I’d never had that last one happen, but it almost felt like it was happening right now, to my own heart, just from seeing his, laid out and flayed open, right in front of me.
I wanted to kiss him.
Oh God, I was a horrible person.
I wasn’t trying to steal him from Blair, though, I just… I just wanted to make him feel better. Or maybe make myself feel better. Or maybe have a taste, just a tiny one, of how perfect it all could be.
“It has to be someone’s fault,” Edward said, covering my hands with his but not pulling them away. Keeping them right there against his face.
Without any warning, he turned his head and pressed a kiss into my palm, almost as if we wereconnectedinside. Thinking the same exact thing at the exact same time, even if the kiss he’d just given me hadn’t been the kind I’d been thinking of at all.
It was still perfect, though, because it was from him.
He did it again, and shivers shot through me—my whole body lit up with sparks and wonder andwant, just from that—but I didn’t let it distract me, because this was important.
Hewas important.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “Just this once,” I added quickly when his eyes darkened in a way that reminded me of exactly how it had felt to ask him to please be in charge tonight.
To be in charge always, a needy, traitorous voice whispered inside me.
I ignored it. That wasn’t possible, and I wasnotgoing to get distracted pining for it. I needed him to hear me.
“Itdoesn’thave to be anyone’s fault. Bad things don’t work that way. It’s like, my mom. She’s been sick since… since forever. It’s nobody’s fault, but it’s hard and horrible and it breaks my heart, too. And sure, it’s made life difficult in, well, in a lot of ways, but trying to blame it on someone or something or even… even trying to find a reason why it happened to her and not someone else, none of that really helps. We just have to keep… we have to… we, um…”
My breath suddenly got stuck in my throat. This was all wrong. I’d wanted to make Edward understand what seemed so obvious—that he wasn’t to blame for Blair’s death—but now, somehow, I’d twisted that around into what was starting to feel like a story aboutme.
But he wouldn’t want to hear about all those years when I’d just been a kid and the doctors had insisted it was all in her head, and then later, how I’d had to help her deal with even more doctors, once they’d realized it wasn’t. How I’d taken care of her before, and after, and sometimes what should have beenduringschool, ever since I was little. And how I’d learned to take care of myself, too—just me and Teddy—since she had so very, very many bad days where she couldn’t manage that, either.
I closed my eyes, trying to catch my breath and push it all back down into a manageable trickle instead of a flood. Now wasn’t the time to think about all the jobs I’d worked and the friends I hadn’t made and the normal stuff I’d missed out on. The way I’d had to figure out how to learn math faster than they were teaching it at school when I’d been little, just to make the money stretch, or deal with household appliances breaking before I was tall enough to even see over the top of them. How I’d learned to navigate all the websites and handle the endless paperwork for the state benefits Mom got—which were never, ever enough—and how I was constantly cleaning up after the… the messes she couldn’t help making sometimes.
And always thinking ahead.
Always trying to plan for what would go wrong next.
And never, even once, having anyone I could turn to, or count on, or even ask to help out with it all. Not anyone who cared, anyway, or had the time to listen, or didn’t want to charge me for their help.
Which was… it was fine. It was worth it, because Mom was more than her disease. She was fun and creative and open-minded and wanted the best for me, always. She loved me and I loved her and it was nobody’s fault that none of that came easy.
It just was.
But even if I ever found a Daddy who wanted me, he wouldn’t want allthat.
I hadn’t told Daryl about any of it, because I’d already known he wouldn’t give me the time of day if he’d known all the things I wanted to take a break from sometimes… and I certainly didn’t need to tell Edward, who didn’t evenwantto be a Daddy, even though he so obviously had been, for Blair.
Edward, though… well, obviously he’d never replace what he’d lost, but hecouldbe happy again.
Iknewhe could.
And it wasn’t my place, but I wanted him to. I wanted him to have that happily ever after he deserved. I wanted it even though it alsodidmake my heart break a little, to think of him finding it with someone else.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said softly, pulling my hands off his face and holding them in both of his. He cupped the back of my head, his face close enough to taste his breath. “Where did you go?”
“Sorry,” I whispered, my heart suddenly pounding so loudly I wondered if he could hear it. “I just… I want you to be happy. You said anything I need, and I need that.”
It didn’t even make sense and it was far too presumptuous, but I really did, even if I wasn’t sure why.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I repeated, exhaustion and his warm arms and too many emotions hitting me all at once. I yawned, curling against him and tucking Teddy in, too, because it was the only safe place that existed. “Just, can you try?” I managed around another yawn. “Try to think about that? For me?”
