“Well, we’re going to head out now. Let you get that little one to bed.” I tilted my head to the side. Peter was running around clearly still enjoying his sugar high. “Good luck with that.”
I hugged my sister and Mom. Then waited while they gave Jessica extra-long goodbye hugs.
Then I swiftly guided a drained looking Jessica out of the front of the house.
“That was a lot,” she said after I’d pulled away from the curb. “And with no warning. What is wrong with you?!”
She slapped my arm playfully.
“I thought it might be better if I sprung it on you. Then you wouldn’t have to think about it too much. Bad idea?”
“No,” she said with a happy sigh as her head rested against the window. “It was perfect.”
I held her hand as I drove us a few blocks to a nearby hotel that wasn’t too crazy. It did have a beautiful view from the top floors. I knew because it was where I usually stayed when I came to visit.
I could have stayed with my mom when I was in town, she had the room. And my sister even had space for me too. But even though I wanted to see them and spend time with them, I couldn’t let myself get too close. Part of my self-punishment I suppose. I hadn’t really realized that until now.
“Today was a good day,” she said softly and I wasn’t really sure she’d meant to say it out loud.
“It was. I’m glad I could be a part of it.”
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. I wouldn’t be anywhere, actually.”
“Don’t,” I told her calmly. “Don’t go there. Because if we’re going to do that wholeif things had been differentthing, then I’d have to tell you how much I’ve hated myself for not going to get you that night. For letting you have the chance to run away. And I’d have to admit to you that I blame myself for you even being with that asshole in the first place.”
I swallowed hard. The pain in my chest was real. I’d thought those things before and I’d even wallowed in the failure for a long damn time. But to say them to her, well, I couldn’t understand how she would ever forgive me.
“You were a kid yourself back then, Silas,” she said but her eyes remained forward, staring out of the windshield. “I never expected you or anyone else to save me. I always believed I wasn’t worth saving.”
Hearing her say that broke my heart.
“I never thought that,” I told her softly.
“I know. I mean, I never thought you did. But it’s hard to see things differently when you’ve grown up your entire life thinking you were unwanted. And Iwasunwanted. I can’t even try to deny it.” I caught her headshake out of the corner of my eye. “My parents were shit. I won’t even pretend that they weren’t. But they were what I had, the only thing I knew. I never knew that I could be loved until I met you guys. By then, it was pretty much already in my head that I had no kind of value. I was nothing.”
“And now?” I asked hoping that somehow she’d been able to shake off those horrible visions of herself and really see how amazing she was.
“Now… well, I don’t know.” She sat up in the seat as her head turned to look at me. “But I think I’d like to become the person you always thought I could be. That came out wrong. I just mean that I’d like to become the best version of me. The one that makes me happy.”
“Do you have any idea what that might be?”
“God, no,” she said with a sharp laugh. “I think I’m still trying to land on my feet from everything that’s happened recently.”
“I’m here to help,” I said with a smile. “Tell me what you need.”
Her body leaned into mine and her head came down to rest on my shoulder.
“You,” she whispered. “I just need you.”
Well, that I most certainly could do.
Because she had me.
Now.
Tomorrow.
Forever.
