“I see you,” I replied, holding her stare. “I’ve always seen you. I’m not someone you can hide from.”
“Then you should see that—”
“Cec,” I said quietly, not letting her finish whatever bullshit she was about to say. “I see the girl who ran into danger to save her cousin and protected that cousin with her own body.”
“It was only a couple steps,” she whispered.
“And I see the girl who didn’t bother to tell anyone about the gunshot she got in the process—”
“It was only a graze. It was nothing.”
“And I see the girl that has lived her entire life feeling guilty for shit that was completely outside her control.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I see the girl who’s entire family was in crisis and she still went and sat by some kid’s bedside so he wouldn’t be alone.”
“Shut up.”
“A girl who put up with every dirty look and every stare because she refused to leave that kid behind, even though her people wanted her with someone else.”
“I’m serious, Mark. Be quiet.”
“I see the girl that didn’t tell anyone how bad she was hurting because she didn’t want to burden them. Who shut everyone out, every single person, except me.”
“Don’t make me into some saint,” she spat, lifting the baby to her shoulder to burp her. “You know the shit I pulled.”
“Of course you’re not a saint,” I scoffed. “No one is. You’re mouthy and rude as fuck, and you say shit before you think about the destruction it would cause when we both know if you’d just take two seconds to think it through, you wouldn’t say it. You’re stubborn and independent to a fault, which is irritating as fuck.”
Cecilia nodded, like I was finally reading her right.
“When you feel cornered, you lash out. You hate confrontation, and if someone forces it, you say the absolute worst thing you can—not to hurt them, but to get them to back off,” I continued. “You don’t want people to see that you’re kind because then they’d expect more from you. They’d expect you to talk and work shit out, and you refuse to let anyone in that far.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered, wrapping Olive back up in her blanket.
“I know I’ve never loved another person as much as I love you,” I confessed so quietly I wasn’t even sure she’d heard me. “And I don’t think I ever will.”
Chapter 13
Cecilia
I stared at Mark, completely at a loss. What the hell did he think he was doing?
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to that,” I said finally.
I wanted to rage. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to pull him under the covers with me and let him whisper all of those things to me while I raked my nails down his back and bit him for it.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he replied with a sigh.
My rage built.
“How dare you,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “How dare you say that to me now.”
“Cec—”
“No, now you get to listen,” I ordered, raising my hand in a stop motion. “I cannot take one more thing. Do you get that? I cannot handle one more single thing. I am at my limit. This is it. Okay?”
“I don’t expect you to handle anything,” he shot back.
“You just drop that bomb on my lap, and what? I’m supposed to ignore it?”
“I didn’t drop a bomb, and it wasn’t the first time I’ve told you I loved you.”
“This, whatever this was, it was different and you know it.”
He reached for my face and I jerked my head back. No. He didn’t get to do this now. He didn’t get to make this about him. Not again.
“I’m not sure what you expected,” I said, my voice hard. “That I’d confess my undying love and we’d ride off into the sunset? That somehow, now that you’d told me you loved me, that we could just start back where we were before?”
“No, I didn’t think that.”
“You left me pregnant and alone,” I said, my voice vibrating with the anger and resentment I was trying so hard to control. “Because you weren’t ready. Because you wanted to get out of Eugene. Because you wanted to play soldier. You. You. You. Would you like to know what I see when I look at you? Because I see you, too. I see a person that goes out of his way to help others because he wants other people to think well of him, but deep down inside of him is pure self-centered selfishness. Someone who has no idea what it means to stick it out long-term. Who didn’t even go home to take care of his sick mother until it was time to put her in the ground. That’s what I see when I look at you.”