Page 67 of My Secret to Protect

‘No, honey. I didn’t know that. He wouldn’t ever tell me what happened between you two.’

A sob lurches out of me and still, ever calm, ever patient, she waits.

‘I loved him, Grandma. I loved him so much that I didn’t know how I was going to survive it sometimes. He pushed me away and shut me out, and I never understood how he could do that to me. Now I know, but I still don’t get it. I don’t get how he could think I was capable of that.’

‘Oh, Bree Bree,’ she says in that soothing tone she always has.

‘It hurts, Grandma. I wanted forever with him, and he never really knew me at all.’ I cry, reality setting in that he broke us over something that never happened. If he’d just asked me.

She just lets me cry. I know she’ll start talking soon, but for now, she does the long-distance version of holding me and just listens.

‘Sweetheart,’ she says after a while, and I exhale to settle myself. ‘I need to say a few things okay, and I just need you to listen.’

I don’t respond. I just wait.

‘You and Arlo were beautiful together, not that y’all let me see much of that, but the way you looked at each other when you thought I wasn’t looking and the way you bantered back and forth.’ She chuckles at the memory. ‘I knew you had something special.’ I swallow hard at that. ‘But you were so young, Bree, and you came from such different worlds.’

‘It didn’t matter. We were the same age as my parents when they met, and I didn’t care where he came from.’

‘I know. I know that, but just because you didn’t care doesn’t mean it didn’t matter.’

‘Daddy was a part of that life too, Grandma.’

‘But he didn’t come from that life. He was raised with us, me and your grandpa. Arlo was born and raised inside that club.’

I feel my brow furrow at her words.

‘What I’m trying to say, Bree, is he didn’t grow up in love. His mother wasn’t around. His father was raised in the club, too. It was all they knew, and the rules are different in there. You were raised in a loving, safe, trusting home. He didn’t have that. There were women who stepped in and tried to mother him for the short time they were involved with his father, but they didn’t stick around long. His dad tried, I know he did, but he didn’t know how to raise a child. He knew how to raise a club member. Arlo turned out to be the most wonderful boy and man, but he didn’t learn to love and trust in the same way you did, Bree.’

‘But he knew he could trust me, Grandma,’ I say softly.

‘No, honey, he didn’t because he grew up in a world of betrayal and rules and life-threatening consequences. Trust and loyalty are commodities that can be bought, sold, and traded in his world. He loved you the way you loved him, but he hadn’t yet learned that your loyalty wasn’t something he could lose.’

Her words hit hard, and I squeeze my eyes shut, hanging my head, feeling like that heartbroken and confused eighteen-year-old all over again.

‘Your worlds and your values were different, sweetheart. That’s not his fault or yours. You were both products of your environments.’

‘You could have told me this back then,’ I say a little lighter, and she chuckles.

‘Maybe if either of you had admitted what was going on, I would have.’

I can’t help the soft smile that curves my lips. ‘You’re pretty smart, you know, Grandma Dee.’

‘Well, hell, honey. I know that.’ I huff out a laugh at her words and hear her sigh. ‘Question is, now the truth is all out in the open, what are you going to do about it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Breanne Campbell, you have the biggest, most resilient heart of anyone I’ve ever met. You stood cheering from the sidelines despite your own heartbreak when Zoe married Luke and when Doug had Bowie. You were the first to accept Merv and encourage your mama to go for it with him, even though you were the closest one to your daddy.’ Emotion wells in me, and I inhale sharply. ‘If you have a chance at something with Arlo, and I’m guessing by the tears you’re crying y’all have gotten pretty close to that something, I don’t need details, mind you,’ I release a watery laugh at that, ‘forgive him, sweetheart, forgive him. Let him in the way you encouraged your mama, the way you encouraged Doug to let Cara in, Zoe with Leo, Missy with Nick. You deserve your happy ending too, sweetheart, so does he.’

‘I love you, Grandma,’ I say to change the subject. I need some time to think about what she said, and she gets it. She knows me better than I know myself.

‘I love you too, my baby Bree Bree.’

I Said Hi

Bree

AftermyconversationwithGrandma, I got the strongest urge to clean, but I didn’t want to see Arlo yet, so I made do with cleaning my room. I changed the linens on the bed and swept the hardwood floors with the broom from the cleaning closet on the landing. I dusted and tidied and separated out laundry to take downstairs…eventually. Then I lay on the bed and considered what to do now.

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