Page 19 of The Scars I Bare
She threw her arms up. “Exactly my point! Maybe you don’t want to share stuff about another woman with your ex. Maybe that’s weird. Shouldn’t it be weird?”
Walking to the stove, I picked up her wooden spoon and handed it to her, knowing it’d calm her down to have something in her hand to keep her occupied. “No, it’s not weird. It’s never been weird between us, except for that part in the middle when we made it kind of weird.”
She laughed. “It really was weird.”
I nodded. “I’m going to stop using the wordweirdnow. But, to piggyback on what you said, Cora isn’t another woman, Molly. She’s just a woman I used to know, okay? So, she’s moved here. That doesn’t change anything.”
“Why?” she asked, locking eyes with me.
I could see the warmth in them, the genuine concern for my well-being. She wanted me to be happy but not the general kind of happiness that everyone had. She wanted the true, deep-down joy she’d found with Jake, and knowing her, she’d do about anything to make sure I found it even if she had to force it on me.
“Because, Molly,” I answered, “not every story ends in a happily ever after. Some just end, and rather than dwell on it, you just move on. Cora and me, we were just that—a story.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” she fired back. “Because I remember the Dean in that hospital room who told me to go for broke when it came to Jake, regardless of the outcome. You told me to fight for him even if it was just for a single day because a sliver of happiness was better than a lifetime of misery.”
“I was on a lot of drugs in that hospital,” I scoffed.
“Stop it, Dean.”
I let out a huff. “So, what? You think Cora is my sliver? Based on what, Molly? A single encounter? She just went through a divorce, and she’s raising a child on her own. What makes you think I need that kind of baggage in my life right now?”
Her eyes widened, and rather than reply, she just stared back at me like she was seeing me for the first time. Honestly, I didn’t blame her. I barely recognized myself in that moment. The words had flown out of my mouth so quickly, I hadn’t had a chance to realize what I was saying until it was too late.
She took several steps in my direction. “Someday, you’re going to realize your life didn’t end out there on that boat, Dean,” she said, her voice quivering with emotion. “Someday, you’re going to look past those wounds and scars that ripped open your body and realize you have more to give, more to live, and more to love. When you do, I’ll be the first person in line to say,I told you so.”
Turning, she walked back to the counter and set her spoon down on the stove. I watched as she pressed her lips together and swallowed hard, an obvious attempt to keep the tears at bay. She left out the back door without saying a word.
I guessed there was no more to say.
Letting out a deep breath, I headed for the refrigerator and grabbed a beer, my head falling against the cool steel of the door as I let the last few minutes sink in. Had I really meant it? Did I think Cora wasn’t worth the baggage she carried?
No, I didn’t.
In reality, there wasn’t a person for miles who had more emotional baggage than me. I didn’t have the right to evaluate others when I barely had a grasp on my own.
So, why had I said it?
I remembered back in high school when my mother had sat me down and given me the talk. Notthe talk, but the one that followed shortly after you started high school when parents remembered their own teen years and began to panic.
She’d told me, if I were ever in a situation, be it a party or an invitation to do something I knew would get me in trouble, I merely had to blame her.
“Blame you?” I’d asked.
“That’s right. Ain’t no skin off my back if those hooligans think I’m a square. You find yourself in the thick of things, you just tell ’em you have curfew or can’t go because you’re grounded. I’ll back you up. The point is, keep your nose out of trouble.”
I’d thought she was a little crazy at first, thinking there was no possible way I’d need such an out in a town like Ocracoke, but I’d highly underestimated the creativity of bored teenagers. While I’d dabbled in the normal stuff, like sneaking liquor from my mom’s cabinet and drinking beer on the beach, I’d definitely had to blame my mom a few times when after-game bonfires got out of hand or I simply wasn’t up for it.
And that was exactly what I was doing now.
Blaming someone else to protect myself from something that could possibly get out of hand. But, this time, it wasn’t a young boy trying to do right by his mother.
I was a scared coward of a man, running from something that could be good. Maybe even great. Yet, even admitting it to myself, I couldn’t change my mind.
I couldn’t take the first step.
No, I could.
I just wouldn’t.
