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And she’d handed him a new package of army men like that would fix it. All those fucking army men.
But she hadn’t come back, and he’d never opened them because he wouldn’t accept it. The parting gift that was meant to...to what? Assuage her guilt?
No. He hadn’t taken them. Not really. They’d been a reminder, nothing more.
Why were they still there? Why had he kept them?
“It means that I am willing to turn myself inside out for you. Gus, I didn’t know what love was until this. I never even really thought about it. Because in my house... Yeah, I guess I had the same problem you do. What does it all mean? Because my dad left. Because no matter how much my mom loved us she still got so lost in her own pain that she couldn’t be there for us.
“Except I look around at my sisters, and I look at this land, and I see love. I think that’s why you’re still here. Because you love your brothers, and you love this land, and you believe that we can put more in it than just the blood that is soaked into the ground over all these years. It’s love. I want you to love me at least as much as you love this ranch, and I want you to love our baby the same way. Our baby, Gus. Because you’re the one that’s here. That’s what makes a father. You’re going to be the father because you’re here. Because of love. But it has to be love, Gus. It has to be.”
“I can’t do it,” he said, his voice choked off.
“Gus, why not?”
“Because it doesn’t mean anything. Because people leave you anyway. Because they leave you to burn. Because they leave you to burn.”
“Gus...”
“And they never come back, and maybe it’s because... Maybe it’s because she knew. Maybe because she knew what I was, maybe it’s because she knew what had happened to me, maybe it’s because... Just because it wasn’t strong enough. But I don’t want it. Not anymore.”
“But you took my love easily enough.”
He growled, rolling his hips forward, and then he kissed her, with all the pent-up ferocity in his body. None of it made sense. And he felt like everything was caving in. Over him, around him. Alaina was the only person that loved him. Alaina was the only person, and he didn’t know how to be worthy of that. He didn’t know how to give her what she was asking for. All he knew was this. So he kissed her.
He kissed her to try to drown out the feeling of total vulnerability that made him like an open wound, scrubbed with salt and left there to die.
He hated himself. More than he ever had. Because she was right there. She was right there and he didn’t know how to reach across that space. That space that he had cultivated out of a sense of need. The desire to not be his father. The desire to never hurt anyone.
Or is it just that you don’t want to ever be hurt...
He growled, held her face between his hands and kissed her. “Fuck me,” he said, reversing their positions so that she was over him. “Do it.”
“Gus,” she whispered.
“This is all I understand,” he said. “So you show me. Make me feel something.”
He felt something. He felt plenty. Echoing, raw, empty pain. And he didn’t have any walls anymore. He didn’t have any defenses.
Because memories were barreling in on him. Things he didn’t want to remember. Things he’d never wanted to remember.
It’s too bad you’re not dead. But you are an ugly son of a bitch now.
Yeah. That had landed. When he’d been recovering in that room. With those army men still in their package.
Waiting for her to come for him. Waiting. But she left him. She left him to die.
And he was the last line of defense. Just him. And who was there for him? No one. She was right about that. No one.
No one was there for him.
He lifted her, and impaled her, thrusting up inside of her, watching as she took him. All of him.
Watching as she gave herself up to this pleasure, even though they were both lost in pain.
And this pain was his fault. She gave to him. And gave to him.
She said that she loved him.
