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“Do you still have this friend?”
He thought about it, and I wondered if any of his friends did what Ava did to me. “I wasn’t sure for a bit, but I think I do.”
“You could talk to them if you wanted. About this. It doesn’t have to be me.”
“I want it to be,” he said.
“Then tell me. Even about the parts I messed up.”
“It’s not ... I don’t want you to feel worse than you already do.”
“I’m a big girl. I can handle when I screw up.”
He sighed. Was I going to have to pry more? But then hefinallyspoke. “That’s not the first time I’ve come home to someone beingverysick. Dad knew about his cancer before he told any of us. And I didn’t find out until I came home to find him passed out in his room.”
My breath hitched. “Levi, I?—”
“Just let me finish. If I don’t, I don’t know if I’ll ever say it.”
I nodded and gestured for him to continue.
“You didn’t know, but I can’t help but wonderwhyyou didn’t tell me. Or why Dad didn’t. I’ve spent my entire life wanting to fix things for people, and yet they never trust me. If I could take back everything I’ve done to start over, I would. Because obviously, I got it wrong somewhere.”
“Levi, no.” I leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “Even if you did start over, no one is perfect. We hurt each other and make a mess of things ... just like I did when I didn’t tell you about the migraines. I should have. A marriage is no place for secrets.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but I stopped him.
“It’s my turn to talk for a bit because there’s so much I need to say.” I took a shaky breath. “My choice had to do withme. My reasons for not telling you were my own insecurities. I felt like you wouldn’t want to do this once you knew, and I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“We can call it many things, but fine isn’t one of them. I fucked up and I own up to it, okay?”
“It’s not like I don’t understand your point of view. If I grew up with a family like yours ... I’d be in the same position.”
“It wasn’t all that bad,” I said.
Levi gave me a doubtful look. “Are you sure about that?”
“I had Gram,” I reminded him. “She’s the one who got me to the doctor. She took all of this very seriously and she wanted me to as well. Now that she’s gone ... I think I’m forgetting some of the lessons she wanted me to learn.”
“I understand. Dad was always on me for fixing things too much, and yet here I am.”
“We might need to remind ourselves.”
“We can be a team,” I said. “I can remind you if you do the same for me.”
“And that’s what you want? With me?”
Gram’s lessons were still fresh on my mind, and her biggest one was trust. She’d told me never to trust someone unless I was one hundred percent sure they wouldn’t hurt me.
And there were still things I needed to talk to Levi about. There were still questions.
But Iwantedthis.
“Yes,” I said. “Do you?”
“More than anything.”