Page 81 of Everything We Give

“I do. You’re a good man and entitled to the truth.” She takes a reassuring deep breath. “I did still love you.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“I got scared. You were trying to fix me—”

“Fix you?” I interrupt, flabbergasted. “What the hell does that mean?”

“—and I didn’t want to be fixed,” she says at the same time.

“What are you talking about?”

“Me and my animal issues. That cat you adopted for me? It wasn’t the first time you tried to give me a pet. Remember the stray dog we picked up in the rainstorm on the roadside? You wanted us to take it home and adopt it. You were convinced if I had a pet to love that I’d get over my aversion to having one. We argued big-time until you finally agreed to take him to the animal shelter.”

I grind my teeth. That night had been one of our biggest arguments. It was the first night since we’d started dating that she’d insisted on sleeping alone. I spent a long night on the lumpy couch.

“Rather than talking to me about it, you ran?” I ask.

“I did try talking to you. You wouldn’t listen. You were too fixated on trying to solve my animal issues.”

“I wasn’t trying to solve your problems,” I say, hating how defensive I sound. But she’s hammering a nail that’s hitting a sensitive mark.

“Braden saw that picture of your mom you kept on the mantel and pointed out the similarities between me and your mom’s coloring and facial structure. Funny, but I never saw that until he mentioned it and then I couldn’t get it out of my head. The idea that I looked so much like her and that you’d date someone who physically resembled her creeped me out. It hit me that you would keep pursuing me on the pet issue the same way you kept taking photos of your mom even after both she and your dad insisted you stop. I feared your obsessive mission to resolve my animal issues was just the beginning. What would you try to fix next about me? My issues with animals are mine alone, and I’ve learned to cope with them. I manage just fine.”

“Did you take on this assignment just to tell me this?” My face is hard, my voice tight.

Reese tosses up her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

“And it’s been sitting on your chest for over ten years. You just had to get it off.” Aimee’s right. Reese is a bitch. I shake my head at her and start walking downhill again.

“Ian, wait.” She rushes to my side, keeps pace alongside me. “You’re a good guy. I did love you. And I loved you when I left you.”

I stop suddenly and turn to face her. “Love isn’t running out on someone. It’s working through your issues, fixing them together.”

“That’s not the way it always works. Sometimes, the only way a person can be fixed is for them to do it themselves. And other times, a person can’t be fixed. But they can learn to cope with their issues the best way they know how, even if that means leaving the one person they loved most at the time.”

She looks at me pointedly and I sense that what she’s talking about goes beyond us.

CHAPTER 23

IAN

Five months or so after the Ian Collins installment ofThe Hangoverwhen I’d married Reese under the influence, I’d downshifted from the hostile and infuriated stages of anger and was revving in frustration over my father’s lack ofFind Sarahambition. I figured I should give the old man a call and give our relationship one more shot.

Unlike the years I lived under his roof where he had two defined seasons, baseball and football, with schedules that informed me what hotel he’d be at and in what city, my dad was then doing freelance assignments between games. His work kept him out of state and in a perpetual state of movement. He lived in hotels and socialized at airport bars. I had no idea where he was or when he’d be home. Mobile phones weren’t as commonplace then. He might have had one, but I didn’t have the number.

It took him ten days to return the message I’d left on the dated machine at the farmhouse that still played the greeting I recorded my freshman year in high school.You’ve reached the Collinses’ house. Leave a message.I’d copied the greeting my mother had recorded when she purchased the machine, except I replaced “family” with “house” because we weren’t a family. Not anymore.

When I answered the phone, my dad had said hello, heavily cleared his throat, and asked, “You’re moving to Europe?”

“We’re thinking about it.” Reese and I had been planning an eight-week trip. We’d travel through Italy and France, working odd jobs in between her writing and my photography, earning money to extend our time overseas. Should we fall in love with the vibrancy of the big cities or the intimate pace of a quaint village, we’d consider staying. Perhaps indefinitely. At that age, life was about adventure. We’d live it one day at a time at maximum capacity.

“You’re going with that girl you’ve been dating?”

“Her name’s Reese. Yes, we’re traveling together.”

“She come from a good family? No funny business?”

No one slammed it into the outfield like Stu. I caught his meaning like a fly ball landing smack in the middle of my glove. He wondered if Reese had a normal upbringing, nothing sick happening between family members that might have left her with a screwed-up head. I reassured him there weren’t any skeletons in her closet except the one she brought out on Halloween. That was one scary mother. It looked more like a medical school study aid than a holiday prop.

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