Truly, Madly, Whiskey(21)
“I know I sound crazy,” she said.
“No. You sound saner than anyone I know. I’m just processing what you’ve said. It’s a strange feeling to know you’re attracted to the very thing that seems to make you push me away.”
She nodded, a small smile lifting her lips, and she dropped her gaze to the house across the street. “Yeah, it’s weird for me, too. But please hear me out, and hopefully you’ll understand why. Everyone has a story. There’s someplace where their life began and things that led them to where they end up. For most people, it’s pretty clear-cut. And for people like you, who have lived in one small town, with a family who adores them, and parents who teach them how to handle life and love and all the things that make a person whole, your story is fairly easy to follow.”
She paused, a haunted look hovering in her eyes.
He couldn’t stand being separated by even the few inches between them. Everyone needed someone who would cross the lines they put up when they were too afraid to open a door. He’d never heard her so solemn and serious. He wanted to be there for her, to help her let go and to share the burden of whatever was weighing on her. He knew all about carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it was a lonely place to be.
Scooting closer, he pulled her tight against his side. She went stiff for a second or two, and then the tension drained from her shoulders. This was better. This was readable, real. This was safe.
Her eyes drifted over the skyline, to the houses across the street, settling on the split-level at the bottom of the hill.
“Some people know where their stories begin,” she said softly. “But like Truman, Quincy, Kennedy, and Lincoln, some stories have gaps and jogs and are pieced together with paste and tape. Those people choose a new starting point, and that’s where their new lives, or their new story, begins.”
Bear knew that everyone had their secrets, their private bouts with hell, and he could tell by her quickening breaths that she was about to reveal hers. He held her closer, feeling proprietary and grateful that she trusted him enough to share whatever it was with him.
“And my story is no different,” she said just above a whisper. “This is where my story began, and after jogs and gaps and stitches that never held, this is where I chose to start over. David helped me. He’s a therapist, and I’ve known him since I moved here. I saw him on a weekly basis for about three years, and then I stopped because I thought I’d moved past all the bad things that had happened.”
She spoke fast, as if she feared if she didn’t get the words out they might fester and rot inside her. He turned toward her, wanting to protect her, to hold her within the circle of his arms and catch the pieces of her spilling out between them. He shifted so her body was between his legs, his knees drawn up like barriers from the outside world.
“But then you came into my life,” she said swift and soft. “Like a dragon-slaying prince on a mission, scooping up everyone’s broken pieces and putting them back together again. You make me want things I long ago stopped hoping for, or even thinking about, and—”
She lifted her eyes, heaven and hell colliding within them. He tried to process what she’d said, but there were too many missing parts. Jogs and gaps and stitches that never held. He couldn’t make sense of it. Though he desperately wanted to.
“I’m no prince, baby, but I want to understand. What happened in those jogs and gaps that led you to David?” The guy that it sounds like I owe a whole heap of gratitude to.
“We lived there”—she pointed to the house at the bottom of the hill—“in that house until I was eight, when my father lost his job. He was an insurance agent, and he traveled a lot, but when he was home, he tried, you know? He would do projects with me around the house, and sometimes, not often because he was gone so much, we’d go to flea markets together. He’d buy yarn and fabric that he used to make these dolls out of twigs and strings and yarn, and he’d leave them on my dresser before he left for a trip. I’d find them in the morning without a note or anything. Sometimes he’d make paella and hot grog, and we’d sit around the fire pit in our backyard, all four of us. We were a real family once.” Her voice drifted off, and a look of longing came over her. “Those were good times, and those silly little dolls meant so much to me.”
“They should, and I think they still do. The dolls in your car and on your key chain?”
“Yes, they do.” The haunted look returned. “They probably always will. When we moved from the harbor to the mobile home where my mom lives, it was pretty awful. But that was okay, because I had school to focus on and those dolls to look forward to, which made it easier to ignore the awful neighbors. And then one day my dad didn’t come home. He was killed by a drunk driver. That’s where my story stumbled and eventually broke.”
“Christ. I had no idea. I’m sorry, baby.” He thought of the uncle he’d followed around from the time he was allowed inside the auto shop. Bear had been twenty-two when they’d lost him to cancer. That was the year he’d taken over managing the auto shop and the year he’d learned how differently people grieved. His father had gone through all the stages of grief in varying degrees of silence and anger, while Bear had needed to talk about his loss. Thankfully, his family knew he was a talker, and the rest of them had suffered through his long, emotional trips down memory lane. He wondered how Crystal had dealt with her father’s death and who had been there to help her through.