Page 56 of Beside the Rolling Waves
“I could get used to it too,” he said simply. He wanted to tell her that it was up to her, because he was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that they were never separated again. He wanted marriage, which was what he always wanted with Becky..
“I’m sorry I was holding everything against you. I realized last night that I was basically expecting you to be perfect and was allowing one little mistake to stand between us.”
There wasn’t just one mistake. But she didn’t know that. “It was a five-year mistake.”
That is true, and she would agree.
“But it’s not really, you know? I’ve probably made mistakes that people overlook, and that made it so that I was able to get past them. But they could have snowballed. Like, for example, when I ran away from that first foster care family. If you hadn’t been willing to take me in, if you hadn’t helped me eat, it could have been a mistake that changed my life for the worst. I could have fallen in with the wrong kind of people, you know?” She took a breath. “If you had been a different kind of person,” she said softly.
He assumed that she was saying that he could have taken advantage of her.
“You were pretty little those first few years, and I just thought you were a kid, but I noticed when you started to grow up. That was part of the reason I needed to leave.”
There had been so many years between them that it would have been dangerous for them to have been together. Illegal.
She stretched and yawned. “It’s pretty early for you to be doing business, especially considering that you told me that you weren’t going to be doing much business anymore. What’s on the counter?”
Her hand went around his waist again, and she snuggled her head into his shoulder, curling herself up against him, and he closed his eyes, wanting to growl in frustration.
Now? Now was when she was going to ask him?
He ran his hand down her hair and another one over her shoulder and down her arm, finding her fingers and threading them together.
“There’s one other thing that I’ve been hesitating telling you about, because I was afraid you would hate me even more than you already did.”
“I never hated you. And I can’t imagine that there’s anything you could tell me that would make me hate you.”
She might not hate him, but she would be really, really disappointed in him.
But she asked. And he told himself that when she asked, he was going to tell her. It seemed like now was the time.
“When everything imploded, I lost it all. I declared bankruptcy, I told you about it.”
“Yeah. I remember. It’s okay. No one would have thought less of you. So you took a risk. So you lost. It’s like a quarterback taking a risk in throwing to the receiver with double coverage, who’s got a straight shot to the end zone, rather than the single covered receiver that has two defenders behind him. Both of them are risks, I suppose.”
“Wow. I didn’t know you knew so much about football.”
He was distracted for a moment, or maybe he just was putting off the inevitable.
“Rick made me watch a couple of times. He was mostly into trucks and motors and that type of thing, but he did spend some weekends in front of the TV set screaming at guys running around chasing a ball, and I figured I ought to try to understand it a little more than just rolling my eyes at grown men caring so much about where a ball was.”
He laughed. Leave it to Becky to talk about football like that.
He wanted to procrastinate, to change the subject, but he needed to face this. It was a relief in a way. “Anyway. I told you I lost my lease on my apartment because I couldn’t pay.”
“Yeah.” She said that easily, like it didn’t bother her at all.
Now, he wished he would have just told her. It would have kept this next part from happening. But what happened next was part of his past. And it would always be that way.
His stomach knotted, and he felt his hands sweating, although he didn’t let go of her fingers. He didn’t tighten his grip though. Because he figured she would be pulling away shortly.
“I told you I stayed with a friend.”
“Yeah.”
“That friend was a girl.”
He could feel the change in her. Feel that she kind of had an idea now. Feel her pull in, just a bit. He continued before she could say anything.
