, sitting away from the other guys, often eating in his truck.
It was the same at the animal shelter. Hope was the only volunteer he’d spoken to other than to answer questions. He had infrequent short conversations with Preston. The longest conversation he’d had with the other man was when Hope hadn’t been around for a couple days. And look what that had led to: bringing her provisions when she was sick, helping her with her slashed tire, turning down her dinner invitation and now regretting it.
Hope.
His mind all too readily flew to her and the sadness he saw in her eyes when he’d rejected her dinner invite. If he could turn back time, he’d gladly do it. He could picture himself sitting across the dinner table from her and laughing at something she’d said. A warm sensation filled his chest akin to happiness. Happiness he’d refused to allow back into his life. Feeling any sense of joy had died with his friends on a foreign battlefield. If what Silas said was true, it was all because he was afraid to let go of his loss, of his pain, for fear of what the unknown future might hold.
Cade needed to think. Needed to sort through his feelings. It wasn’t going to be easy to change the way he viewed relationships. As if his troubled mind had a will of its own, his thoughts zoomed to his mother. She’d come to the courthouse, and according to Harry, it wasn’t because of any connection with his father. It made him wonder if she had regrets over what had taken place between Cade and his father. If she had been looking to build a bridge back to his family, he wasn’t convinced it was a road he could travel.
The fight was technically between him and his father. But his mother had remained silent when he’d felt confident she’d stand by his side instead of turning a deaf ear to what he was saying. He’d been angry with her, furious that she hadn’t stood up for him when he needed someone to believe and understand that he wasn’t a clone of his father.
In retrospect, Cade could see that his mother had been trapped between the two most important men in her life. Maybe she’d had no choice but to remain silent. Now it was too late. Too much time had passed. Even if she had come looking to make peace, her efforts were wasted.
Arriving at the beach, Cade parked his truck, climbed out, and started walking. Time spent at the ocean had the power to calm him. It always had, which is one of the reasons he’d chosen to live in Oceanside.
The constant pounding of the surf, the pattern of it, the assurance that when one wave left, another would replace it, comforted him. That and the strong wind that buffeted against him, along with the cry of the seagulls as they drifted along, seemingly without effort, letting the wind take them where it would. To be so carefree, to have a life this simple, was beyond his imagination.
As his steps carried him to the water’s edge, he noticed children flying colorful kites and a woman sitting in the sand with a large dog at her side.
Only it wasn’t any woman.
It was Hope with Shadow.
