Page 61 of Guarding Over You
“Over a year. Less than two. We didn’t get to spend as much time together as maybe she wanted. Or even I wanted.”
“Understandable. You work a lot. If you both had schedules like that it’d be harder.”
“We did. Not the same shifts either. We didn’t live together but stayed at each other’s places often. We both had roommates. We actually talked about moving in together, but I’m glad it never came to that.”
“What happened? Did you just drift apart?”
This didn’t sound all that scandalous to her. Not enough for him to have made the comment he had before about being haunted and shackled in her own way.
“We did but stayed together still. It was as if neither of us had the time to break it off until I did.”
“Why did you? You’re not giving me much. I believe you said she still had you shackled.”
“Remembered that, did you?”
He was smiling, not a forced one, but one that was almost sad.
“Yeah. You also said she haunted you. I guess that stuck more because it was the word on that note.”
He frowned. “I hadn’t realized it. For me, it’s the things she said and did. Things she needed from me I always gave her, but when I said I needed it back, she brushed it off. To her it wasweak. That’s what I mean when I say the words. It’s hard for me to open up like you’ve been doing after a hard day.”
“Now I get it. Because one woman thought it was a sign of weakness for you to need support and comfort now you won’t do it again?”
“It’s not that I won’t. I’m doing it now. It’s that it’s hard for me to do it. And you’re the first to even question me on things, so it goes back to women seeing me as Superman. That nothing gets me down.”
“I don’t see you that way. Not at all. I know what goes on in the ER. I know what you see and go through daily. And maybe because I see the dirty side of it all, I can relate and understand how it can drive this tiny hole of despair inside of you wider with each case. Where you feel helpless even when you’re doing your best.”
“I thought Kristin knew that too. I get it, she was dealing with children and maybe that’s more heartbreaking.”
“A life is a life, regardless of the age.”
“That’s always been my thought. There were times it wasn’t even her words that I’d be fine with but her dismissive actions.”
“Like?”
“Like walking away from me when I tried to talk. Saying she had a bad day and turning it to her and needing a bubble bath. She’d end a conversation to turn it into her. I’d spent my life around brothers and a father who were hard on the outside. Hell, even my mother.”
She hadn’t realized that. “So you felt alone if you wanted or needed some form of comfort?”
“No. I didn’t feel alone in my family. Never think that. Ford, he’s tough, don’t get me wrong, but he’s got a heart of gold. He was always there to talk to. Gale too, when she wasn’t busting my ass. Ash, as adults I might see him more since he lives in Glens Falls, but still not often. He works nights too, his shiftschange and he has other jobs, but we try to meet up for lunch if we can. My father has always been there. My mother, she knows her kids well and she can be very nurturing and always has been, but as an adult, it’s hard to have those conversations with her. Or them.”
“I stopped talking to my parents about my marriage years ago. I didn’t want to hear their advice. Even if I needed it or should have listened. I thought I knew what I was doing. I was wrong.”
“How are they now?”
“Great. And I’m sorry. I just did what Kristin did, didn’t I? Turned that to me when you’re talking.”
He put his hand out and she slapped her palm into his, their fingers hanging on loosely. “It’s not the same thing and I asked.”
“But I want to know aboutyouand the last thing I want to happen is for you to shut it off.”
“I won’t. I got tired of being the support for Kristin and not getting it in return. It’s not that I can’t be there. And don’t get it in your head that I’m here for you and you’re not for me. That you’re some kind of burden because you absolutely aren’t.”
It had crossed her mind, but she wasn’t surprised he’d seen through it.
“I don’t. Or I’ll try not to.”
“Proof you’re not is this conversation right now. We are talking and you started it. You asked. She never asked. Never brought it up. The signs were there if I had a bad day and she pretended they weren’t.”
