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He had told himself that she did for all these years.
But the truth of it was, he needed her.
He had told himself he had to protect her.
But it was himself he was protecting. All along.
And that was what every single movement that had happened since he had offered to spend the night with her at the hotel had been about. He had been looking for purchase, looking for roots, and of course, he had chosen to wrap them around her, because he didn’t know what his life would look like without her.
She had become the thing that he leaned on.
He had fashioned her into a surrogate for every single thing that he missed. Everything he wanted and didn’t have.
And he was... He couldn’t give her what she wanted. He just couldn’t do it.
Because he tried to think out that far ahead, and everything just went black. Because the idea of wanting anything, the idea of hoping for anything was something he was afraid to grab hold of.
“You should get dressed,” he said, his voice scratchy.
“Why?”
“Because you should go home.”
“This is going to be my home after we get married.”
She was speaking with such a calm, firm voice, and he felt like an absolute dick for what he was about to say. But then, he felt that way about the entire situation. About everything. About the way that he had lied. To her. To himself. Because he had. He had found a way to convince himself that what he was doing was for her while he... Well he found a way to hold her close so that he could use her as a balm for his wound.
And at first it was all about taking care. Of somebody that he felt was vulnerable. Because he hadn’t been able to take care of Sophia, had he? Not in a real way. Not in a meaningful way. She had died. So what had anything he’d done mattered? She had died, and that meant that he’d failed. And she just wasn’t there. And there was a void where she should be. And he didn’t know what he was, if he wasn’t her older brother. Her friend.
And so he had become that for Cara, but that had gotten inconvenient when he’d started to become attracted to her, and for a while he’d been able to suppress it, because he was very, very good at suppressing emotion. Very good.
He had made a whole lifestyle out of it.
And that had worked for years, until she had looked him in the eye and told him that she was a virgin. And offered to let him be the one to change that. Yeah. It had all worked until that moment. And then... It had all gone to bright, burning hell. So he’d recast it. Recast her. Changing and shuffling the narrative into something, anything that allowed him to continue to run from the truth.
Because he really needed that. But she was there, calling him out, the way that she did. Because she was Cara Summers, and he was Jace Carson, and they were honest with each other.
To a point.
They had always lied about these things.
She had never told him that she wanted him, and he had never told her that he sometimes thought his life might fall apart if she wasn’t in it.
Yeah, he went and traveled on the rodeo. He was away from her for large chunks of time sometimes, but she was always there. Waiting when he came back home. And it meant something. It mattered.
It was the reason he tried to live through those rides. That was just the truth of it. Knowing that she was there.
He had used her to give himself purpose.
He had used her as a conduit for all the spiritual things that he didn’t allow himself to feel. Because she hoped enough for the both of them, was faithful enough for the both of them. Believed enough for the both of them. In the brightness and beauty of life, in a concept of miracles that he couldn’t figure out how to hold in his hand, that she cradled in her palm effortlessly. The way she acted like her grandfather was simply a thought and a prayer away. The way she saw beauty in an old hotel, and potential in a half-empty Main Street.
What did he give to her, exactly?
And she said she loved him. And... And he was just broken.
But if he was going to do one thing, one good thing, it would be to stop this. To not continue to let his roots wrap around her, because all he would do is drag her down into the dirt, and she was meant for more than that.
She deserved more than that.
