Charged

She put a hand to her chest and pulled her watery gaze away from mine. “But it scares me. There are very few people in this world that I want to protect from the kind of mayhem I bring with me and you are one of them. I love you, Quaid. I didn’t want to but I do, and that means I’m going to let you go.”

I wanted to shake her and hold her to me and never let go. I wanted to throw every argument I could think of at her to keep her from making this mistake. I wanted to pick her words apart and put them back together into ones I wanted to hear. I wanted to focus on the fact she said she loved me, not the fact that she was leaving, but she turned around and started moving away from me, which made that impossible to do.

“Avett.” She pulled up short and shot me a look full of sorrow and sadness over her shoulder. “This is a bad decision you don’t have to make. You don’t have to protect me from you or anything that comes with being with you. I’m a big boy.”

She gave a shuddering sigh and I saw the finality of her decision stamped all over her expressive face. “That’s the thing, Counselor. This feels way too much like the right decision. And I’m not protecting you from me. I’m protecting you from yourself, and the things you’ll lose if you love me back.”

Her words hit me hard, and all of the feelings and emotions she had stirred to life inside of me got so big and so out of control that I felt like they were going to consume me. I wanted to give her so much, everything I had, and none of it had a dollar sign attached to it. I knew I could tell her that, throw words at her until I was blue in the face, and that I could lawyer-speak my way around her argument and fear that she would hurt me by being with me, but words felt like they were too simple and could be too easily misconstrued. I was going to have to show her she was worth everything to me and then some.

I’d worked hard at my education because I knew it was my ticket out. I’d worked hard to distance myself from my childhood and from having nothing because I knew I wanted more out of life than the basics. I worked my ass off to establish myself in my career and to be considered a force to be reckoned with in the courtroom and in the bedroom because I wanted to be the best and I wanted everyone to know it. I put up a reasonable fight to save my marriage before I realized it was all a sham and I battled through my divorce so I could keep all the things I thought were the most important to me.

Watching Avett walk away from me for my own good, I realized I needed to work and fight like I never had before because I wasn’t willing to let her go. This was a battle I wasn’t going to lose because to do so meant losing her. She was everything I wanted and all that I never knew I needed. I could put in all of my effort for her because she was more valuable than anything I owned and worth more to me than how many wins in the courtroom I could brag about. She finally managed to show me what was really important in life and what I had been missing from what felt like the very beginning. I needed someone to love me for me and for what I had or didn’t have. I needed someone to support me because what was important to me was important to them since they cared about me. Avett did all of that without a second thought and I knew, deep down into the fibers that made me the man that I was, that she was the only person I was capable of giving my all to, because she deserved everything I had to give … even though she never asked for any of it.

I knew if I wanted to keep her I was going to have to show her and prove to her that she wasn’t my ruin. She was my salvation.

She jumped, and I was going to have to show her that I was willing to be the guy that jumped after her.

CHAPTER 17

Avett

I was glad I had refused to let anyone go with me to the deposition even if digging in my heels about it had made my dad extragrouchy and my mom supernervous. I knew I was going to be shaky and off balance after the interrogation from Jared’s lawyer and I knew that I was going to be a total mess after being around Quaid. I was right on both counts and it was taking everything I had not to crumple into a useless ball of broken heart and rivers of tears on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. I made my way to the street while wiping ineffectively at the mascara that I was sure was running over my cheeks like sad war paint and hailed a cab.

My dad was home waiting for a status report and surprisingly my mom had opted to take the day off and wait with him. Her wanting to be around for moral support and to offer a hug after what was undoubtedly going to be a bad day was a testament to how much our relationship had changed and improved now that both our stories were out there in the open. We would never have the typical mother/daughter relationship and I would always very much be my father’s daughter, but it was nice to know that my mom and I had been able to find a way to a better relationship, despite the roadblocks we’d both thrown up. Getting to a place where I could let my mom love me and love her back was instrumental in me finding my way to forgiveness and understanding myself and both of our past misdeeds.

Walking away from Quaid for good had me feeling lower than I ever had, and knowing there was nothing on this Earth or beyond that could make me feel any worse than I did at that moment, I decided it was finally time for me to try and make amends with the one person I hadn’t been able to face since I put the wheels of this entire debacle in motion all those months ago. It was time to put on my big-girl panties and try to make things right with Rome Archer. I knew I was going to squirm and falter under that unwavering blue gaze that cataloged and weighed every single move I made, but it was time. Because even if he refused to accept my apology, even if he didn’t want my story and the honest compunction that came along with it, I would walk away knowing I had done the right thing with one less anchor tied to my soul. Rome was important to my dad, which by default made him important to me, but I knew now that even if the big, scarred man couldn’t forgive me, I couldn’t carry that around for the rest of my life. I needed to have my hands free to catch any of the good stuff that I was fortunate to have come my way, and that meant I couldn’t keep my hands full of the garbage and negativity I had been clutching like a lifeline for so long.