Page 49 of Beneath Your Beautiful
“Yeah. He used this voice like he was the adult and I was the toddler which infuriated me even more.”
“You’re better off without him.”
“I didn’t have much choice. It still hurts when I think about it,” I admitted. “It made me feel like I was lacking somehow, and Lexie gave him something I couldn’t. I felt so stupid that this was going on behind my back and I didn’t even know about it. But I should have noticed. Towards the end, we never had sex. Unless I initiated it.” After the words were out, I covered my face with my hands and groaned. “I can’t believe I just told you that. I’m not even drunk. Now you think I’m pathetic.”
“No, I don’t. I like you just as you are.”
I uncovered my face and snuck a look at him. He gave me a little smile.
“You do?”
“He’s an idiot if he couldn’t appreciate you. And to cheat on you? That’s just wrong.”
I sighed. We sat in silence for a while, and I was happy he stayed, happy he wasn’t in a rush to get out the door. Something had shifted between us, not only because of that mind-blowing kiss, but because I’d told him things I’d never told anyone. And he’d listened, and he’d stayed, and he’d said exactly the right things. Maybe Killian was the last person I should trust, and maybe my moral compass was damaged, but he didn’t pretend to be anything he wasn’t. Killian wasn’t a smooth talker who used his charm to win people over like Luke did. He wasn’t a big talker, but he said what he meant, and he meant what he said. Maybe that’s why I believed everything he did say.
“Will you tell me something about yourself?”
“What do you want to know?” he asked, sounding wary.
“Something you’ve never told anyone.”
He was silent for so long that I didn’t think he would. I kept my eyes trained on the ceiling because I thought it might make it easier to talk if I wasn’t looking at him. He could have just said no, or walked out the door, or told me something unimportant but he didn’t do any of those things.
“My mom left when I was seven and my brother was three. Connor doesn’t even remember her. But I remember everything. The day she left…her bags were packed, waiting by the door. She kissed me goodbye and told me to take care of my brother. I chased after her, begging her not to go. I was barefoot, but I chased her taxi down the street. I kept chasing it until I lost sight of it. She never even looked back. Not once. When I got home, my feet were cut up and bleeding and I tracked blood across the kitchen floor. All I could think about was that my mom would be upset. She liked to keep the house clean. I put on socks and scrubbed the floor with Pine-Sol, thinking that if I got it nice and clean she’d come back. Whenever I smell Pine-Sol, I think about that day. I fucking hate the smell of Pine-Sol.”
Oh, Killian.
I reached for his hand and took it in mine, entwining our fingers. He let out an exhale like telling that story had cost him a lot. While he’d been talking, his voice had been devoid of emotion, but I knew he had to feel it deeply. How could he not? What kind of mother would leave her two little boys to fend for themselves? “Thank you for telling me. And I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” He brushed it off as if it didn’t mean anything, as if it hadn’t crushed him. My heart ached for him. I imagined seven-year-old Killian chasing the taxi and scrubbing the floor. His heart was breaking, and he was tasked with looking after his brother, but who was there for him? I didn’t get the impression that his dad was the good guy mine was. Who tucked Killian in at night, kissed it better, baked cookies with him when he had a bad day?
After my mom died, my dad was there for us. He didn’t always get it right, we pushed him to the limits of his patience more often than we should have, but my dad never gave up, never let us down, never faltered in his drive to succeed. And I realized that that’s what real-life heroes are made of. They show up, day in and day out, and they do the heavy-lifting so the people around them feel safe and loved and secure in the knowledge that those strong shoulders can carry the burden. Even when their own hearts are breaking.
If Killian’s mother asked him to look out for his brother, I was willing to bet Killian tried to protect him from every storm. It was his nature to protect people, to be their rock, to fight the bullies of this world, to make sure nothing hurt the people he cared about. Somehow, I’d become one of those people.
Outside a siren wailed but inside my bare white living room, it was still and quiet, a warm July breeze skating through my open windows. Killian and I sat like that for a long time, side by side, holding hands, our fingers entwined. I had that same feeling I’d had when I met him, like nothing bad could happen to me if I was with him. Killian knew how to take care of things. He was street smart and he was a fixer. He knew how to repair everything that broke down at the bar—toilets, leaky faucets, broken fans, a cracked paving slab in the courtyard. His to-do list was a mile long and had become a running joke amongst the staff.
Luke was book smart, but he wasn’t a fixer. One time, Sawyer told me you couldn’t trust a guy who didn’t know his way around the engine of a car. When I laughed, he expanded on the topic, and reeled off a list of things every self-respecting guy should know how to do.“Luke wouldn’t know what to do with a wrench if it hit him on the head. If he got a flat tire, I bet he’d ask you to change it for him,” Sawyer said. My dad had taught me how to change a tire, but when Luke had gotten a flat, he’d called AAA to take care of it for him. I wasn’t there, or I would have offered to do it.
Luke said if he was meant to be a plumber or an auto mechanic, he wouldn’t waste his parents’ money on an education.
“But don’t you want to learn how to do any of those things?” I asked.
Luke looked at me like I had two heads. “Not when I can pay someone to do it for me,” he scoffed.
“If you got a flat tire, would you change it yourself?” I asked. It was an abrupt change of subject, considering that we’d been sitting in silence after Killian shared a piece of his soul with me.
“Who else is going do it?”
I laughed. “I could do it.”
He snorted. “No.”
“I’ve been thinking about DIY,” I said. “What have you been thinking about?”
“I was thinking…” He squinted into the distance, and I thought he was going to wow me with something profound. “What would I do if I got a flat tire on my way home?”
I snorted laughter. “I hope you have a spare in your trunk.”
