Page 202 of Branded
She fell quiet.
I let her have that.
But as we closed in on her house, I gave her the rest. “I’m working on that, and my shit is sorted.”
“And mine isn’t,” she whispered.
“Let me rephrase that,” I said. “My shit is sorted for the moment. I’m sure we’ll come to a point where it isn’t, and where I’ll need you to help me sort it.”
Her chest expanded. Fell.
“Am I wrong?” I asked.
Quiet then, “No.”
“So,” I said, squeezing her hand, “what you need to know is that you helped me pull my head out of my ass after a year.” I checked over my shoulder for traffic, changed lanes. “Then you had a moment and now you need me to be the steady. That’s okay. That’s life. That’s how relationships work.”
“But we haven’t even been on a date.”
My lips curved. “Is this you asking me out?”
“I—Raph—I’m being serious. I think you’re a good guy and I like you a lot, but this”—she waved a hand at her head, her belly—“is a lot to deal with.”
“I don’t need easy and fake, Beth. I need a woman who’s real.”
“Raph,” she whispered.
“I’m serious. I need a woman who can deal with real shit.”
She turned to me, brows lifted, as though to say that her breakdown meant that she couldn’t handle real shit.
Meanwhile, it showed me that she was a survivor, that she’d overcome and fought for the good things in her life.
“Fuck that,” I said fiercely. “What you went through was not you being weak or not being able to deal?—”
“I think having a panic attack and needing to be sedated in the hospital is the very definition of not being able to deal,” she said, giving voice to those thoughts I’d seen in her eyes.
“That’s bullshit.”
“I—”
“It’s bullshit, sugarpie.” I squeezed her hand again. “You don’t have to be perfect. You’re allowed to have moments where you’re not strong.”
She went still.
Really still.
“Beth,” I murmured when she didn’t reply.
Her eyes, when they came to mine, were stark.
“Look, honey. I don’t know what you’ve gone through. Though,” I added quickly when shadows crossed her face, “I’m here to listen when you’re ready to talk about it, whenever that might be.”
Her inhale was sharp, her exhale was long and loud.
“But I do know that it’s serious enough to have wounded you deeply. So deeply that you have panic attacks and nightmares—and this isn’t me trying to get you to divulge everything here and now before you’re ready. This is me respecting that you’ve been through things that hurt you, that affect you today, that make you human.”
“I—” She clamped her teeth together.
