Page 130 of The Rough Rider

“You don’t have to protect me from this,” Alaina said. “It is what it is. You didn’t cause it, and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.”

“Maybe not. But I have to carry all of the issues from it, don’t I? Don’t we all. I just... Alaina, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said. About how this wasn’t your dream. About how you had to go out and get something for yourself. And I feel like this whole thing with Travis...”

Travis. How funny. He had been the catalyst of this whole thing. And he just didn’t matter anymore.

She just didn’t think of him anymore.

“I feel responsible for it. All of it. I feel like I did something, and I should’ve just... I should’ve listened to you more. But I get so caught up in my own thing. And trying to prove that I can fix this. In trying to prove that I can save it. But I don’t need Dad, and I don’t need to sell it the way that Mom thought. And I don’t remember, that you were so young when all of that happened. I don’t remember that you’re probably hurting and missing things and... I feel it is my fault. That you went and got pregnant, and now you... feel like you have to be married to Gus and...”

“I love Gus,” she said, feeling her face get hot when she said it.

And Fia just gaped at her. “You...you love Gus?”

“Yes. I do. I love him. He is the most wonderful man that I could ever have asked to be with. And you don’t need to bear responsibility for anything that I chose to do. We’ve all got issues. You haven’t gone and gotten yourself pregnant, have you?”

Fia laughed, a hollow sound. “No. But then, like you said, we all have our issues. I just don’t think that I could... I don’t trust anyone.”

“In what way?”

“How do you trust them to stay? Because it’s easy to remember Dad the way that he is now. Such a flake. And so disinterested. But he wasn’t. And that’s what scares me. How can you have a guy who seems one way, and then he turns into something totally different? It haunts me. And I can’t let it go. I don’t think I ever could.”

“Well, Gus is... He’s Gus. I mean, he takes care of me, he...”

“Does he love you?”

“He hasn’t said it,” Alaina said.

She felt a little bit irritated at herself for exposing Gus like that. And she would not go a step further and tell Fia they had talked about it, and that he’d outright said he couldn’t. Fia wouldn’t understand. She’d judge Gus too harshly, in ways he didn’t deserve.

“Why hasn’t he?”

“Fia. If you think that we have daddy issues...”

“I know his dad was abusive.”

“His dadburnedhim, Fia.”

And she thought back to all that rage that he had expressed the night she’d said she loved him. All that pain. The lengths that his father had driven him to. The violence.

She felt so bad for him. He was a man who had been pushed into an impossible situation.

How was he supposed to handle things? How was he supposed to feel about anything?

“He could say it,” Alaina said. “He could say it and not mean it. Just make me feel better. But he hasn’t done that. And he’s always been there for me.”

“Don’t take on my stuff,” she said. “That’s not what I’m trying to get you to do. I’m not... I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t trust Gus. It’s just... It would scare me. It all scares me. For you. I worry. And I just... I don’t want you to be with someone who doesn’t love you back. And I definitely don’t want to feel like I pushed you there.”

“It’s okay,” Alaina said. “He deserves for someone to love him. Difficult and crusty and whatever else he is, he deserves it.”

“What about what you deserve?” Fia said.

And her words stopped Alaina cold.

Because she didn’t see what that had to do with anything.

She needed to be there for Gus. She needed to care for him. And she got plenty out of it. He had given her so much. And loving somebody didn’t... It didn’t cost. It wasn’t a transaction. She just did because he was wonderful and because he was Gus.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m happy.”

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