Page 24 of No More Love Songs

“You’re not,” she says, the mockery now absent from her voice. “Trust me, I’ve been a sucker for nice guys most of my life. I’ve had to train myself to spot them from far away to keep from falling for their bullshit. You’re not a nice guy, Kit. Kind? Sure. But not nice. Not even a little.” She twitches her nose and wrinkles her lips contemplating something before she goes on. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think your whole knight in shining armor disease is based in romance. I think it’s a broad-spectrum condition. Anyone in need of saving, and you’re triggered into action.” She grins. “I’m not upset about it. But it is nice to be having this conversation, getting things out in the open.”

“You’re a little obnoxious when the caffeine hits you,” I tease her.

“Why do you think Gray makes a habit of cutting me off?” she quips back. “But seriously, I get it. Falling for someone who can’t stop themselves from destroying you, from destroying themselves, is a hard thing to come back from. I get why you gave up on love after that.”

“I don’t think I gave up on love,” I tell her. “I think I just figured out love wasn’t what I thought it was.”

“Which is?”

I take a breath and then I let it out. “I always thought love was enough. No matter the obstacle you stood against, if you had love, somehow you’d wind up on the other side together. At least, that’s how I’d always seen it work for my parents. And they struggled a lot over the years, were hit with everything from natural disasters to financial blows and even health issues that should have broken them. But nothing ever did. And I just assumed the reason was love.” I shrug. “I was wrong. It’s just who they are. They don’t have any quit in them. I got that from them. It’s probably why I stayed in my marriage so much longer than any sane person would have.”

“I don’t think sanity plays a role,” she offers thoughtfully. “I think it’s your capacity to love that keeps you holding on when someone is broken. How do you give up on someone you love? You just can’t. You have to keep believing someday they’ll heal and find their way out of the abyss.”

“Maybe.”

“Want to know what I think?”

Surprisingly, yes. “I do.”

“I think you loved her even when you wanted to hate her. And I think the only reason you were finally able to let her go, is because you loved Ari more. Sanity played no role in any of it.”

I slow down. We’re coming up on my favorite spot. “You sound like you know firsthand.”

“PTSD and alcoholism.” She looks up at me for the first time in a long while. “And I didn’t have anyone I loved more than him to leave for.”

“How did it end?”

“He finally drank himself away.” She bites the inside of her cheek trying to stifle her emotions. “He didn’t manage to kill himself, though he certainly tried. But one day I just woke up to the reality that the man I was holding onto, the one I kept hoping would come back someday, hadn’t shown himself, even in glimpses, in over a year. He was just gone.”

I remember that feeling. “Think he could ever come back?”

“I hope he does.” She smiles, but it’s bittersweet. “For his sake. I hope he comes back.”

“Would you try again?”

“Would you?”

I asked myself that question a million times. Part of me kept holding out hope deep down my answer was different than the one that continued to surface. It wasn’t. “No.”

She nods. “Same.”

“So, he’s the one? The one who made you quit love?”

She shakes her head. “Love made me quit love. He was just a messenger. One of many.”

I’m tempted to keep her talking, to ask about her marriage and if it was the catalyst that brought her here, but she’s given more than I did already, and I won’t risk breaking the balance. Trust is a fragile thing that nearly never gets the care it ought to.

So, I shift the energy and the conversation to other things. “Look.” I point just past her, several feet into the woods, away from our trail. “See the tree leaning into the boulder?”

“Yes.”

“A secret spot.” I wink at her as I take her hand and she lets me lead her off the path.

“You never asked your third question,” she points out.

I turn over my shoulder at her, then drop my gaze at our hands and her willingness to trust me enough to just take it and follow, then I lift it again and smile. “Sure, I did.”

––––––––

---