Page 128 of The Hometown Legend

He frowned. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“If I was going to worry about anybody being embarrassed in this...relationship, it would be you.”

“I’m not embarrassed. I am sorry that anybody ever made you feel like they would be. They were assholes. You’re beautiful. But that’s not even the most interesting thing about you. I just like you.”

Absurdly, that made her grin. Silly and wide.

“Well, thank you.”

“It’s just true. You are strong. And just...so damned accepting. And you don’t try to give me advice, but you also don’t clam up and stop talking to me. I’ve never met anybody like that. And it’s funny, because I’ve known you all this time, but I didn’t have the same baggage that I do then, so I didn’t appreciate it. I’m discovering a lot of things about myself. Things that are different now that I’ve experienced what it’s like to make mistakes. To not be able to cover when things are hard. I thought that I could take a pill and just magically sort myself out. Because I had never in my life had something that I couldn’t just overcome, and it was my pride that led me down the darkest part of that path. I was an idiot. I was. I didn’t respect what I had.

“And I sure as hell didn’t have empathy for anyone else who wasn’t me.”

“I don’t think that makes you a bad person. I think that makes you human. We are all limited in our understanding.”

“I think some people know it a little more. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just different now because I have to think about what I’m doing. Because I do have to put limits on myself. Because I have to walk around knowing I’m not invincible and I could destroy my own life with ease. I don’t know.”

“You seemed bothered by the idea that you didn’t help with the house back then.”

“I am. Because I don’t remember that. I was self-absorbed. I don’t...” He turned over onto his side. “I don’t want to be the person that I was. I don’t think I liked him. At least I don’t now.”

“I always did. You were never rude. You were never unkind.”

“I wasn’t kind, either, was I?”

“You were to me,” she said. “And in the grand scheme of my life, you meant something. You always have. So don’t write off everything that you were. Just like you can’t write off everything that you are. Yes, you might’ve been the man who hit rock bottom, struggled with addiction, but you are the same man who climbed out.”

“That’s because I knew there was a path out. And some people don’t. I knew people were waiting for me on the other side. I’m not stronger than anybody else. And I don’t ever want to fall into the trap of thinking that I am again. That’s how you fuck your life up.”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe after all these changes...you’ve changed for the better?”

“Not until recently. But now I’m starting to wonder. I was celebrated for the man I was then. But I’m not sure the man I am now would want to have a drink with him. With that person who believed he was as great as everybody said he was. Who was just...kind of full of himself. I don’t feel like Cassidy and I built a life together. We built a really beautiful facade. We had a beautiful house that somebody else maintained. Wonderful dinners that somebody else cooked. We got to go to parties in formal wear, and everybody looked at us and thought we were to be envied. And we both thought that, too. Because we had everything. But our love wasn’t based on loving the deepest parts of each other. And I am not immune to that. I don’t know the deepest parts of her. I don’t think she does, either.Ididn’t. She’s never had a reason to think twice about who she is and what she wants. I can’t blame her for that. That’s just...a side effect of having had things very easy. The first struggle she ever had was her husband falling apart. I’m not mad at her. I’m not.”

“It’s okay if you are hurt, though. That she didn’t love you as much as you thought.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I loved her as much as I thought. Because I didn’t know what to do with her when we weren’t bonded together by the stuff we did. It’s hard to explain. I thought we were in love because we liked to do the same things, because I thought she was beautiful. She thought she was in love because I was that model man she had always wanted to be with. That soldier. That man who would give her the lifestyle her parents had had, that she wanted to replicate. We liked the shallowest things about each other, and when those things were stripped away, we didn’t like what we found. She didn’t like me injured. She didn’t like me weak. And I didn’t like her dissatisfied. We couldn’t face the ugliness in each other.”

“What do you think the ugliest thing in you is?” she asked, for some reason compelled to hear the answer. She looked into his eyes and felt tenderness rise up inside her.

“That I don’t know how to struggle. I don’t know how to be uncomfortable. So I just tried to medicate it away. Because once I had to sit still, I had to acknowledge I had joined the military as nothing more than a little boy playing war. Men died around me. When I have to sit still, when I have to contend with what I am, I don’t know that I like any part of it. What was I ever worth? What did I ever do for anyone?”

“You fought for your country, don’t let hardship and injury and disillusionment take that away from you.”

“But I didn’t do it to protect people. I did it for the glory.”

“And you changed along the way. You realized new things. You changed. That matters. And it’s important. That proves you are a man of substance. You didn’t stay in one place. Everybody starts somewhere. And then things happen. Things happen to you, and they break you down a little bit, but it’s what you do afterward—that’s what matters. And I don’t know what it’s like to struggle, not the way you have, but I know what it’s like to be hurt. I know what it’s like to feel that you aren’t enough. Like you’re just a disappointment. I really do know what that’s like. And sometimes, even though we’ve been through different things, the feelings are the same.”

“Tell me about that book you’re reading again?”

“Well. It is about a woman who doesn’t know she’s a witch. But it turns out that she’s the magic all along.”

He leaned in and he kissed her on the lips. “I have to say, that sounds an awful lot like someone else I know.”

And when she fell asleep, he was holding her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ITWASAhell of a thing to wake up in a woman’s arms. To wake up in Rory’s arms. He had taken her a couple times during the night, and she had taken him, joyously.

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