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I frowned. Why was he still holding on to that?
“Because I changed my mind about this,” he said. “I’m going.”
Stunned, I opened my mouth to let him know what I thought when he spoke again.
“Alone.”
I shut my mouth. That had been unexpected.
“You can depend on me, Chloe. Right now. Today. But I can see it isn’t something that comes naturally to you. But I think that will change, especially when you see I can depend on myself first. I’m going to MIT, and I’ll do it alone.”
He gave me an appraising look while I was still speechless.
“Chloe, I know I can’t live with you forever,” he said at last, interpreting my silence correctly. “And if you love Sean, you need to be with him, not me.”
I dragged my gaze up to his, my own eyes feeling heavy and pricking with tears.
“I can’t do what Dad did to you,” I whispered, my lower lip trembling. That was my worst nightmare.
He shook his head. “You leaving now isn’t the same as what Dad did. Dad left mere months after my accident. When I was thirteen. That’s not the case anymore. I’m twenty-three. We’re both adults now. Both of us need to move on.”
I looked at Henry, at his tight jaw.
“I don’t need you anymore, Chloe.”
His words felt like a dagger to my heart.
For a second, I thought it was all a mistake. Dad’s visit had messed with Henry’s mind.
I bit back the broken mix of emotions that filled my heart. Anger and frustration flared in me as I looked away.
Henry took my hand in his. The room fell silent for a moment, our emotions heavy in the air.
“Do you really need to be around me all the time, Chloe?” he choked out. “After the night you spent at Sean’s and when I lost my temper, couldn’t you have talked to me before you ended things with Sean? Couldn’t you have trusted that I’d be okay even if I lost my temper? My anger was at Dad’s sudden appearance and the secret you’d kept from me and not the fact that you were out of sight and away.”
I turned to him, feeling conflicted.
“Chloe, we were young when Mom passed away. That and Dad leaving—it changed my outlook on life. I can’t accept that we didn’t grow up to be a typical family. If I couldn’t have a stable family growing up, then I had nothing else to hold on to. So, every time you try to go away, I tried to hold on to you even more because I was uncertain if I’d lose you too.”
“Well, you have me, but I haven’t been happy lately,” I said when a sudden realization hit me.
I had been caught up in my desire to give Henry a perfect life, but I hadn’t considered if I’d filled my cup with love and attention.
I remembered, just then, as a kid, I had hated attention or being admired. It seemed like that hadn’t changed since I had grown up. My need to give others my attention always outweighed my desire to receive.
“You know, Chloe, I’m not the only one who had to deal with Dad’s absence. Dad abandoned the two of us, pushing you to take on the role of a caretaker. You act like his absence hasn’t hurt you, but it has. You’re hurt and broken, and Sean was the first man who could make you feel truly loved and happy. It was so clear from the happiness on your face in the past few months that he made you feel love and affection—something you’d been so starved for all these years. Something I couldn’t give you—not the way Sean has.”
Henry was right.
I was unhappy. I loved Sean, and I was fucking unhappy without him. How the hell had I walked away from him? The man I loved. The man who didn’t know I loved him.
I paused, swallowing hard. Going by how I’d told myself all these years that love shouldn’t matter and how hopeless I felt about Sean’s absence now, I was so wrong.
I had been unhappy at home a lot lately, even before Sean entered my life. And I had been aware of it way before I couldarticulate it. But that was nothing compared to how miserable I felt without Sean right now, and it had been only a month.
Was Sean unhappy too?
I had spent the past ten years trying to make sure Henry didn’t miss Dad for even a single second. I’d tried to be all that Henry needed—a mom, a dad, and a sibling—and it was exhausting.