The Best Part of Me

by Jamie Hollins

  “News flash, Quinn. You weren’t fucking there! I was. I fucking know what happened.”

  “Then why don’t you read her letters? I’ll tell you why. Because you know in your heart that what you’d find in her letters would prove the shit you just spit out at me is a complete lie.”

  He couldn’t help it. He laughed. But it was filled with so much bitterness that he almost didn’t recognize it coming from his mouth.

  “You think what happened to you when you were an innocent nine-year-old boy makes you unworthy?”

  “When I was nine, I didn’t understand why I was sent away. I admit that I thought for a long time it was because they didn’t love me. Then I realized that they couldn’t bear the guilt. The guilt that my father was responsible for my brother’s death. That whatever shit he was messed up in killed Darren.”

  “But what does their guilt have to do with you?”

  “Because losing one son was more than enough. So they shipped me off for their own selfish reasons. I was a constant reminder to them, and it was easier for them to not deal with me.”

  Quinn shook her head. “Okay, let’s say your assumptions are true. That still doesn’t make you unworthy of love.”

  Fuck it. She wanted to know why he was unworthy. He’d bloody tell her.

  “I hold my parents responsible for a lot of things, but they’re not the main reason I think I’m not worthy. I know I’m not worthy of you or even someone half as perfect as you are.” He leveled his gaze at her, making sure he had her complete attention. “I fucking beat people. Voluntarily. And I’m not talking about a planned match on the outskirts of town. I’m talking about seeking men out and slamming my fist so hard against their jaws that I had to pick their teeth out of my knuckles. That makes me no better than that man who planted a bomb in the post office that took your parents away from you.”

  ###

  All the air rushed out of her lungs. She couldn’t have heard him correctly.

  “Wh— What?”

  “I’ve hurt people,” he said. “I did it willingly. And goddamn me to hell, I enjoyed it.”

  The truth behind his haunting words was written in his dark eyes. The tense set of his shoulders and the flat, grim line of his mouth challenged her to run. And for a split second, she felt like she should.

  She shook her head in disbelief. Nothing he was saying made sense.

  “I’m not a good person. Anyone who has done what I have done must have a black soul.” He enunciated every word, hitting his chest with his fist. “I represent everything that has brought you misery.”

  No. It couldn’t be true. He was just trying to scare her off. She rose from her chair and walked toward him.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said boldly, staring him right in the eye. “I’ve seen your goodness. You love your aunt and uncle, your cousins. They love you. You’re not a bad person.”

  He took a deep breath, narrowing his eyes. “When I tried the whole college thing in Boston, I fell in with the wrong group of people. My best friend at the time was named Keith Hardy, whom you’ve had the pleasure of meeting. The fucker didn’t bus tables or work behind a bar like I did to make ends meet, yet he always had pockets full of cash. I’d just dropped out of college and had no job prospects. He asked me if I wanted in on what he was doing. I said I did.” He shook his head before continuing. “You have to understand that even at that age, I had so much resentment toward my parents for sending me away, it festered inside of me. I eventually started blaming my father for my brother’s death, which only made things worse.

  “Keith introduced me to Oliver Madigan, who, at the time, ran the largest crime ring inside Boston proper. I didn’t give a fuck that this group of bastards were a bunch of goddamn criminals. I’d reached a breaking point in my life and I agreed to join ‘the family.’”

  When he didn’t say anything more, she asked, “What did you do for them?”

  The entire time he’d been speaking, he stared directly at her, his gaze not wavering once. With her question, she saw angst cloud his eyes, and he looked away.

  “They used me for my fists. They knew I was a good brawler and would send me to rough people up. Send warnings.”

  Quinn physically felt all the blood wash out of her face. And when he looked back at her, the anguish in his expression lanced right to her soul.

  “I hurt people, Quinn. They’d give me an address, tell me who to find, and I hurt them.”

