Authors: Jay Crownover
could get out was that I needed a few days off from the hospital. I had a bunch of vacation days saved up,
so it wouldn’t be a problem other than I was leaving her in the lurch and she still needed to set up the
interview for the promotion. None of it mattered to me. Nothing mattered to me. I felt like I was turning to
stone.
The next call I made was to my mom. I should have called Faith, she was going to be furious with me
when she found out I was bailing once again because of Nash. I don’t know that my mom understood a
single word I tried to tell her while I sobbed and shook, but I got an assurance that she had plenty of room
for me down in Phoenix.
By midnight, I was halfway through New Mexico, and by the time the sun came up, I was almost to
Phoenix. I drove straight through the night. I turned my phone off after calling Faith to let her know I was
leaving town for a few days. She was furious on my behalf, wanted to have her husband go over and
pound Nash into a bloody mess, but that would never work because her husband was half Nash’s size, and
even though I didn’t want to admit it to her, I knew he was hurting already.
Sometime while the endless highway stretched out in front of me, my heart stopped aching and the
bitter taste of betrayal stopped coating my tongue. I was still upset, still really mad, but the focus had
switched now that I didn’t have the vision of Royal and Nash wearing nothing but towels dancing in front
of me. I was mad at myself, afraid I had made a mistake and once again jumped to awful conclusions out of
self-preservation. I had run before thinking it through. But now, with nothing but the road, my wildly
careening thoughts and Sea Wolf on the radio, the important parts of the argument started to blanket me like
a heavy fog.
All I could hear, all I could feel wrapping around me, were the words
I love you
. The worst part of the
entire thing wasn’t letting Nash go, wasn’t feeling bad because Royal was prettier than me or more alluring
—no … the worst part was how desperately I wanted to believe him. I wanted to trust in him, wanted to
take everything he was telling me he wanted to give, but I was so hung up on the idea that he would take it
away, let me down like so many had before, that I had just jumped to the easiest conclusion there was. I
wanted so badly to wholly believe Nash could love me, that he could see himself with me, and even with
what happened today, I really just wanted him for my own and it was tearing me apart because all of me
wanted all of him and that was scary.
I couldn’t get to him with myself standing in the way and I needed room, needed time to figure that out.
He said he would give me everything. I hoped that the time to get my head on right and to try and figure out
how much I was willing to risk for him was part of that.
When I got to my mom’s fancy town house at six thirty the next morning, she took one look at me,
wrapped me up in a hug, and put me to bed. I was dead on my feet, and an emotional wasteland. I slept for
most of the day and only roused that evening for her to feed me a PB&J. The next morning I actually took a
shower and got brave enough to look at my phone. I had no missed calls and zero missed text messages
from Nash, and I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse about the way I had left things.
I made my way down to the kitchen and grabbed a muffin my mom must have left on the counter for
me. I saw her sitting on the balcony that overlooked the golf course her town house butted up against. I
poured myself a cup of coffee and went out to join her. She looked me up and down over the top of her
glasses and gave me a grin.
“You look terrible.”
I sighed heavily and sank into the chair opposite to hers. “I just got my heart ripped out. I look pretty
much exactly how that feels.”
“I didn’t even know you were seeing someone.”
I pushed my hair back off of my face and looked out at the desert landscape. “I’m not sure what I was
doing with him, but I knew it was going to end like this.”
“How?”
“How what, Mom?”
“How did you know it was going to end badly?”
I looked at her, really looked at her, and was surprised to see my old mom looking back at me. Getting
away from Brookside had done wonders for her. She looked healthy and sane, and I would be willing to
bet her morning cup of coffee no longer had a healthy dose of Irish in it.
“Because he broke my heart once before. Because look at you and Dad. Because look at me … I’m so
screwed up, how could it have ended any other way?”
“What happened, Saint?”
I didn’t think I wanted to relive it, but before I could stop, the words, the entire story, starting with
seeing him the night Rome got stabbed, came pouring out of me in an unstoppable torrent. When I got to
the scene yesterday she was frowning, but as I told her about Nash telling me he loved me, she started to
nod and grin at me. I thought that reaction was totally uncalled for until she reached over and patted me on
the knee.
“Honey, you have to let that boy love you if he’s the one for you.”
I balked at her and set my coffee down with a
thunk
on the table. “Did you miss the part where he had a
beautiful, naked girl in his apartment? How am I supposed to overlook that?”
She lifted an eyebrow at me. “In your heart, do you really think he would cheat on you? Do something
to jeopardize all the work he put into getting you to let him in?”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Saint, don’t you know the question is why would he? Why would he cheat on you when you are
apparently what he wants? Why would he have worked so hard to get to you, tolerated your hang-ups and
oddities, made a space for you in his very busy life, if he was just going to screw it up the first chance he
got? Is he a moron?”
“No, he’s really smart, but so is Dad, and he cheated on you.”
She winced involuntarily and I opened my mouth to apologize, but she waved it off.
“Your dad cheated because he no longer loved me and he was bored. It took me all this time to get to
that point that I recognize it now. He was a coward, and instead of just saying he didn’t have the same
feelings for me anymore, he had an affair. Your young man doesn’t sound like a coward, Saint. He sounds
like a man willing to put his heart on the line for you.”
I huffed in aggravation and threw myself back in the seat with my arms across my chest.
