Page 66 of You Can't Fight Lightning
“Excuse me?”
“You didn’t love them. Or if you did, you didn’t treat them like you did.”
His face went dark.
I could hear a slight rumble of thunder in the distance.
Why was I doing this? He’d done so much to be with me. To be part of my life. He’d tried to change.
But I’d read the books. If even half of what the myths stated as truth was in fact, true, he’d caused a lot of harm.
I couldn’t live with that. I could feel the weight of those women on my shoulder as sure as they were my own burden.
Damn it.
“And your kids. You left them to their own destiny, even as they suffered when being your kids. You have a past with a lot of pain.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“It means I need you to find a way to make amends.” The words came out of my mouth, although I wasn’t sure where the hell they’d come from. “You need to.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t be with someone who caused so much pain.” What. The. Fuck? What was I doing? “I don’t know why I’m saying this.” I got the last sentence out. “But I can’t help it.”
His face got even darker, and his eyes were so dark blue they might as well have been black. The thunder rumbled closer.
“So you would give yourself to me, take me to your bed, and then tell me this?”
“I didn’t think about it! You’re kind of overwhelming even without the razzle dazzle! And I planned to talk to you about this, but then you…” I gestured with my hand at all that we’d done since we’d gotten back to my place. “You distracted me.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it. Carefully, as though he didn’t want to disturb anything—rather like a man making his way around a bomb—he got up. “I need to go out for a bit.”
“Z—”
He held up a hand. “I will come back. I promise. I’m not going to run away from this, or from you. I just… I just need a minute. Isn’t that what you say?”
Oh my dear and happy sweet baby Jee. He was trying so hard.
So why couldn’t I just let it go?
Because I couldn’t. I knew it in my soul.
I couldn’t be so happy on the backs of so much pain.
That was it, I realized. There was a lot of pain. And I knew it.
Z put on his clothes, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. Then he left without a word.
A moment later my front door closed. Then another few moments, and his bike roared to life.
He was gone.
But he was coming back.
I hoped.
Tears slid down my face. I’d tossed him out.