  She looked down at his hands hanging at his sides. The same hands that’d touched her bare skin with so much tenderness.

  “Things got more intense when Oliver’s son, Adam, took over. Under Oliver, I would just go talk to people, push them around, and put the fear of God into them. But Adam is ruthless, unfeeling. The assignments turned into roughing people up after he took over. They always told me the name of my assignment, physical characteristics, and what these people had done to make them worthy of the Madigans’ scorn. I took the information, completed every job, and returned home. No questions asked.”

  Quinn felt her knees trembling as she crossed her arms over her stomach, almost as if she was instinctively protecting herself from his words.

  “I’d maybe gone out on ten assignments when I was asked to meet up with a group in Waltham. My role on this particular job was easy: find this one guy, bring him to a pre-determined location, and make sure he didn’t get away. The guy was scared shitless, and I held his arms as a few other guys laid into him with their fists. Once they were done, I took the guy and dumped him off where I’d found him. They’d messed him up pretty good, but he was still conscious, and I watched from the shadows until someone came along and helped him.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “It wasn’t until I got back to Boston that I learned the guy they’d beaten the shit out of and who I left lying in the back alley of a bar was the wrong guy. This group of shitheads had given me the wrong information, and I’d picked up an innocent man off the streets and held him down while he had the shit beat out of him. He was a normal guy, probably on his way home from work at the office, stopping off at the bar for a drink. He may have been a father or a brother. Fuck, what if that had happened to my uncle or to my cousin?” Ewan ran his hand down his face. “Then I started wondering how many other assignments involved innocent people. Beating up lowlifes was one thing, but innocent men? That’s when my conscience kicked in, and I asked to leave the group. It was nearly six years ago.”

  He looked at her as if he was pleading her to understand.

  “Now I hope you understand why I say I’m not a good man. That’s why I can’t be with you. You are light and I’m nothing but darkness. I’ve pretended over the past several weeks that what we were doing was okay because it’d never amount to anything. But Quinn, you don’t feel that way. So we need to end this.”

  She stared at him for a long minute. Her eyes, full of uncertainty and pain, darted around his face. He’d laid all of it out for her. She had all the proof she needed.

  Slowly, she shook her head.

  “I just listened to you tell me about all those horrible things you did six years ago, and the only thing I can think about is that was then and this is now. Yeah, you’re right, I should be terrified. Any sane person should be terrified. But I guess I’m insane, because I’m not. You aren’t that person anymore.”

  ###

  He was stunned. Her blind affection for him was more than he could take.

  “You’re wrong,” he scoffed. “In fact, you’re probably just looking for excuses to make yourself feel better. It’s probably not a very good feeling to know you’ve been fucking a common criminal. You’re probably wondering how you could let someone low and dirty like me near you.”

  “Stop it! This isn’t you, Ewan.”

  He advanced on her as she stood, stunned, by the front door.

  “Like I’ve said before. You. Don’t. Know. Me.”

  “I know you better than you think I do,” she gritte
d through her teeth. “I can’t condone what you did to those people. Sure, some of those people you beat up may have deserved it, but that wasn’t for you to decide. The legal system takes care of stuff like that.” She shook her head. “What you did was horrible. But I’d like to think you were misguided. That you were at a point in your life where you were blinded by hate and rage and were forced to do bad things because that was all you could do. You made a mistake. But I don’t think our past transgressions tell the truth about who we are today.”

  Jesus Christ. She was delusional.

  “And I don’t know why your parents did what they did. My guess is it’s written in all those letters you put away. But don’t you for one second think you aren’t worthy of love and affection. Because it’s completely and utterly false.”

  He stood motionless as she walked up to him.

  “You can’t change your past. It’s over. It wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t kind. But it’s over. But you can make changes starting right now. You can start living a life that’s worthy of who you really are.”

  He shook his head. “Quinn, I should be in prison for what I’ve done.”

