It turns into a thing I do—meet her in the parking lot, walk her to class, wait, walk her back to her car.
Some days, we sit on the curb in the heat, and she talks. She asks questions, too, but I don’t give her much. I only want to hear about her.
Her dreams are admirable. She wants to work with sick kids. Says somebody has to do it, and she figures she can take it without falling apart.
“What about you?” she asks, knees pulled up, squinting at me in the sun. “You ever want to do something else? Be something else?”
Nobody’s asked me that before. Most people take one look and figure they’ve got the whole story.
“Wasn’t a lot of choices where I came from,” I say.
“Where’s that?” She opens a granola bar and offers me one.
I take the bar, but I’m not hungry. “Grew up in the system. Foster homes. Group homes. Wherever there was a bed.”
She goes quiet. For once, she lets it sit.
“There were little ones in those places. Younger than me. People went after them.” I turn the granola bar in my hands. “I was bigger than most. Somebody had to defend them, and I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t shy away from violence when it was needed.”
“You protected the kids.”
“I did what needed doing. But a kid good at that doesn’t end up with options.” I take a drink. “Then I found the HellbornKings. They took me in. Let me be what I am. I show up, I do the thing. They’re my family now. We trust each other.”
That’s more than I’ve said out loud in a year. I don’t know why it’s this girl I’m saying it to. Saber thinks she knows too much, and I just keep giving her more.
She turns all the way toward me.
“It sounds like you’ve spent your whole life being the one everybody leans on,” she says. “The kids. Now the club.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
She picks at the corner of her granola wrapper, taking her time, which she almost never does.
“You’ve got people who care about you. I can tell.” She lifts her face to mine. “But that’s not the same as having someone who caresforyou. You know that, right? There’s a difference.”
Fuck.
I open the granola bar and take a bite, so I don’t have to hold her eyes.
It doesn’t help, and the tension grows in my chest until my brain names it.
She’s mine.
The thought comes down plain and final, no argument anywhere in it. I don’t decide it. It’s already true, and it’s been true since I opened my eyes in her car.
This nursing student. This preacher’s daughter. She’s mine.
A woman like this doesn’t deserve a day of unhappiness.
Nothing in this world will hurt her. Not while I’m breathing. I’ll make sure of it personally.
She wants to sit with frightened kids, so they’re not alone when they’re sick. I kept frightened kids from getting hurt by turning into the kind of man you call when somebody needs hurting.
That’s who’s sitting next to her in the sun, and she’s smiling at me like I’m safe.
There’s no version of this where I’m good for her.
But I don’t give a fuck.