by Maisey Yates
She spread her hands. “So don’t. What happens if you don’t?”
He laughed, forking his fingers through his hair before he turned away from her, shaking his head. “The whole world goes to hell.”
“No. Your dad’s world goes to hell. A hell of his own making. Your world would be opened up.”
Aiden couldn’t process what she was saying. Couldn’t deal with those words, because they worked in direct opposition to what he’d been doing for the past ten years. He had given up everything for his parents. Repeatedly. To have her talk like that, to have her say that walking away was just that easy... It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. He was linked to this place. He was. He had poured so much work into it that now walking away and leaving it to fall apart was impossible.
“I didn’t ask you to psychoanalyze me.”
“No,” she said, “you didn’t. But I’m doing it anyway. Because you’ve given me a lot over the past week, Aiden, whether you realize it or not. You have. You look at me like I matter. I travel light when it comes to belongings, but I’ve been carrying a lot of weight inside. But you...you make it seem like I don’t need to bring all that with me. I want to do the same thing for you. I know you worked hard to keep this place running. But at what point is it just a millstone? I know you see it as an investment, but I see it dragging you down to the bottom of the ocean and drowning you. You can’t save what doesn’t want to be saved.”
He turned back to her, his heart pounding hard. “And neither can you.”
CHAPTER TEN
CASEY LOOKED AT AIDEN, her heart breaking for him. She had no idea what it was like to be in a situation like this. To feel yourself being torn up by the roots.
Because she had none.
But she knew full well what it was like to have a parent looking at you like you didn’t belong. To have them choose the addiction over you, over everything good in their life. She had allowed that rejection to become a part of who she was. She didn’t want him to do the same.
“He’s wrong,” she said. “It isn’t you. He just can’t see it. They—they love the substance too much. They love it more than the people around them. And you can’t make the choice for them. You can’t choose to give it up on their behalf. It doesn’t work.” She swallowed hard, instantly back at the door of that small house in Kansas, the hot, damp air coating her skin, fear tightening her throat. “I stood on my mother’s doorstep, with my one pair of shoes, two sizes too small, and my garbage bag that contained everything I owned in the entire world, and I told her that I was out of the system. She invited me in. Gave me some iced tea. We visited and then she... Then she said she had some errands to run so it was about time I moved on. She never asked... She never said I could stay. No one has ever asked me to stay. And here you are, staying and staying, and he lets you. But he’s just bleeding you dry. It’s what they do.”
“My dad isn’t the same as your mom,” he said through gritted teeth. “He raised me.”
“Right. He did. Do you really think that version of your dad would want you to be this way? Do you think this is the life that he wanted for you? He didn’t build the farm to trap you. He built it to give you a life. He’s lost sight of that now. Because addiction is a fierce and evil beast. But if it didn’t have him by the throat... Aiden, he would want you to have a life.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, maybe I don’t. But if what you’re saying is true, if you feel like you owe him because you had good years with him, then I have to believe that there was a time when he was different. And that father... If he’s worth any kind of loyalty, then this isn’t what he wanted for you. It isn’t your job to save him. Right now, the house is burning down and you have to save yourself.”
He clenched his hands into fists at his sides. “Why? There’s nothing else for me. This is what I have.”
“You have me.”
Saying those words was like tearing a strip of her own skin away, exposing herself. Exposing everything inside of her. She had been telling the truth when she’d said no one had ever asked her to stay. And she had never asked anyone to come with her. Right now, she knew there was nothing else she could do.
“Come with me.”
He only glared at her, his eyes hard. “You’re being crazy.”
“Maybe. Maybe I’m crazy. But I can’t stand the thought of you being here forever. I can’t stand the thought of that man hurting you while he steals everything good from you. Come with me. And we’ll... I don’t even know what we’ll do. But we’ll be together.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then let me stay.” The words broke her. Her pride was on the floor now, in pieces, completely irreparable. But she didn’t care. She had to do this. “If this is what you need, then let me stay with you. Let me share it with you.”
“I can’t do that, Casey. I can’t afford to be distracted. I have to get to where everything is sorted out here.”
“What if it never is? What if it’s never fixed? What then, Aiden? Are you just going to keep living like this? For the rest of your life? Why? To keep an old drunk in a comfortable lifestyle?”
“For my mother. Because she lets her love for this guy take everything from her. She stays when she should leave.”
“Listen to yourself,” she exploded. “You can see it when it’s her. Because she’s his wife. Because you think she should just be able to walk away. But look at yourself. You’re staying. You’re staying because you don’t know what else to do. You’re staying when you should have left years ago. No, you’re not looking away and pretending everything is fine like she is. You’re being stubborn because you want to save him and he won’t let you do it.”
“I don’t know what else I would do,” he said, his voice raw.
“I know. That’s the problem, isn’t it?” she asked, stopping in the path. “This is who you are. This struggle has become your entire life and you don’t know what else to do without it. You’re afraid of who you’d be without this.”
