Coming Home(140)

“Danny,” she said softly, her eyes still downcast.

“And what if that * starts back up again?” he asked, his voice hardening slightly.

Leah shook her head before he was even done with his question. “No. That’s over. I’m not going to take the easy way out anymore. Honestly, after what happened at Paddy’s, I really don’t think he’ll be coming around again, but if he does, I’ll do whatever’s necessary. I’ll tell my brother. I’ll call the cops if I have to.”

Danny looked down with a nod, but she could see in his face that he wasn’t appeased. There was something he wasn’t saying.

“If you think I’m strong enough to handle this, then what are you afraid of?”

He wet his lips before he lifted his eyes to hers. “I’m afraid you’re gonna resent me.”

Leah’s back straightened. “Well, you have no reason to be afraid of that, because it won’t happen.”

“Leah,” he said gently, “there’s not a question in my mind that what we have is real. I don’t doubt it for a second. But your life is going to be put on hold. Years of your life, wasted. For me. Because of me. And I just…I don’t want you to have any regrets.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head. “Just know that I wouldn’t blame you if it became too much. If it became too long, and you needed to move on. I wouldn’t hate you if it happened. I’d rather you take care of your needs than resent me. You deserve to be happy, with or without me.”

He held her eyes for a few more seconds, making sure his words were received, and Leah shook her head slightly, looking down as she trailed her fingertips through the suds.

“When I was a junior in college, I was working on this project with a girl from one of my classes. I remember sitting in the library with her one day, and she was going on and on about how much she hated her father’s girlfriend, and it hit me all of a sudden that in all the years since my mother had been gone, my father hadn’t been out on a single date. Not one.”

Danny glanced up at her, his brow slightly furrowed as he tried to figure out the relevance of what she was saying.

“I couldn’t believe I’d never realized that before, but after that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. By that point it had been almost ten years, and I just kept thinking about how lonely he must have been. And then I started feeling really guilty, because the only reason I could come up with for why he wasn’t dating was because of us—because of me and Chris and Sarah. I figured he didn’t want to upset us, or to make us think he was trying to replace her. I mean, that had to be it, right? Because why else would somebody choose to be alone?”

Leah saw the sadness flicker behind Danny’s eyes as she said, “I really hated the thought that he was depriving himself of being happy because of us. And I wanted him to know that he deserved to have a life too. That if he moved on, it would be okay, and we would understand. I just wanted him to have a chance at being happy again.”

Leah scooped up a handful of bubbles and leaned forward, spreading them over the strong planes of Danny’s chest.

“So one day, I told him.” She smiled, shaking her head. “He listened to me go on and on, justifying actions he hadn’t even taken yet. And when I finally finished, he smiled at me and thanked me for my concern. And then he told me it wasn’t necessary. He said he hadn’t been on a date because there was no reason to go on one.”

Leah looked up at Danny. “He said that if he was lonely, it wasn’t because he needed to be with someone. It was because he needed to be with her. And if he couldn’t have that, he didn’t want anything else.”