The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(89)

“I wanted to be special,” she said, her voice thin and scratchy from so many hours of talking. Of crying. “And it was just... In the end, I was nothing but damaged. In every way. And then I started doing worse in school and I... I don’t know. I figured it out. I figured how to pick myself up. But I didn’t go to med school. And I didn’t become a huge success the way that Griffin did. And I... I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Mallory,” her mom said, her eyes red from her own tears. “You are special. And I hate that you went through this alone. But the worst thing is I’m not sure how we could have handled it. How we would have. Because regardless of the kind of parents I think we were, we obviously left you with scars. I can’t tell you how much I regret that you didn’t know how to talk to us. That you dealt with something that deep, that painful on your own.”

“It’s my own fault,” Mallory said. “I just... I decided that I thought I knew what you felt about me, and I let it dictate everything that I did. And I don’t know the answer to it. I don’t know how to make myself feel like I’m good enough. I keep waiting. And there’s a man in Gold Valley, and he thinks I’m great, but I’m so afraid that someday he’s just going to see all the failures that I see. That I’m going to spend years trying to live up to this love that he’s offering me, and I don’t know if I can.”

“Mallory,” her father said, speaking after a long silence. “I wish I would’ve said this to you years ago. I wish I would’ve had the words to say it years ago. But special does not come from what you do. It is not grades on a report card, or a degree on the wall. It isn’t money in the bank. Special comes from being loved. When people love you, you occupy an essential place in their world. You are special, Mallory. Because we couldn’t live without you. Simply because you’re you. And I’m sorry that we did a bad job of making sure you knew that that love wasn’t dependent on anything. I’m sorry that our encouragement became impossible hoops for you to jump through. Because it was never meant to be.”

Mallory nearly dissolved, right there. At three in the morning with the weight of the world resting on her. And she knew then that it was true. She hadn’t missed Griffin’s trophies or grades or achievements when he had gotten married and gone away. She had missed him. She hadn’t missed his beautiful house or his job when he had lost Mel and the baby and moved to Oregon. She had missed him.

He was special because she loved him. And maybe that’s what she’d been missing all along. Maybe he wasn’t the most amazing human being in the entire world. Maybe she just loved him a whole lot.

“I don’t understand why... Why I don’t just know this.”

“You have to love yourself too, Mallory,” her dad said. “Because if you do... Maybe you’ll start to see what the rest of us see. Maybe you’ll start to see what this new man of yours sees.”

So she did that. For a full minute. Just sat there, trying to look at herself through the eyes of her parents. Colt. She wasn’t perfect. But what she saw was a strong, determined woman, who had made mistakes and gotten up from them. Who did an awful lot to care for the people around her. And yes, some of it came down to martyrdom. Martyring herself to the cause of becoming indispensable. Of earning favor.

But there was a whole lot of care in it too. A whole lot of good.

“I know better,” she said finally. “Than to believe that my baby being stillborn was my own failure. I literally made it a career to learn everything I could about it and try to find a way to forgive myself.”

“Did you?” her dad asked, softly. “Or were you looking for ways to condemn yourself?”

The question dropped the bottom out of her world yet again. Because wasn’t that true? Hadn’t she always been looking for ways to continue condemning herself so that she could stay in that safe and protected place that didn’t ask herself to try again.

She’d been so certain that she wasn’t afraid in the way that Griffin was. That she wasn’t protecting herself in the way that Griffin was.

But maybe she was. Maybe in the end, she was.

“It’s all just fear,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

“That’s most of life. Being afraid and figuring out how to do things anyway.”

“I love him,” she said. “But what I’m struggling to figure out is why he would love me. But maybe I’m really just afraid. That it won’t work out anyway. That there’s nothing I can do to improve myself, to be better, because actually maybe I am good enough and it still won’t work out. What if I’ve been good enough the whole time? But it still won’t... It still won’t make everything work out in the end. If it’s not my fault... It’s not my fault then I guess losing Lucy was random. If it’s not my fault then...”

“Then it’s life,” her mom said. “And that is scary. I didn’t do a very good job of sharing this with you, Mallory. That much is clear to me. I was certain I couldn’t have more children, and then I got pregnant with you. And I was afraid that my initial misgivings over the pregnancy would cause me to lose you. And then you were born, and you were beautiful and perfect. A gift. Not something I earned. Just something I was given. And that’s the way the world is. We are given all sorts of good and bad things we don’t deserve.”