She knew, because she’d done the same thing. Let her past define her. All the way up until this moment. This moment where she was standing in front of this man who made her want to stop protecting herself. Who made her want to stop hiding behind all of the trauma, all of the pain. Yes, her life had been hard. There was no denying that. No erasing it. It was part of who she was. And it always would be.
But it wasn’t who she was.
“I’m not a whore,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’m not useless, or stupid. I can be more than that. More than those things other people said I was. I want more than that. I want... I love you,” she said. “I do. I love you. Aiden, I’ve never said that to anyone before in my life.”
He looked as though she had slapped him in the face. It wasn’t the most flattering expression to see someone wear when you’d just confessed your love for them.
“You’ve only known me for a week.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve known people for less time, and I’ve known them for a whole lot more, and I’ve still never wanted to say it. Ever. I know I felt it for my mom, because that’s what you do, but I was never able to say it. I knew she wouldn’t be able to say it back. Otherwise? I’ve never even been tempted. When I say that I love you, it’s not because the sex is good. I’ve had sex with other men. When I say that I love you it isn’t because I want a warm bed to stay in for the foreseeable future. It’s not even because I’m afraid to be alone. It’s not because I want some kind of an easy dream life. I see your struggles. I’m willing to inherit those. To share them with you. I’m willing to make your pain mine. I’m willing to drop the load that I’ve been carrying for years so that I can pick up some of yours.”
“No,” he said, his voice raw, a note of pure horror running through it. As though she’d just asked if she could cut him open and live in his chest cavity, not professed her love.
“I know I’m not much of anything,” she said. “I do. I want to be more. I want my lif
e to be more. I’m tired of everything I own being able to fit into a trash bag. And I don’t just mean my things. I’m tired of not having ties. You. You’re my roots, Aiden. And where you go...I want to go. And where you stay, I’m willing to stay.”
“No, Casey, it just can’t... You can’t be saying that.”
She frowned, tucking her hair behind her ear and giving him her fiercest glare. “I am.”
“Dammit, woman, you’re supposed to be my vacation. You’re supposed to be a moment for me to step away from my control and have some release. You’re not supposed to be... You weren’t supposed to be another complication.”
“Oh,” she said, a sound more than a word, filled with pain and shock. She hadn’t known what he would say when she confessed her love. How could she have? She hadn’t even known what she was going to say until the moment the words left her mouth. She could never have anticipated something like this. Or the pain that the words had brought. She had been rejected countless times, in thousands of different ways, but nothing had ever hurt so badly as this. She was worn-out, she was jaded. She had learned to hold pieces of herself back in her every interaction with people. But she hadn’t done that with him. She had believed in him. Believed in this. Believed in his ability to be more. To be everything that he seemed.
But, of course, he couldn’t be. She’d thought of him as good the first time she’d seen him, and she still thought he was good. Better than anyone she’d ever known. But he was afraid. Afraid of letting go. Afraid of losing what rooted him to the earth. She had spent so much of her life living in fear that someday everything would fall away and reveal that there was nothing. But it was the same for him.
Family, a home—neither was magic. He didn’t draw strength from them any more than she drew strength from her isolation while moving from place to place. Neither of them was immune. Neither of them was protected. And she was left to wonder what could change it. What could anchor you if none of that did.
I would. I would anchor him. If he would let me.
She knew that. Trusted in it. More than anything in her whole life. But looking at him, standing there with his jaw clenched tight, his expression uncompromising, she could see that he wouldn’t let her.
That made her angry. Made her heart beat faster and her palms sweat. No one had ever offered her help. No one. And here she was, offering what little she had. Everything she had, and he was rejecting it.
“I don’t think that love has to be such a terrible thing,” she said. “Love doesn’t have to be a burden.”
“How would you know?”
His words ran her through like a sword, deflating her lungs, making it so she couldn’t breathe. “I guess you have a point there,” she said, the words coming out strangled.
She turned and started to walk back toward the cabin and he reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her back.
“Casey, wait...”
“No. Don’t ask me to wait. You can ask me to stay, Aiden. But don’t ask me to wait if in the end you’re just going to let me go.”
He fell silent, the space stretching between them saying more than words ever could.
“Don’t say you didn’t mean it, either,” she continued. “Because you did. You meant it. You don’t think I know what love is because I didn’t have a family to love me. But sometimes the absence of something, the need for it, teaches you a whole lot more than having it. I’m not used to love. I don’t take it for granted. There is no way for it to be there and for me not to notice. I’m...changed by it. Completely. The way I think. The way I feel. The way I breathe. Don’t ever tell me I don’t know. I know better than you.”
She walked quickly, then broke into a run, up the steps and into the cabin, gathering her things as quickly as possible. There were perks to having all the pieces of your life compacted down so small that they fit into one bag. It didn’t take long to leave. And right now? She desperately needed to leave.
