There’s something about her vulnerability that has me wanting to move my hand three inches to the right and touch hers. I want to reassure her that her first marriage didn’t fail because of her—there’s no damn way—and to promise her that ours will be as easy, and quick, as she hopes.
As we hope.
“Why are you bad husband material?” she asks.
The question catches me off guard. “Huh?”
“At Tank’s the other night, you said you weren’t husband material. Why not? Really. No bullshit.”
I regrip the steering wheel.
The conversation from what feels both like just yesterday and ten years ago trickles through my mind. I did say that. I know what I meant too. I just don’t know how to explain it to her.
I blow out a breath and let my mind try to sort it out. As we drive over a small creek, the car bouncing around on the rough concrete, I start.
“You know what it is?” I ask.
“No, or I wouldn’t have asked.”
“Smart-ass,” I say, taking in her animated face beside me. “It’s that . . . I don’t want people to need me. I mean, I could say it all sorts of different ways and try to make it sound less . . . asshole-ish, but that’s what it is in a nutshell. I know it sounds like bullshit, but people relying on you equates to disappointment to me.”
The way she twists her entire body my way lets me know that she’s not about to just let this go.
Unfortunately.
“I don’t really believe you,” she says.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“That can’t be true, Holden. You’re a vet. By choice. It’s a very need-driven career.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Don’t you think your clients need you?”
“Yes, my clients need me. But they’re animals, not humans. I’m okay with that.”
“So you just don’t want humans to need you,” she states, waiting on my confirmation.
I nod.
“What happened to make you so . . .”
“Honest?” I offer.
“Not exactly the word I was going for.” She takes the bag off the floor and sorts through the candy again. “I was going to say scared, but whatever.”
“I’m not scared,” I protest. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
She opens a package of Nerds and pops a handful in her mouth. “Well, that’s what I heard.”
“You heard wrong.”
She swallows and then proceeds to fill her mouth with candy again. It’s only after a few minutes that I realize she’s waiting me out. Waiting for a reaction.
“I’ve had a lot of people need me. It’s a lot of pressure,” I say quietly.
The Nerds are forgotten. She holds them in her hand, but her attention is squarely on me. I can feel her stare on the side of my cheek, and it makes me shift in my seat.
I don’t know why I’m telling her this. It’s really none of her business and not something I like to delve into. As I’m about to tell her as much, it occurs to me that we are in this car together because we have some level of trust in each other. She’s doing me a hellacious favor, and I need to honor that.
And be open.
“I was the only child growing up. My father’s only son,” I say as if that explains everything. “There was so much pressure to do everything his way and to do it well. Pitching in Little League. Wide receiver on the football team. He made me learn how to play piano, and I hated those damn lessons. Honor roll.”
I clear my throat. If I had a shirt with the top button fastened, I’d loosen it. My chest is constricted as I think about how to further explain myself to Sophie.
“I’d come home from Honey Creek at the end of summer,” I say, “and he’d try to erase anything I might’ve picked up from here. He wouldn’t bad-mouth Pap or Tennessee, specifically. He’d just make it clear what he thought of the place and that I was above it somehow.”
“That’s shitty.”
I nod. “I grew up feeling like his expectations and somehow . . . his successes in life were on my shoulders. Like if I didn’t live up to what he wanted me to be and check off all those boxes, then we’d both fail. Then I would be this huge disappointment, and that was the hardest thing. Seeing that in his eyes.”
Sophie sighs. “You know, it’s usually the girl with daddy issues.”
When I look at her, she’s smiling softly. It makes the tension in the back of my neck relax. There’s no judgment on her face or smugness, like I’ve seen in women before when you show them your vulnerabilities or truth.
Not that I’ve ever told a woman before that I more or less have daddy issues, but still.
“Oh, but I also have mommy issues. My mother”—I blow out a breath before just spilling all the words into the air between us—“she died of a crazy-aggressive form of bone cancer between my junior and senior year.”