Page 26 of Sticks and Stones
“Then there’s still a chance you guys could get back together?” she asked, her smile spreading, revealing the straight white teeth a mouthful of braces had helped to perfect.
“Anything could happen,” she said, standing to kiss her daughter on the forehead. “But don’t get your hopes up, kiddo. That also means there’s a chance things won’t work out. I still don’t know what your dad’s plans are. Maybe he’ll wake up tomorrow and decide he needs to go back to L.A. to finish up this album he’s been working on.”
“That would totally suck,” Keegan said, scowling. “It’s been nice having him around for a change.”
Gianna knew she wasn’t the only one becoming dependent on Gunnar. If he left now, it would leave a huge hole in their home and their hearts. And she knew the risk of that hole getting bigger grew with every passing day. But what choice did she have? She could ask him to leave, but that felt even scarier than taking a risk.
***
“Got the homework thing figured out?” Gunnar asked when Gianna returned. He set his cell on the table when he got a glimpse of the pinched expression on her face. Social media could wait. His girl couldn’t.
“She wasn’t really having trouble with her homework,” Gianna said, sitting next to him, though a little further away than she had been before. “She wanted to talk to me about… us.”
“Us?” he echoed, fearful of where she was going with this. If she started to question whether his staying with them was a good idea, she could be planning to hand him his walking papers. And he wasn’t ready for that. Hell, he wasn’t sure he ever would be ready to leave Gianna and their kids again. For any length of time.
“Yeah.” She reached for his hand, holding it loosely in hers. “It’s only natural they’d wonder what’s going on, especially with that kiss she walked in on.”
“So?” he asked, feeling his heart pounding. “What did you tell her?”
“The truth. That I’m not sure where things are going. We’re just taking it one day at a time and figuring things out as we go.”
“Okaaayyyy….” He could tell she wasn’t happy with that prospect. “So, what did she say to that?”
“She seemed fine with it, but I’m not sure I am.”
He could almost hear the other shoe dropping. He should have known it was too good to be true. His dream of getting his family back wasn’t going to come true after all. “If you want me to leave—”
“I didn’t say that.” Their eyes locked and in hers he could read all the things she wasn’t willing to say. She was scared. Hopeful. Excited. Angry. Disappointed. “Just say it, Gi. I know you well enough to read your mind, but I don’t want to do that. I want to hear you say the words. Let me have it, if you need to. I’m okay with that.”
“I just don’t understand why it took you so long for you to figure out that you wanted me in your life. If you missed me, why let us move here without telling me how you felt? Why now, when I finally feel like I’m getting my life together would you show up on my doorstep and tell me you’ve changed, that you finally realize what’s important?”
All good questions she had every right to ask, but that didn’t make them easy to answer. “It took me a long time after you left to find the courage to start doing some soul searching,” he admitted, remembering how tough those early days had been, all alone in that big, empty house, listening to the deafening silence and echo of his own footsteps. “I wanted to blame you. I told myself you’d known what I did for a living when we met, that it wasn’t fair of you to check out on me the way you did because you suddenly expected me to be someone else.”
He knew it wouldn’t be easy for her to hear the truth, but if they wanted to forge a better relationship than the one they’d had, they had to learn to communicate in a new way. “But after a while, when I got tired of blaming you and feeling sorry for myself, I started to look at myself and my life in a new way. I heard the things I said to you, the way I treated you—”
“It’s not that you mistreated me,” she said, tightening her grip on his hand. “I never would have stayed with you as long as I did if that had been the case. It’s just that I felt I’d always loved you more than you loved me, and I wasn’t okay with that, not anymore.” She leaned her head against the cushion. “I wanted more. I wanted a man who loved me as much as I loved him, who was certain he wanted to be with me forever.”
“And you deserve that.” He hated knowing that he’d caused her to question herself in any way. If he’d been smart, he would have spent every precious day they had together reminding her how special she was. But he hadn’t and now he had to pay the price for his negligence.
“It’s not that I didn’t think you loved me. I knew you did in your own way, even if you couldn’t bring yourself to say the words.”
“You were the only person who ever told me you loved me.” It wasn’t an easy thing to admit. Even knowing that wasn’t his fault, he still felt a modicum of shame uttering the words. “Until the girls got old enough to talk. Then I heard it all the time and I loved it.” He smiled. “I became addicted to those three little words.”
“I know. I remember the way you’d light up every time you heard them. Except when I said them.” Her eyes darkened. “Then you were always more guarded, like I’d put you on the spot.”
His gut clenched, both at the pain he’d caused her and the opportunity he’d missed. “I guess that’s the way I felt. I wanted to say them. I felt them, but I feared what they represented. I thought if I said them, it would change things between us somehow. I thought you’d suddenly expect me to be something I’d never been. A dutiful husband and father and…” He shook his head at his own stupidity. “I don’t know what the hell I thought you’d expect. I just didn’t want to let you down. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing anyways, letting you down.”
“I wasn’t a victim in any of this,” she said fiercely. “I don’t want you to feel guilty or sorry for me. I stayed because I wanted to stay. I could’ve left at any time.”
“So, why didn’t you?” He’d often wondered how she’d managed to put up with him as long as she had.
“I guess I was used to emotionally unavailable men,” she said softly. “You know my father. He’s a devoted intellectual. He’d read the newspaper from cover to cover every night and watch documentaries and the evening news instead of interacting with his family. He felt, as a teacher, it was his job to remain well-informed and pass that knowledge on to his students. It was the most important thing in the world to him, being the most knowledgeable man in any room.”
He didn’t think her father was a bad guy, but he certainly understood why his daughter would have found him to be stingy with praise and affection. He didn’t exude warmth with anyone, not even his granddaughters or wife, from what Gunnar had observed.
“So, my relationship with you was different, but I was used to vying for a man’s attention, so it wasn’t all that different, I guess.” She licked her lips. “It wasn’t until I started to dig a little deeper and ask myself the tough questions that I had to admit I wasn’t okay with the way things were between us.”
She’d tried talking to him about the issues in their relationship, but he’d turned a deaf ear out of fear. If they acknowledged their problems and brought them to the surface, they’d either have to talk about them and find a solution or admit there was no solution and that scared him more than anything.
