Page 37 of Last Chance Love

“No, not really.”

“You know, as shocked as I was to walk into the clinic and see you for the first time in years, you know what really surprised me when I walked off and recovered?”

“That I was even here in the first place?”

“Exactly. You never did a fucking illegal thing in your life, and rule-breaking wasn’t exactly in your repertoire.”

“I don’t know about that. My parents might disagree when it came to dating you.”

I wrinkled my nose at the unpleasant reminder. Despite ‘trying’ to be progressive, they had fallen short when they’d discovered that not only was their only child gay, but he was dating me. As far as they were concerned, that was unacceptable, and they put their foot down. Either Reed ended all contact with me, or he would have to go through college without their funding.

“I still can’t believe you told them no,” I said with a shake of my head. “You had the perfect opportunity just to bow your head and let it happen. It wasn’t like they had to know we were going to keep contact. You could basically have had a free ride.”

He chuckled. “You know, I’m sure I could have, but I didn’t want it. They’d always disliked that you and I were friends, even if they did a bad job hiding it from you.”

“Yeah, a really bad job. I knew.”

“But they didn’t fight me until they got hit by the double whammy. All of a sudden, they wanted to be participating parents. Pissed me off is what it did. Like, they did the bare minimum raising me, and I use ‘raising’ in the loosest way possible, but now, all of a sudden, they want to be a parent? No, no thank you. At that point, I didn’t need them to finance me. Loans would do me just fine.”

“You know, this is the first time you’ve ever said that,” I said, cocking my head. “All you told me back then was that you wouldn’t do anything like that, and they could deal with it. Even when I told you there was no way they would just deal with it. You kept your course.”

“Because I knew if I tried to tell you the reason, you’d get mad.”

“What, no, I wouldn’t have.”

“Seriously? If I tried to tell you I was fighting them on principle, you would have told me I was stupid, stubborn, and throwing away a perfectly good opportunity.”

“I mean, all three of those things are true.”

“And it was stupid and stubborn to pretend like you never needed help, but you did at every turn, and I mostly let it happen without a fight. Your whole life was you throwing good opportunities away because you felt like you had to,” he said, arching a brow. “You’re one of the most determined, hardworking, dedicated, and resourceful people I’ve ever known, but you never let yourself use that for your own benefit. You always sacrificed yourself on the altar of other people.”

“I…okay, wow…you just…threw that out there,” I said, eyes going wide.

He smirked. “That one’s been loaded in the chamber for ages now. I just wasn’t as good at putting things into words back then like I can get away with now, and I also gave it a lot of thought. A lot ofangrythought after you disappeared on me.”

“Right,” I said, trying not to avoid eye contact but unable to help myself. “Not my finest moment.”

“I’m over that.”

“Really?”

“Well, mostly.”

“There’s a lot to that. None of it makes up for what I did, though. Or is a good excuse.”

“I wasn’t looking for you to make up for what you did or to make a good excuse, Leon. I was just happy to see you again, and I’ve been happy to see you every day since.”

I raised a brow. “I don’t come in here every day.”

“You know, there are windows in this place, and you have to walk past here for most of the things you do.”

“Ah, right. That makes sense.”

“It does.”

“Can I, uh…say I’m sorry again?”

“You can, but it’s going to be just as accepted as your first apology. There’s no point in endlessly saying sorry.”

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