“Tomorrow morning, you’ll have breakfast with my family,” I said. Deena’s eyes narrowed slightly; she didn’t know where I was going with this. “No other woman has had that privilege.”
She tilted her head slightly, but the guardedness didn’t fall. I hadn’t gone deep enough, hadn’t given her enough of myself. My heart began to thump.
She’d told me her greatest fear: that by being with me, she’d lose herself. If I wanted her to trust me, I had to give her mine.
“I don’t—I don’t let people in, Deena. Haven’t since I was six years old”—I swallowed—“when I caused my little sister’s death.”
TWENTY-FOUR
DEENA
Cal’s wordslanded like bricks in the bathroom, even though he’d said them in the barest of rasps. Beneath me, his thighs twitched with tiny muscle spasms. His hands had stilled against my skin, and I found myself stroking his scalp, his shoulders, his back.
He was about to admit something big; something I suspected he’d never told anyone before.
“It was summer,” he started. “One of those sweltering days, when the air feels like it’s sweating. I wanted to swim, but we didn’t have a pool and my parents wouldn’t take me to the beach. Gracie and I were in the backyard. She was only four. Shetrustedme.” He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw bulged.
I kept my touch light, leaning forward to brush a kiss against his eyebrow. “You don’t have to tell me this, Cal,” I whispered. “It’s okay.”
“No,” he replied, fierce, his eyes meeting mine. “No, I want you to know. I want you to know who I am, deep down.”So you’llknow if you want to walk away, his eyes told me. Reflexively, his grip on me tightened, as if his body was rejecting that possibility. The intensity of the moment had me in its grip, and I didn’t know if I should pull away and run to protect myself, or soften so he’d know I was here for him.
Cal spoke again before I could choose either path. “The neighbor two doors down had a pool. I dragged one of the empty plant pots over to the back gate, climbed up, and opened the gate. I took Gracie with me, because she said she wanted to swim too. But the only reason she said that was because of me. I was the one who was mad at our parents for refusing to take us to the beach. I was the one who wanted to swim.” His breaths gusted in and out of him, his eyes focused on a spot over my shoulder. The memory had him in its grip. “She was wearing jean shorts and a frilly pink top. I climbed the neighbor’s fence while she waited on the other side, and then I let her in.”
He paused for so long I wondered if he’d keep going. The bathroom was utterly silent. I’d stopped stroking his skin, and he’d stopped stroking mine. The water was going cool around us, spreading goosebumps all over my body.
Finally, Cal finished his story in a rush. “I knew they had pool toys in their shed. It was locked, so I spent a while trying to get it open. I found the key under a rock, and I went inside. They had so many toys, I couldn’t believe it. Floaties and noodles and kickboards. A floating basketball hoop, a bunch of balls—it was heaven. It took me forever to choose what I wanted to bring into the pool with me.” He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. “By the time I came out, Gracie was in the pool. I fucking—” He sucked in a hard breath. “I fucking threw all the toys into the pool on top of her before I realized she wasn’t moving.”
“Oh, Cal.” I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his neck.
“She drowned because of me. Because I was angry that my parents wouldn’t take me swimming. Because I was so worried about grabbing all those toys that I couldn’t take two seconds to check on her. She wasfour.”
I squeezed him tight and didn’t stop until his arms came around me. I could feel his heart racing against my chest, thumping so hard it drowned out my own pulse. His breath gusted out of him, and I realized he was holding back sobs. I pulled away, placing my hands on either side of his face. His eyes were full of tears, but he wouldn’t let them drop. Even now, clinging onto control with everything he had.
“My mother never looked at me the same way,” he finally said, voice flat. “And why would she? Gracie was her favorite.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Cal,” I said, hands still holding his face the way he so often held mine. “You were a child. It was an accident.”
“If it weren’t for me, she’d still be here.”
“It was a horrible, tragic accident.”
Cal’s eyes were pale blue and so full of pain that it stole my breath. His arms wrapped around my waist, and he held me close. “I don’t care about many people, Deena. I can’t bear the thought of losing anyone else. So if this is just a casual fling to you—if you aren’t serious about me—I need you to leave. I need you to leave tonight and not come back. I’ll pay you the full six months’ salary, and I won’t be angry. I won’t ever talk badly about you. You have nothing to fear from me professionally or personally. But I can’t…”
He didn’t finish his thought. He just looked at me, eyes full of agony, ribs cracked wide open so I could see through to the heart of him.
Cal had just given me his deepest, darkest secret, trusting that I would keep it safe.
All those times that I’d thought I was surrendering to him, thatI thought I was handing him my independence, the essence of what made meme—none of them compared to this.
And now, on top of it all, he was giving me the power to choose. He was handing me the one thing that was so difficult for him to relinquish: control.
I could tell him that I didn’t feel the same way. I could admit that the intensity of his feelings terrified me, and I couldn’t be the woman he wanted me to be. I could go back to my old life, except with a big, fat cushion of financial stability. Debt-free, with a nest egg and funding to expand my business.
Or, I could risk everything. My heart. My business. My independence.
If I stayed here tonight, Cal would never let me go. Of that, I was sure.
My heart thumped, fear digging its claws right into the meat of the organ. I wanted to run away from this, from him.
