Flo did the same.
“I haven’t been in love with him since I was ten,” I grumbled sulkily after a long silence.
“Who do you think you’re talking to here? I know you. Sometimes, I think I know you better than you know yourself. And I love you, Gwennie. I don’t want to see you get hurt.” She shook her head, her expression torn between anxiety and anger. “As much as I’ve been rooting for you and Graham to finally pull your heads out of your asses and admit there are some very deep, very real feelings there… I can’t help worrying you’re going to end up in an even worse position if you let this become about manipulating each other in some part of the weird twisted battle of wills the two of you are always locked in. God! I’ve never met two more stubborn individuals in my life. Makes me want to smack your skulls together, knock some sense into you both.”
I digested this for a while. “I know you think he and I are meant to be, but honestly… sometimes I can’t stand him. He makes me so unbelievably mad. There’s no one in the world who can get under my skin like he does.”
“I’m well aware,” she said wryly.
“With everyone else, I can keep it together. But for whatever reason, he’s got this ability to slip behind my defenses and rattle me to my foundations.” My fingers tightened on the delicate stem of my glass, twirling it absently so the firelight refracted in the deep red Bordeaux. “My childhood… I… I grew up… rough.”
“I know, honey.”
“I used to think it was lousy karma. That maybe I did something terrible in a former life to deserve the nightmare that was my mother.” Flo’s mouth opened to refute this, but I barreled on. “I know better, now. It’s not fate or predestination. It’s purely luck of the draw which cradle you wake up in. Some people are born with Lady Luck on their side; born into happy homes with stable parents. And some of us… aren’t.”
Flo nodded in silent agreement.
“I knew from the start she wasn’t on my side,” I continued, clearing my throat lightly. “Lady Luck, that is. Looking around at other kids who never had to worry about the electric getting switched off or their mom going off on a three-day bender or some creepy drug dealer coming around in the middle of the night to collect his due…” I narrowed my eyes on my glass, afraid if I looked at Flo, my courage to share would falter. “But then, I came here. To Salem. To Aunt Colette. One random summer afternoon, I stepped on a sea urchin — which normally would’ve seemed like theepitomeof bad luck. Only, that day, I looked up into the eyes of an honest-to-god hero in a red lifeguard suit. My personal savior, sent down to keep me safe from all the darkness that shrouded my life.” I laughed but there was no joy in the sound. “I needed so desperately for something — someone — to believe in back then. For a long time, I was stupid enough to believe that someone was Graham.”
I heard Flo suck in a sharp breath. “Gwen…”
“He was more than a childhood crush for me. He was… hope. Hope for a different sort of life, hope for a better sort of future. He made me believe my luck was finally changing. That the tide was finally was turning from bad to good. And I freakingworshippedhim for it.” I could hear the sadness in my own voice. “Though I guess it’s true, what people always say — never meet your heroes. I should’ve known he wasn’t my protector. He wasn’t a god. He wasn’t my good luck charm. He was just one more twisted thread in a string of rotten luck.”
“Gwen, honey…”
“You know, as pathetic as it sounds, there was a part of me that still clung to that old infatuation when I came back to town two years ago? I was so lost after Aunt Colette passed, after I had to toss all my post-grad plans down the garbage chute. My luck never felt worse than in those first dark days living here. But in the back of my mind… he was still there, like this shiny beacon of goodness and light, warding off the shadows that kept pushing in on me.” My brittle laugh burst out again. “Then, the very first time I saw him again, he shattered every illusion I’d ever had that Lady Luck might finally be on my side.”
“He didn’t mean to hurt you that night, Gwen. It wasn’t intentional, those things he said about you and your aunt…”
I shook my head sadly. “That’s not the point.”
“What is, then?”
“It’s not just that he humiliated me in front of you and Desmond and a whole bar of witnesses. It’s not even that now, with him working this case, he takes every chance he gets to push my buttons. It’s that…” I steadied my shoulders, forcing out the words. “I can’t even look at him without feeling unbelievably stupid. Unbelievablyangry. Not at him — at myself, for wasting so many years believing he was something special, when he’s not. He’s just an ordinary guy I hung all my foolish hopes on, for no good reason. And that makes me feel…”
Weak. Like a scared little girl, living out a nightmare, unable to control her own environment or her emotional responses.
“Gwennie,” Flo interjected gently. “You can’t punish yourself for needing someone to pin your dreams on as a kid. That’s not fair — not to Graham, and definitely not to yourself.” Flo shook her head. “Have you ever considered the fact that, despite what you say, you still have him up on that godlike pedestal?”
I flinched, eyes flying to her. “I do not!”
“You do, though. You hold Graham Graves to a higher standard than anyone else in your life. You expect miracles from him. You expect perfection. But he’s not Superman. He’s a human, like everyone else. He makes mistakes. He miscalculates.”
“Oh, trust me, I know he makes mistakes.”
“You should cut him a little slack.”
“Cut him slack?Cut him slack?!”
“I just mean—”
“No,” I declared, vehement. I was suddenly breathing so hard I was almost panting, emotions churning inside me in an unstoppable vortex. “You’re right, Flo. He’s not my Superman, here to save the day. He’s my freakingkryptonite. He’s an emotional crutch I leaned on for way too long. He’s not a sign of shifting fortune. Not good luck. If anything, he’s my freakingbadluck charm.”
“Gwen? Honey?”
“What?!”
“Don’t get mad at me, but… do you think it’s remotely possible… you might be twisting things in your head to justify all the mixed emotions you’re feeling toward Graham right now?”