“So, that’s it?” She heard his voice coming from behind her, and she forced herself to keep from turning. “You’re just going to go?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of what I do.” She stuffed a pair of underwear into her bag. Then looked at the bed they had been sharing for the past week. She had been happy here. Happy with him. And it wasn’t because the cabin was amazing. Wasn’t because she wanted to live here the rest of her life. It was because this was where he had held her in his arms. It was because for just a little while they had belonged to each other when she’d never belonged to anyone before.
She’d never had anything that had felt too good to last before. She’d just had a lot of shit that had lasted however long it had lasted and then gone away. So she hadn’t been prepared for what it would feel like when this was over. It was horrible. It was violent and shocking, tearing at her insides like a savage beast.
You always knew it would end this way.
Yes, she had. Except in the days since she had come here, during the nights when she had fallen asleep in his arms, she had begun to entertain a strange, warm glow in the center of her chest. One that she now recognized was hope. Hope unlike any she’d ever had before. Hope like she imagined she would never have again.
“I’m leaving.”
“Leaving town?”
“Don’t know.” She shrugged one of her shoulders. In reality, she was no closer to having her car fixed. It was parked over at Jake’s garage now, but it still wasn’t running, and she still didn’t have much in the way of funds.
“You’re not going to tell me.”
“What do you care?”
“Dammit, Casey, you know I care.”
“Yeah, but you care about your drunk of a father. You care about this farm. You care about your mother. You care about a lot of things in an angry, protective way. But do you love any of it? Do you have any love left inside of you at all? Or is it all just grim, forced duty?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not about how I feel. My dad follows his feelings. Follows them right down into the bottom of a bottle. And I’ll never be that.”
“No. You won’t. I believe that. But you know who you’ve become? Your mother. You were so busy keeping yourself from becoming your old man that you became her. You think you can fix it for him. You think you can want it enough. But you can’t. He has to want it, Aiden, and the simple truth is that he doesn’t. You don’t know what to do with that. So you push everyone else away to try to heal this one broken person who doesn’t even want it. This is why Caroline left you. Because she could see that you would never open yourself up to her. She could see that this was never going to end. And I see it now, too.”
“Great. Maybe you can go find some other guy to give you what you want. That’s what she did.”
She shook her head, gritting her teeth against the anger and sadness that were fighting for dominance in her chest. “I won’t. I’m not going to find anyone else.” She laughed and shook her head. “I mean, there might be some someone elses. In the biblical sense. But...it was never like this before you. It sure as hell won’t be like this after you.” She flung her backpack over her shoulder and breezed past him, walking out of the house and starting down the road. Part of her hoped the whole way that he would ask her to stop. That he would be the first one to ask her to stay. She hoped, and she hoped, until she went around the first bend in the drive. And then she hoped some more. Until she was back at the campsite. Until darkness had fallen around her with finality, smothering the light, smothering her last bit of optimism. He wasn’t going to come after her. And at this point, she wasn’t even certain if the sun would rise.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AIDEN KNEW THERE were no answers in the bottom of a glassful of whiskey. His father had tried to find them for years. He had never been tempted to do the same. But he was now.
It was such a dark, damp night, and he didn’t know anything. Didn’t know what he was going to do tomorrow. Didn’t know how he was going to fix all of the shit that had just gone down. Didn’t know
what he was going to do with every day of his life that didn’t have Casey in it.
It didn’t make sense. He’d only known her for a week. She was a drifter who knew even less about love than he did. She’d also been the only bright spot in a world of darkness for longer than he could remember. What he found with her wasn’t simply physical release. He wanted to share with her. Wanted to open himself up to her and give her pieces of himself. Wanted to take pieces of her back into him so that they carried enough of each other around that they became inseparable. Now she was just gone. And he felt empty.
It was nothing like when he’d lost Caroline. That had felt like an inconvenience. An annoyance, because he was a man and he didn’t like the idea of his one source of sexual release being taken away. This wasn’t about the sex.
He could live with Casey for the next hundred years and never touch her as long as he got to wake up and see her face in the morning. As long as he got to go to bed next to her every night. It would be torture, but not like this.
She gave him more than sex. She made him feel like life wasn’t an endless bid for control and nothing more.
She loved him.
The realization made his heart seize up tight.
She loved him, and it’d been so easy for him to turn her down because of the farm. Because he was too busy with it. Because his father required his care.
She was right, but she was also wrong. He hadn’t become his mother, not really. But he’d been afraid of it. Deep down, more than he’d ever been afraid of becoming his father. And staying here, doing this, was easy in comparison. Easier than opening himself up again and hoping again. Because she was wrong about that, too. He didn’t really hope his father would change. He knew he wouldn’t. Aiden wasn’t a fool. But he was a coward.
There was nothing to hope for here. Nothing ever changed. Casey... She was soft, alive, dynamic. She would change all the time. Would ask things of him, real things, that he’d have to dig deep for. Not just hard work and sacrifice.