  She put her palm flat on his chest, over his heart.

  “That may be true. But it’s also true that you’ve been dealing out your own punishment ever since you left those horrible people. You are an honest and hardworking man,” she said, her voice softening. “You are everything in a man that a woman could want. That I could want.”

  She searched his face with her gray eyes.

  “I hope you’re listening to me, Ewan, because I’ve never said this to anyone before,” she said softly, waiting a second before she continued. “I love you. I wasn’t planning for it to happen, but it did.” She closed her eyes. “I’m not sure what I can say or do to help you understand just how much I feel.” She opened her eyes to look into his face. “The thought of you never knowing how good it feels to be loved unconditionally by someone is heart-wrenching. I know that you feel broken. I know it’s scary to put your trust in someone, like you put your trust in your parents. But please know that if you trust me with your heart, I’ll keep it safe. You didn’t build that wall around your heart overnight; it won’t come down overnight either. But with every piece that I bring down, you’ll feel love.”

  Ewan’s breath was shaky as he stood looking down at Quinn. His goddamn knees were weak, and it felt as if his heart had stopped beating. His chest ached under where her warm hand lay. And with every fiber in his body, he wanted to take her into his arms. But years of being frozen kept him from doing anything of the sort.

  She twisted her hand in the fabric of his T-shirt. “I cannot imagine loving anyone more than I love you.”

  He looked down at her small hand. His eyes moved up the arm that it was attached to. All the way up over her shoulder, along her narrow neck. Along her chin, her strong cheekbones, then her plush lips. His eyes remained on her lips as she said to him, “Ewan, please tell me not to go. Please tell me that you want me to stay here in Ballagh. With you.”

  He looked up into her pleading eyes. Gray eyes the color of a cloudy day.

  He gently took her hand into his, and as he watched his thumb sweep across the delicate skin over her knuckles, he softly said, “You should go.”

  Chapter 24

  The second shot of whiskey didn’t burn as bad as the first. Ewan probably wouldn’t feel the third shot that he was now pouring for himself at all.

  He had a feeling that drinking the entire goddamn bottle of whiskey would in no way dampen the self-loathing that he felt at that moment.

  He’d always been ashamed of the person he was and the things he’d done. After Ewan had suggested to Quinn that she leave and after he’d seen the tears pool in her eyes, that self-hate had gotten a little bigger.

  She’d bitten her bottom lip, taking one final pleading look at him before running to the door. She hadn’t closed the door completely behind her, and before she’d made it to the bottom of the steps, he’d heard a sob. That was when his self-loathing had maxed out.

  And there was no amount of whiskey that was gonna take it away.

  He’d once thought that there wasn’t anything that he could say that would make the confident, fiery Quinn cry. He guessed he’d been wrong.

  There was no question left in his mind that he’d finally and truly severed all ties with her.

  When she’d said that she loved him, it’d pierced straight through his soul like an arrow. He’d constructed a wall around his heart that was pretty fucking thick. And yet she’d still rocked his foundation.

  She loved him.

  And she knew everything. All his black secrets. His shame.

  She’d met every single skeleton in his closet, and she’d still said she loved him.

  His apartment door flew open, slamming against the exposed brick wall in the entry way.

  “What the fuck?”

  Ewan pushed away from the kitchen counter to lean against the doorway of the kitchen. Sean was standing just inside the front door.

  “What did you do?” he asked in an edgy voice that sounded nothing like Sean. “Why the fuck did Quinn just leave the pub with tears streaming down her face?”

  Ewan shook his head. “Leave it be.”

  “Fuck that! I can only imagine you thought up some convoluted excuse for why you’re not good enough or why you can’t commit to her. You are so fucking blind!”

  “Sean,” Ewan growled in warning. His cousin was the only other person in his life who knew what had happened with the Madigans. His aunt and uncle knew the abridged version.

  “How long are you going to choose to fuck up your life? You think you’re helping her? You’re punishing her for your own stupidity!”

