Page 60 of That One Night in Vegas: A Lesbian Romance
that escaping where I was, the poverty, the hopelessness, the
abuse of my mom was more important than being who I really
was. And now I can’t.”
Now it made sense, what Adalynn said before. Her
husband’s work mattered to other people. It mattered to her.
Their work together mattered to her. She had loved him in her
own way and that mattered to her too. She didn’t want to
wreck the past moving forward. It was an impossible position
and Cassia didn’t envy her, but she did ache for her, and for
the choices she’d had to make.
“I guess you see now why what you do doesn’t bother me.
We all have to do what we can. What’s the alternative? Just
give up? Let life swallow us?”
Cassia nodded, but it wasn’t agreement. She didn’t have an
answer to that. “It sounds like you paid your dues.”
“I didn’t mean it to come out like that. That wasn’t how it
was.”
“Not with him. He sounds like he was a good man. Probably
one of the best men in a world full of men who aren’t very
good at all. It sounds like you loved him like the brother and
father you never had. Maybe you needed that. Maybe th
at’s
not wrong. I don’t think it’s wrong. If you gave as much as
you took. Like you said, we all have to do what we have to do
to keep from being a victim. That’s not a life worth living. It
sounds like you’ve lived a great deal. I can only imagine what
an exciting life you’ve had. What I meant about the dues was
that you paid them with yourself. You paid them for a decade
and now you still can’t be who you want out of respect and
love.”
