Unconditional

But he’s wrong.

This time, he’s all wrong.

There’s no fixing this. No mending me. I tried, and I failed, and this is what I get for it, nothing but a broken heart.

After a few minutes, Garrett comes back. He sits beside me and presses a mug into my hands.

“Tea?” I frown, still detached from everything around me.

“Coffee,” he corrects me. “Irish. Don’t argue, just drink.”

I take a small sip, tasting the hot liquid and feeling the warmth burn down my throat. I can feel him staring at me, worried, but I can’t bring myself to look back. Embarrassment burns, edged with self-loathing.

How many times am I going to fall apart on him? How many damn times?

“Bet you’re getting bored of this,” I finally say, bitterness clear in my voice. “Scraping me off the floor and putting me back together. I should come with a warning label, right?”

“Hey.” Garrett’s voice is gruff. He places his hand on my arm and the touch ripples through me. I finally gather the courage to look over him.

He’s staring at me, his handsome face masked with fierce protectiveness. “Don’t say that,” Garrett urges me, his eyes flashing with emotion. “I’m happy to be here. Not happy,” he corrects himself quickly. “I just mean, we all need someone to lean on sometimes. Nobody should go through this alone.”

His eyes pierce through me, the way they’ve always done: seeing through everything, right to the messy, broken heart of me.

I look away, my shame growing. Ever since the night on the dock, Garrett’s support has been a lifeline to me, the one strong thread of comfort I could cling to, even in the stormiest seas. But now I find myself wishing with all my heart that he wasn’t looking at me with such tenderness—that he was just the charming man-whore I thought he was from the start, only looking for a good time. I could deal with that man; I would somehow find the strength to pull myself together and laugh in the face of his careless teasing.

But this man, the one with a strong, true heart, and a compassion I can’t even fathom? This man will be the undoing of me. I’ll only disappoint him, just like I disappoint everyone in the end.

Can’t he see there’s no saving me?

Self-loathing takes hold of me again. “Don’t.” I tell him sharply. “Just don’t.”

“What, Carina?” Garrett’s forehead creases in confusion. I snatch my hand away.

“Don’t give me your bullshit platitudes about making amends and taking it one step at a time.” My voice rises, tears stinging again in my throat, but this time, they’re not tears of rejection, they’re humiliation, hot and furious. “You don’t know what it’s like. I didn’t even want to talk to Juliet today, remember?” I turn on him, hating myself even as the angry words fly from my lips. “I knew she wasn’t ready, and today of all days, but you pushed me!”

“No,” Garrett tries to interrupt.

“You did!” I cry, bitterness stinging in my veins. “You were the one who said I should go to her, and try to work things out. You said it would be OK, and you were wrong!”

Garrett’s face tightens. “I was only trying to help.”

“Well stop!” I continue, leaping to my feet. Shame and self-loathing are taking hold of me, digging their claws into me with a bitter iron grip. “It’s none of your business!” I yell. “You don’t know what it’s like, losing everything, having your whole life just gone, and you’re the one to blame. You don’t know anything!” I sob.

Garrett’s eyes flash dark. He gets to his feet and turns away from me. “You don’t know anything about me,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. His body is braced with tension, his fists clenched at his side.

“Sure I do.” I turn my anger outwards, striking blindly any way I can. “You’ve never even tried to have a real relationship in your life,” I accuse him. “All you do is f**k around and move on to the next girl. You can’t begin to understand what I’m going through.”

“Shut up!” Garrett roars, but I can’t stop now. I need something to focus on, before the pain inside me pulls me under.

“You don’t know what it’s like to want a home, a family of your own, and have all those dreams ripped away from you!”

“Yes, I do!” Garrett yells, so loud I take a step back in shock. His face twists, revealing a terrible agony, a heartbreak without end.

“I had a wife once, and a little baby girl.” Garrett explodes, yelling in the quiet of the house. “Not a morning comes that I don’t wake up missing them, but they’re gone. I lost everything, Carina. Everyone I loved! So don’t you dare talk to me about watching your future slip away, because I had one once, and it all turned to ash!”

19

The words sit¸ heavy between us in the silence. My shame. My secret.

My loss.

I still can’t believe I told her. I’ve never told anyone. I’ve never even spoken these words aloud. They’ve stayed private, my silent prison sentence for years. At first, I tried to drown them out with alcohol and cheap thrills, hoping that oblivion would erase the pain somehow—that for a few brief moments I would be spared the terrible grief. And it worked. Every day got a little easier, every night didn’t call to me with darkness. But in its own way, forgetting is worse. Because if memories are all I have left to hold on to, then what happens when those memories finally fade?