Turning on her heels, she follows her husband out of the kitchen. I turn toward the sink, my hands gripping the ledge tightly until my knuckles turn white, and my head hangs between my shoulders.
My eyes fall shut, cursing the day I was born. Tears fall from my eyes freely in the safety of privacy, my split lip and bruised cheeks stinging when the salty liquid touches them.
She’s right. If my own parents couldn’t love me, why would anyone else?
I’m an unlucky bastard who brought misfortune upon my parents. And my presence would do the same to anyone who got too close to me.
I’m no good to anyone.
Thirty Seven
Andie
“This went on every day for years until I turned eighteen and got the hell out of their house,” he mutters, eyes glassy.
“Why are you still in touch with them? I remember your father calling you?” I ask on a strangled breath.
“Because no matter how much I try, I can’t seem to cut them out of my life. I think I still hope that one day they’ll realize their mistakes and love me, be proud of me. But no, all they’ve ever wanted from me was my money,”he scoffs, shaking his head with a humorless chuckle. “Though Henry has been quiet for a few weeks now that I have stopped answering his calls.”
“That’s…awful.” I can’t even imagine not only being unloved by your parents but also them being selfish and greedy enough to ask for your money.
I don’t realize I’m crying until he says, “Oh, Rainbow, please don’t waste your precious tears on someone like me.” His shaking hands cup my face, wiping beneath my eyes with the pad of his thumbs.
With a hiccup and racing heart, I turn my body to him, sitting on my knees, Millie hopping down the bed and rushing away as if sensing that we need some time together.
My trembling hand reaches out, seeing his tattoos in a new light. “A…Are these to…”
“To cover my scars, yes,” he admits with a sad smile, caressing my head.
My fingers trace the bumps on his neck, veiled by the tattoos he so gracefully wears. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, biting my quaking lower lip.
“What are you sorry for, baby?” he asks, looking genuinely confused as he searches my eyes.
A tear rolls down my cheek when I blink. “I’msorry for not seeing how much pain you were in.”
That’s when the first tear slides down his handsome but tortured face as it crumples. And the sight alone pricks my heart like a thousand needles bleeding me to death.
I open my arms, wanting to embrace him and erase all his pain and wounds, and heal his heart. Make him forget every awful thing he’s suffered ever since he was a child.
Noah takes a shaky breath and lets himself fall on my chest, his head right over my heart, that aches for him as intensely as it beats for him.
And for the first time in my life, I see a larger than life man break and cry in my arms, seeking comfort he was denied all his life.
Tremors rack his body in my arms, my hands splayed across his scarred back, each of his wounds a battle scar, telling tales of a fighter that survived the hand in life he’d been dealt.
Noah clings to me with the last of his strength, his silent cries making me murderous, as I weep alongside him, rocking him back and forth as I let him expel everything he has kept bottled up for years.
“I’m right here,” I choke on my words, theagony in his cries tearing me up inside. “Let it all out, let yourself grieve, my love,” I offer him words of comfort. I don’t say it’s okay. What he suffered through was not okay.
It never will be.
But I do know that I’ll be right by his side through it all.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, with him in my arms, seeking the warmth and love he never received.
Soon, his tremors subside, but he retains his hold on me when he speaks again, his voice choppy and raspy, “I’ve often wondered whether anyone would care if one day I left this world.”
His admission hangs in the air between us, sucking the oxygen from my soul. He can’t…He isn’t saying what I think he’s saying, is he?