“Why are you taking his side, Mom?”
“Because I love you and I realize now that I may have had a hand in some of the issues you are
struggling with that are keeping you from being truly happy. I was hard on you, had a hard time with how
quiet you were, and nitpicked about your looks and lack of social life when you were younger because I
thought I was helping. I thought if you acted more like Faith, looked a little more polished, you would have
an easier time of things. Kids can be cruel and I didn’t want that for you. I should’ve appreciated the
wonderful child I had, not tried to make you into something else.”
“Oh my God, Mom.”
She took her sunglasses off and looked me dead in the eye. “Listen, honey, I loved your dad my entire
life. He was everything to me, and yes, I went off my rocker when that went away. I thought my life was
going to be over when he left me, but I wouldn’t change any of it now that I’ve had some space to reflect.
At one point our love was the most beautiful thing in the world to me; it brought you and your sister into
the world, and it gave me something to look forward to each and every day. It might have gone badly at the
end, might have hurt me more than I thought possible when it went away, but I wouldn’t trade a single
moment of the best parts of it. I would never trade in experiencing that hurt for the family that our love
created, Saint.”
I felt tears pressing in my eyes and had to blink them back before I could answer her.
“Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive Dad for what he did?”
She murmured something and tilted her head to look at me. “For walking away from our family, for
hurting you girls … no, I won’t. What I can do now is recognize that we are all very much human and
capable of making bad choices without thinking of the long-term repercussions. Saint, you had to come get
me out of jail because I tried to brain a woman with a bottle of maple syrup. We all make mistakes, some
worse than others.”
“I don’t want to hurt like this because of someone else’s mistakes, Mom.”
I was talking about more than Nash and I think on a level that only a mother and a woman hurt by a
man she loved could understand. She understood what I was saying without words.
“Saint, hurting is how you know it’s real. If he didn’t matter, if he was just some guy, even back then it
wouldn’t have lasted with you the way it has. You can’t run from feeling things, even if some of those
things are awful, because love opens you up to experiencing emotions you haven’t ever felt before.”
“He’s the only one who has ever made me feel anything like this.” He was also the only one that made
me feel desire, hope, and gut-wrenching sorrow while I watched him grapple with the truth about his dad
and Phil’s subsequent illness.
“What is it that you think you deserve, honey? If it isn’t this guy, what he has to offer, then what is it?”
“I have a great job that I love and work hard at. I care a lot about other people and I deserve someone
who appreciates all of that.”
“This tattoo guy doesn’t?”
I pouted like a little kid. “No, he does, a lot actually. Those are some of his favorite qualities in me. He
told me I deserve the best because of the lengths I go to for others.”
“What else?”
“What do you mean, ‘what else’?”
She gave me a hard look and leaned over so she could grab my face. She squished my pout together so
hard I’m sure I looked like a duck.
“You are stunningly beautiful, you are desirable and vibrant, and you always have been. You deserve
someone who worships you, who looks at you and knows no one is more perfect than you.”
Now there was no holding back the tears. My mom and I weren’t exactly ever on the same page about
things, but hearing her say those words to me broke something free that had been lodged in my
subconscious my entire life. I rubbed my hands roughly over my cheeks and blinked away the moisture
clinging to my lashes.
“He tells me I’m perfect all the time.”
“Are you in love with him?”
I nodded sadly. “I don’t want to be, but I couldn’t stop it from happening.”
“Because it was meant to be.”
I choked on a laugh and picked up my coffee. “Who are you and what did you do with my mom?”
She reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “You came home to try and pull me out of
my funk. You never gave up on me when I was terrible to you and your sister. You came and got me out of
jail and never stopped loving me. Even with all the turmoil your father dropped on us, you never stopped
caring about him. I want what’s best for you, and while I would prefer a doctor to a tattoo artist, any man
that can shake you up, get you out of that boring, secure little bubble you always live in, is welcome in my
book. Now go get dressed and let’s go shopping like normal people do when their hearts are hurting.”
I didn’t want to go shopping, or go to the country club for lunch. I didn’t want to go to a wine tasting
that night or to the tapas restaurant with my mom and all her single friends the next night. By the end of day
three, I was ready to pull out my hair. I was bored, missed my sister and my job, and had learned way too
much about my mom’s new sex life. Mostly, all I wanted was to get back to the mountains and, in all
honesty, get back to Nash.
On the fourth day I broke down and sent him a text. All I could think to say was:
I’m so sorry. We need
to talk.
When he didn’t answer me back the rest of the day, I decided enough was enough. If I was the hurdle
that I needed to get over in order to have him, then the only way to do it was just get over it. I was still
scared, still worried about being enough, about being able to give back everything he seemed so willing to
lay at my feet, but going home and confronting him, and the person he saw when he looked at me, was the
first step. All people deserved love and kindness. Seeing that young girl take her own life drove that point
home more clearly than anything else could have. I needed to take what Nash was showing me at face
value. No one was ever going to love me better than he did.
I was only two hours into the twelve-hour return trip when I got a phone call from a number I didn’t
recognize that came from a 303 area code. Figuring it was work or work related, I answered.
“Hello?”
“Saint.” It took me a second to recognize Royal’s voice. “Where are you?”
“Just outside of Phoenix headed home. Why? How did you get this number?”