The pain she saw in his eyes when his gaze found hers was enough to have her gripping the stem of her wineglass so hard she thought it a wonder it didn’t shatter. “You know the layman’s phrase for amniotic fluid embolism?” he asked.
She wasn’t sure her voice would work over the lump in her throat. So she simply shook her head.
“Anaphylactic syndrome of pregnancy. My birth caused her body to have a deadly allergic reaction.”
“Britt—”
“My dad did his best to step up,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her interruption. “He tried to be the fatherandthe mother to me and Knox. But he was a man’s man, rough around the edges. Even though he loved us with everything he had, he mostly left us to run wild. That’s probably why Knox and I are the way we are—thrill-seekers and risk-takers. Without the gentling influence of a woman, we never developed our softer sides.”
That’s not true, she wanted to tell him. She’dseenhis softer side that night at the cabin. She’d never had a more tender, thoughtful,thoroughlover.
But she didn’t want to interrupt him now that he was sharing. So she took a slow sip of wine to drown the words perched on the back of her tongue.
“I prided myself on being a daredevil. I loved highlining and dirt biking and bungee jumping. When I was fifteen, I broke my arm trying to impress a group of girls at the skate park. It was a bad break. A compound fracture.”
He lifted the sleeve on his T-shirt—this one was army green, snug around his biceps, and printed with a black Avengers logo. He pointed to the white scar on the inside of his upper arm.
“It took a trip to the ER and an emergency surgery to set it,” he continued. “My dad was a dockhand who worked at the harbor. Health insurance was hit-and-miss for us. And it just so happened we were in amissyear. Dad had let the policy lapse so he could afford Knox’s college tuition.”
“How much?” she asked, knowing where this tale was headed. No one could deny the problems with the American healthcare system no matter which side of the political divide they landed on.
“Twenty-four-thousand dollars,” Britt said.
“Good lord.” She breathed, shaking her head at the injustice of it all.
“Anyway, fast-forward a few weeks, and Dad starts feeling sick. He loses his appetite, and his skin is itchy. But he doesn’t go to the doctor because we can’t afford it, right?” The agony on his face had her heart cracking right in two. “A year later, he was dead.”
“What was it?” Her voice was hoarse.
“Pancreatic cancer.”
She closed her eyes as the air leaked from her lungs. She’s read how wretched that disease could be.
“I’m so sorry, Britt,” she said again. And again, the words seemed too trite.
“Knox quit college to come home and take care of me,” he continued. It was like, now that he’d determined to give her details, he wanted to get through them as quickly as possible. “He said he’d rather have his bare nuts dragged across hot asphalt than let me go into the foster care system. But money was scarce, and rent was expensive. He ran into a guy who told him he could make some quick cash by stealing a car and the rest”—his eyes once more met hers; she had to grit her teeth not to flinch at the pain she saw in them—“is history.”
Ren whined pitifully. He was such a sensitive little soul. Britt looked down to find the dog’s melting brown eyes glued to his face.
“I know, pal.” He fluttered the pitbull’s floppy ears. “It’s a sad tale.”
“Bye, bitch!” Gunpowder squawked from his perch on the coat-tree.
Britt’s lips twisted and he shook his head. “Is that my cue to leave?”
Julia ignored his question as she arranged her thoughts. As she carefully worked through all he’d told her and all the ways she could convince him that his past didn’t have to be the reason he didn’t grab onto his present with both hands.
“So…” she started slowly. “You feel responsible for your parents’ deaths and your brother’s path in life? You feel like—” She stopped and tilted her head before continuing. “What? You feel like everyone you love comes to a bad end, so it’s better just not to love?”
His bearded chin bobbed. “Pretty much.”
“Well, that’s just boloney.”
He blinked, taken aback by her bluntness.
“Women die in childbirth all the time, Britt. Pregnancy and birth are inherently dangerous. Surely you don’t blameotherinfants for what happens to their mothers, right? So why would you blame yourself?”
“I—”
