It’s Ethan’s turn to nod. “He did.”
“That’s why you went into biomedical research, right? To help develop treatments to prolong life and better quality of life for injured soldiers.”
“Yes.”
Again I wait for more and again it takes him forever to speak. But when he does, it’s worth all the things he’s never said before, all the trust he’s never given me. “The day he left for that last mission, I begged him not to go. He was always gone, you know, always missing out on things that other kids’ dads were around for, and I was sick of it. My first baseball game was that Saturday and I wanted him to come to it. I wanted him home.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Yeah. I know. I was just a kid who wanted his dad. But when it came time for him to leave two days later, I wouldn’t come out of my room. I wouldn’t say good-bye to him. And when he came to me and tried to hug me, I told him not to bother coming back. I told him if he couldn’t be the kind of dad that my friends had, then I didn’t want him at all.
“Those are the last words I ever said to him.”
“Oh, God. Oh, Ethan.” I reach for him then, wrap my arms around him. He doesn’t fight me, doesn’t get me to try to let go, but he doesn’t really yield, either. He just sits there, like telling the story has made him numb.
“I’ve never told anybody that before.”
“I know. Thank you for telling me.”
He nods. “I do love you, Chloe.”
“I know.”
“And it’s not you that I don’t trust. It’s me.”
I rest my hands on his cheeks, turn his face to mine so that I can see his eyes and his expression. “I don’t understand.”
“My whole life, I’ve let people down.”
“That’s not true—”
“It is. My father wanted me to take his absences like a man. He wanted me to be the man of the house while he was gone. Instead I told him that I hated him and I cried every night.
“My mother wanted me to follow her family into politics. She wanted me to capitalize on my father’s service record and turn that into a political career for me that would hopefully culminate in the presidency. Instead, I went into biomedical engineering and she pretty much forgot I existed unless she wanted something from me.
“Same story with my brother and my grandparents. Same story with the various girlfriends I’ve had through the years. I was always good enough to fuck, always good enough to hang out with for a while, but never good enough to stay for.”
“You’re the most eligible bachelor in California.”
“That’s because of the money, not because of me.” He says it so matter-of-factly that I know he believes it’s true. “And then you came along and I fell for you the day I met you. And I wanted to do everything right. Instead, it couldn’t have been more fucked up if I deliberately tried.
“I kept thinking, if I could just make you love me enough. If I could just make you forget about Brandon and my mother and all the shit that came before—if I could do that, then maybe you would stay. And instead, I just kept driving you away.”
“But I always came back.”
He smiles a little. “Yeah. I don’t know why you did that.”
“Are you kidding me? The most eligible bachelor in California doesn’t know what I see in him?”
“That’s stupid. It’s just a ridiculous title some magazine thought up—”
“Maybe. But it’s also true.”
He shakes his head like he wants to be talking about anything but that article, anything but that title. “Chloe, I’m sorry. I fucked up.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“I don’t know what else there is to say—”