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“I’m just gonna ask them later.”
“We’re both stressed,” I said. “And I haven’t even had coffee yet. Can’t this wait?”
“Fine,” she said. “You might be right. I can’t believe my car did that.”
“Was it acting up?”
“It overheated on the way to your wedding.”
“What?”The words came out high as I struggled to understand why she wouldn’t tell me.
“I didn’t want to worry you! It was fine after.”
“Obviously not!”
Emma frowned and crossed her arms. “You had enough on your plate, and you know Mom or Dad wouldn’t help.”
“But I don’t need you to handle that for me. Don’t you trust me?”
Silence rang out in the car. I wasn’t even surewhyI said it. Emma trusted me, but she still hid something from me.
And that was a pattern these days.
Emma wasn’t the only reason for my frustration, but it took her doing something similar to Levi for me to finally see why I’d been so short with him trying to help.
I wanted him to trust me.
While I’d never had that many people to care about me enough to solve my problems, I was realizing I didn’t want them to fix themfor me.I was capable, even with my disability. I’d lived alone and made it all of these years just fine.
I couldn’t deal with the stress or the anger of people hiding things from me, especially when they were doing it in my best interest. They didn’t get to decide what that was.
Only I did.
And now that I wasmarried,I knew I wanted this to be a partnership, not Levi swooping in to save me.
But this wasn’t a true partnership, was it?
We werefake married.
“Of course I do,” Emma said, bringing me out of my thoughts. “Why would I not? I just want to take care of you.”
“Don’t do it by hiding things from me. I swear, everyone treats me like I’m fragile?—”
“Who else does?”
“No one.” I said it too fast.
“Oh no, you can’t get on me about honesty and hide things too.”
“It’s payback for you hiding the car.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “Both you and Levi love to fix my problems and hide things. And it’s pissing me off.”
“I can see that,” Emma said. “And ... from my end, I just didn’t want to be another burden on you.”
“You’re not.”