The surprise in her voice cuts straight through me.
“I thought that was obvious. And yes, love. I love you, Remy.” The truth settles into the room with terrifying ease once it’s finally out loud. I uncurl my fists and stare down at mypalms. “I love you enough to know that you deserve better than a guy who loses control.”
“I agree.” As I strain to hear, I can’t bear to face her.
I curse under my breath and press my palm to my forehead.
“Here’s the thing.” Remy takes a deep breath. She sounds like a little kid standing at the edge of the high dive for the first time, psyched up to jump but not quite ready to take the plunge.
“Have you watched the footage of that fight?” she asks.
“Yeah. I… Yeah, it was ugly. I’m not proud of it.”
“You snapped, Owen. You completely lost control.” Hearing it said out loud makes the shame hit all over again. “And I appreciate that you were worried about me, I really do, but the way you reacted did nothing to make me safer. I don’t think you’d do anything to hurt me—”
“Never.” I don’t mean to interrupt, but the word rips out of me. The thought of hurting her makes me feel physically sick.
“But you could react in a way that could get me hurt. You need to deal with that. In a moment of crisis, when the people you care about are in trouble, you need to learn to think before you react.”
I nod. I’m bogged down by shame, and under that is the fear that I’ve turned into my father. That fear lives under my skin now. Constant. Waiting. That I’m a monster, like him. That I’ll hurt people the way he hurt my mother.
The way he hurt me. A little boy half his size.
Remy resumes stroking Shutout’s ears. “When I said that I think you’ll be better off working with someone else from my firm, I meant it. Your new PR guy, John, is really good at what he does. I think you’ll like him. He’s very even-keeled, very easygoing.”
I don’t want John,I could scream, I want you. Only you.
“I think you’ll be better off with someone who doesn’t activate your protective instincts. John won’t just be workingon your image. He’ll be helping you. I hope that, whatever else happens, you’ll give him and his suggestions a chance.”
Anything. I’d do anything she asked of me.
“So, there’s that. For your future, for your career, for your own peace of mind, I hope you’ll be open to that work.”
“Yeah. I will.”
Remy lifts her head. “Do you mean that?”
Like my answer actually matters to her. I force myself to turn my head. The judgment I was expecting to see in her is absent. As always, she’s open and direct and so fucking perfect that the very sight of her threatens to crack me open. “Yeah. I do. I hate not being in control of myself.” Because whether Remy and I survive this or not, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life scared of myself.
It takes me a few seconds to get the rest of my thought out, but this is Remy. I can still trust her with anything. “It scares me. Makes me worry that I’m, you know. Broken. That people are right to be careful around me.”
Like maybe there’s something fundamentally wrong inside me that hard work can’t fix.
Remy watches me in silence for what feels like a very long time. I ruined things this time around, but someday, I want to be the kind of man she could trust with her heart. I want to be able to trustmyself.
“You said that I should be with someone who can control himself,” she says at last. “Part of me is still hoping that you can be that guy.”
Her words rattle around in my skull. They don’t make sense to me, even if I understand each of them on their own.
“I really like you, Owen. More than like, actually. Somewhere over these past few months, I fell in love with you, too. That’s the other reason I wanted to step down. This dynamic?” She gestures back and forth between the two of us. “It hasn’t beenhealthy. If we’re going to give this a shot, we need to be able to communicate more openly. No more approach-avoidance. No more dubious ethics.”
The tiny smile she gives me afterward feels fragile enough that I want to protect it with my entire body. Everything inside me goes completely still. I move my mouth, but no sound comes out. What is happening? Is there a gas leak? Am I dreaming?
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to try,” she admits.
“What?” I shout the word so loud that Shutout sits up. “Remy, are you kidding?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “You aren’t always vocal about your feelings, you know? And I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about the other stuff. The therapy and everything. It’s non-negotiable for me, but I’m not a fan of ultimatums, and I didn’t want to—”
