AllFreeNovel
Share Us
How the hell were you supposed to get through it?
He felt like that burn victim he’d been at thirteen. In endless pain, completely unsure how to get past it.
You don’t. You just have to heal.
You have to let it heal.
And he knew what he had to do. He knew exactly who he had to talk to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“IHATETHIS,”Alaina said, the next morning over coffee, with Fia and Rory and Quinn sitting around the table with her.
“You can’t live with a man who doesn’t love you,” Fia said pragmatically.
“No,” Quinn and Rory agreed.
“I’m not sure I can live without him either.”
And for a moment, everything inside of her hurt so much that she wanted to claw it away in a panic. Wanted to solve it. Right now. Today. She wanted to run back to Gus and tell him that she was sorry. That she didn’t mean it. That they could be together. She wanted to go back on all of this. To say that she didn’t deserve to ask for more from him, not after everything he’d given, and see if it would be enough, and if he would take her back, and if she could get rid of this unending pain inside of her.
Except...
That wasn’t the right thing to do.
That was what she used to do. Panic when it hurt. Turn away from it. Run from it. She had to sit in this. She had to sit in it and see where it would go. Because what was the alternative? Half-healed wounds.
Things that never reached their potential.
She had to trust that Gus was strong. And that so was she. That she could withstand this.
No matter what decision he came to.
“I just love him so much,” she said. “And I don’t want to be apart from him. But I just think being his crutch for the rest of my life isn’t doing either of us any favors.”
“Well, your baby will have a passel of the best aunts ever, and we love you. And we support you. And you will never be alone,” Fia said.
“I know. I was so afraid of it. And I just kept... The abandonment stuff, it just... It really got to me. But the real reason I married Gus was that I wanted him. I didn’t have the language for it, or the maturity to understand it, but it’s always been him. I was just afraid of it. Because it was such a deep feeling. We’ve known each other for so long that it wasn’t lust. Not first. It was love first. And it didn’t become romantic until the time was right. But it’s inside out, and that made it hard to recognize. It was certainty before it was butterflies. But the damn butterflies made everything a whole lot more confusing.”
“That’s special,” Fia said. “I don’t think there’s very many people that get to experience love that way.”
“It’s only special if he pulls his head out of his ass,” Quinn said.
She sighed. “It isn’t that. He is so hurt, and I can’t get to the bottom of it. I can’t quite get to the why. I want to, but he won’t let me. He thinks he’s like his dad, but that’s not the thing that’s hurting him. Not really. I just wonder if he’s been lonely for so long he doesn’t actually know how not to be.”
“If he loves you as much as you love him,” Fia said, “he’s going to figure it out.”
“I just have to be strong enough to let him.”
“Good thing you’re a Sullivan. As well as a McCloud. I think there’s enough stubbornness between the two of those names to sustain you.”
Alaina sighed. “And whatever won’t... Well, I have you.”
“You do. Always.”
“HUNTER,” GUSSAID,standing outside his brother’s front door at 6:00 a.m. and shouting his name.
He’d knocked already, but his brother hadn’t come to the door.
