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We unhitched Bessie and, in neutral, guided it into the garage. “The car should really be retired,” Ben said. “It’s being held together with my best shoestrings at this point.”
I laughed. “Can’t say I disagree with you. But if Lena has a working car, then she’ll stop calling me for rides.”
Ben stared at me, and Daniel turned his head slowly. I hadn’t fully processed I’d said those words out loud. Fuck. It wasn’t supposed to be said, and it certainly didn’t sound the way I meant it.
“I’ll, uh…start looking at what’s wrong,” Ben said, sensing the sudden shift in the room.
Daniel was watching me coolly. “Outside.”
It wouldn’t make much difference if he chose to rip me a new one. The garage doors were wide open. “Daniel—”
“No.” He held out a hand. “I want you to listen first.” A sigh came out of him as he looked at the ground. “I want to know what it’s going to take.”
“For what?”
“For you to make a fucking move, Jude.” He shook his head, staring at me in disbelief. “Every single one of us knows you’re in love with that woman, and you have been since the first moment you saw her. The whole town knows. You want her, and she wants you. It’s been like watching the slowest romance movie in existence for the last three years. So, what is it?”
I stared at him. Daniel never spoke like this. He was steady, like me. But right now, he was pacing and agitated. If I didn’t know better, I would say he was jealous, but Daniel had never shown romantic interest in anyone as long as I’d known him. No, this had to do with me.
But the true answer wasn’t one I wanted to give. It was my burden and no one else’s. My brothers had enough to deal with without my moping ass.
“Is it the pressure?” Daniel asked. “Because everyone knows, and it will be harder because people will be watching both you and Lena?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Are you just being a masochist?”
“No.”
Daniel huffed out a breath. “Tell me, Jude. Because I see the way you look at her. It’s the same look and more than the way Lucas looks at Evelyn. Or Harlan with Grace. They are happy, and trust me when I say we all hate watching you decide not to be.”
“I’m not choosing to be unhappy.”
“Jude.” His voice was low. “We all know the rules and what we decided. We don’t butt into one another’s trauma. We respect one another’s boundaries. But you remember the other part of that? We get to call each other out when we see each other sabotaging ourselves or acting like assholes. Because the only way we can have each other’s backs is by having the trust that we will do that for each other, no matter what. No matter how much it hurts.
“So, give me a straight fucking answer. Tell me why it looks like you’re burying your head in the sand and ignoring the best thing to ever happen to you.”
Anger and grief came roaring to the surface. The carefully crafted layers of protection I kept around everything meant nothing when Daniel punched a hole right through them. They thought I was keeping my head in the sand? Yes. Yes, I was, so I didn’t break everything else.
I felt the snap before I started speaking, but I knew now I wasn’t going to be able to stop. “Fine,” I said. “You want to know the truth? I’ll tell you. You’re right. I do want her. I walked into that coffee shop when we moved here, and it was like the sun came out.
“Fuck, it was like the sun disappeared and was replaced by her. There’s not a single day when I’m not thinking about her and wanting her. Hoping she’s happy and wanting to make sure she is. Protecting her with my life if necessary. Is that what you want to hear? Congratulations, you all got it right.”
“Then why the hell aren’t you with her?” Daniel sounded shocked.
“Because I can’t.” My voice was ragged. “I can’t. Daniel, I can’t make it through one fucking night without waking up and trying to strangle my bedsheets. I should invest in a bedding company, because I’ve gone through so many I’m practically keeping them in business. Sometimes they’re torn to bits before I’m conscious. Other times, I have them wrung so tight I could use them to actually strangle someone.
“You know why I’ve never painted my bedroom? Because white is the easiest color to paint over spackle. My bedroom walls are made more of the fucking stuff than the original material. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to replace the walls entirely. I keep a can of it and a can of paint in my bedroom closet so it’s always there. Can’t sleep after the nightmares most of the time anyway. Might as well clean up the mess I made, right?”
My breath was coming in heaving gasps, like one of those nightmares was holding me hostage right now. “I always wake up right before the hit, Daniel. Not once has it been enough time to pull back the punch. And it’s not only when I wake up from a nightmare. If someone touches me and I’m not ready, my mind snaps into defensive mode, and we both know I’m not talking about the defense they teach in college.”
“When we spar—”
“When we spar, I’m ready,” I cut him off. “I know the hits are coming, and I’ve already prepared myself. But if someone comes up behind me and touches me? It’s all over.”
Finally, my voice cracked. “I know how to kill, and my mind tells me to do it. It’s the first fucking instinct. Kill first, ask questions later. And all I can think about every time I wake up ripping a pillow to shreds or my knuckles splitting apart on plaster is how fucking grateful I am that it’s not Lena.
“It’s not her. And I can’t put her in danger. I won’t. I could kill her, Daniel. Without a thought. Without even knowing, I could kill her. I couldn’t live with that. You know I’d rather die than hurt her, so there’s your answer. It doesn’t matter what I want. It matters that she’s safe, and she never would be with me. I’d always planned to get a handle on it and then ‘make a move,’ as you called it. But it’s been years, and I’m not any better. It’s not fair to her. I need to let her go.”
