He freezes, and his fists twitch. “What?”
“Not being wanted,” I say again. “Not being cared for. Not being worthy of someone’s attention at any scale. Terrified of it.” My fingers flex, though not of my own accord this time. “My parents never wanted to have kids. Made sure we knew it, from the moment we were born until the moment we left. We were accidents, every one of us. A teen pregnancy. Taking antibiotics and not knowing it cancelled out her birth control. Drunkenly forgetting condoms and not caring, assuming there’d be no consequences. Three mistakes, three consequences, followed by decades of making sure those consequences knew exactly what they were. Their verbal abuse was joined by physical abuse, and both were compounded by alcohol and drugs. Because of this, I never truly feel like I matter. I never feel like I’m supposed to be anywhere—like I belong or am wanted. I’m not desperate to be a part of your family just because I like them, Fox. I’m desperate for it because I’d do anything to be a part of a family like you have, where it’s clear beyond reason that you’re all loved and wanted, every moment of every day. You don’t have to wonder. You don’t have to question it. Youknow.” I sniff, salt coating my tongue when I lick my lips. “I want that so bad that I’d do anything for it, even going so far as to try to convince a man that I feel in no way sisterly toward that I want to be his sister. My first thought after this afternoon, Fox? Once I’d calmed down? It wasn’t about you, or me, or how it felt. It was about how I could use the situation to keep the space I’ve carved for myself within your family. That’s how badly I want it. That’s how scared I am at the idea of losing it.”
“Poem,” he whispers, pity covering the syllables of my name. “That’s awful.”
I nod as Wolfe’s hand comes to rest on and squeezes my shoulder. “It is,” I agree. “And now it’s your turn. Tell me what’s wrong with you, and let me judge.”
He jerks, the slightest twitch of his body telling me he forgot completely where we started, and I’ve surprised him by taking us back there. “You want to trade?” he asks, aghast.
Tired of standing half bent over him and exhausted from this conversation and the fact that I’m, apparently, the only one actually having it, I drop.
Fox grunts, throwing his arms to the side as I land in his lap.
“Trade,” I confirm.
“Should I–”
I twist, glaring at Wolfe. “Sit,” I order. “Consider any discomfort you feel to be punishment for picking literally every single bad option in the name of ‘helping.’”
He throws his hands up in surrender as he sits back on the couch, grimacing.
“Poem,” his brother mutters, “he didn’t do anything wrong.”
I turn on Fox. “I disagree.”
“He didn’t,” he insists.
“I disagree,” I insist back.
He sighs.
I slide my hands from his hair to his neck, scraping my nails along his skin, where goosebumps rise. “Are you going to trade or not?”
He groans. “Okay,” he mutters. Then, louder, “Okay.” His eyes close, but shoot back open when I tsk. “I don’t know where to start,” he admits.
“Start withwhyyou think you don’t deserve to take anything from me, even if it’s scraps compared to what you really want,” I suggest.
Broad shoulders slumped, he opens his mouth tofinallytry his hand at proper communication.
And what he says is the dumbest, stupidest, most idiotic bit of nonsense I’ve ever heard.
Chapter Twenty-Two
?
Yeah, well, communication lasts a long time in real life, too. Don’t complain. Or I’ll give you amiscommunicationinstead.
Fox
By the time I’m finished telling Poem about how I’m still in the lousy person portion of my journey to redemption after my time flitting about the country doing whatever I wanted to do, I feel not only bad, butstupid.
Next to what she said about her parents and what sort of people they are… I’m practically a saint. I might as well be memorialized forever in stained-glass windows compared to what she grew up with.
In no uncertain terms, she tells me as much.
“I mean,seriously?” she grumbles, nose scrunched between rapidly drying trails of wetness. “The fact that you evenwantto be better puts you above ninety percent of the population, Fox. Then, you’ve taken clear steps to show your intent to be the sort of man that you say you want to be. And, by the way, when you’ve been taking those steps for years? Thatmakes youthe sort of man you want to be. You don’twantto be reliable, youarereliable, and you have been for years. You don’twantto be hard-working and trustworthy. Youarehardworking and trustworthy—and have been for years. Honestly, the worst thing about you at this point is how unbelievablydenseyou are. I thought you were just jealous of me for taking your spot at family dinner, which is idiotic enough, but you’re out here thinking you’re a bad person?You?” She squirms in my lap, taking myalready rapidly beating heart from mach twenty straight into hyperdrive. “You’re a jerk, obviously, but you’re notbad. My goodness, Fox, you help old ladies, and you prioritize your sweet little niece. And we all heard about how you donated all that money to the animal shelter so they could build another kennel room and not have to put anyone down. The worst thing you’ve done in recent years is refuse to promote me, and you’ve just told me that that was due to your insane desire to prove that you could do it all—be all the good and responsible anyone could ever want—all on your own. Was that a sucky choice? Sure, but it doesn’t negate all of the other choices, and your reasons weren’t nefarious, just desperate.”
She stands, depriving me of the sweet pain her nails marking my skin provided and leaving me feeling more than a little bereft. She paces to the kitchen and back, rambling off more of the “upstanding citizen” behavior that I’ve done in my time as a Good and Decent person, according to her.