  Sean slammed the door shut and marched into the room. He was struggling to get his composure under control. Ewan had never seen him worked up like this before.

  “Ewan,” he said in a measured tone. “You are my true brother. I have looked up to you all my life. This is the first goddamn time that I can honestly say I’m…disappointed. God, I sound like my father, but I can’t fucking think of another word right now that explains how I feel. You’ve let me down, you’ve let Mom and Dad down, all because you’re letting yourself down.”

  Ewan’s chin dropped to his chest to stare at the floor. He couldn’t meet Sean’s eyes. This was all becoming more than he could take. He’d just broken the heart of the only woman who’d ever truly loved him. And now his cousin was giving him shit for it. Like he didn’t already feel bad enough.

  “Listen to me. I’m younger than you are. I’m not as experienced with women as you are. But brother, that woman who just raced out of here… I pray I find someone who looks at me the same way she looks at you. Any man would be lucky to have her. Why can’t it fucking be you, Ewan? Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “No, I don’t know why. If you’re talking about the lame shit your parents dealt to you and all the past shit with the Madigans, I’m not buying it.”

  Ewan’s eyes swung up to Sean, his posture going rigid.

  Sean didn’t seem to notice.

  “Tell me this…how are you gonna feel in two or three years when Quinn comes back to visit her aunt and brings along a man? Maybe it’ll be her husband or maybe a fiancé. Either way, it will be some guy she’s fucking. How’s that gonna feel? Knowing you had her, she was offering you everything, and you let her go?”

  Ewan pushed off the wall and slowly stalked toward Sean. He wanted to put his fist through his cousin’s face. He wanted to shove Sean’s teeth down his goddamn throat.

  Sean held his ground and squared his shoulders.

  “How are you going to feel knowing she’s in another man’s bed?”

  “Shut your fucking mouth,” he said through clenched teeth. He grabbed Sean by the collar and pulled him so they were nose to nose.

  Unwilling to back down, Sean bravely pressed on.

  “No, I won’t shut my fucking
mouth until you fucking well listen to what I have to say. You are blowing this, brother. How can you live with yourself knowing that in five years, she might be telling some other guy that she loves him? Knowing that some other guy loved her more than you could?”

  “No one could ever love her more than I can!” he roared.

  And there is was. The truth.

  Ewan stood there sucking in air like it was in limited supply, but his lungs weren’t being very helpful. He couldn’t breathe.

  He loved her. He loved Quinn.

  He’d felt it for a while but could never bring himself to acknowledge it. Because if he acknowledged it, he’d have to do something about it.

  “Then go after her, man,” Sean said quietly. “You can still make this right.”

  Ewan’s fingers slowly loosened in Sean’s shirt, and his heavy arms dropped to his sides. God, could he do it? Could he forgive himself? Could he trust her with his heart?

  Ewan rubbed a hand over his face before looking up into his cousin’s concerned face.

  Yes. Yes, he could.

  ###

  Quinn couldn’t sleep.

  She lay awake in bed, turning from side to side, stomach to back. The position did nothing to get her closer to REM. She’d even tried counting sheep. Imagining the fat, fluffy sheep, with skinny legs and black button noses, leaping over a low split-rail fence.

  Nothing seemed to work.

  At least she wasn’t crying into her pillow like she had done ever since she’d returned from visiting Ewan.

  Sometime around one a.m., she’d finally given up. After a trip to the bathroom, Quinn had slipped a sweater over top of her small pink T-shirt and pale yellow pajama bottoms and curled up on the couch in the living room with a cup of tea.

  Her body felt tired. Her limbs felt heavy. Yet the thought of getting back into bed was suffocating.

  Her heart hurt. Physically hurt.

  She guessed this was what people talked about when they said they had a broken heart.

  She’d given it one last attempt. One final push to get through to him about how she felt, and she’d failed.