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If maybe I’d met another man, if maybe I’d done this kind of thing before, I wouldn’t be feeling this now. Because there’s no way I can afford to bring attraction into my relationship with him. He’s the single most important person in my life, and I just got him back.

He’s the only person in my life who cares about me, really. There are so many other people now who care about me by extension of him, and I can never, ever follow this tightening in my stomach down its natural path. I can never, ever let that grow into anything.

I’m horrified that I’m even thinking about it now.

I was young when he was taken away from me. But not so young I didn’t understand that I was beginning to think he was beautiful. That the love that I felt for him was beginning to turn into something all-encompassing. Something that wasn’t just family.

There wasn’t anything either of us could or would ever have done about it back then. We are adults now, though. And just allowing my thoughts to go there at all feels dangerous.

I start walking again, anything to put a little bit of distance between us. “Historically, I haven’t been the best. I feel like you should know that.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“I mean, people were mean to me in high school, but if I litigate that with any kind of honesty, my verdict is that I was the bitch. Because I never wanted anybody to befriend me so closely that they wanted to come to my house. I never wanted anyone to get so close to me that they might ask about my past. I’m over that.

I’ve started overcompensating by telling the people around me that I was a foster kid, and an abuse victim right at the start.

Even though I also hate wearing all that on my sleeve, the alternative has been that I live in a weird shame spiral I can’t seem to get out of, and then I can never get to know anyone.

I graduated from high school having literally never been invited to a party.

Having never made friends with anyone. I moved out of my mom’s house before I turned eighteen.

I moved out of Portland right after I graduated.

I moved to Wilsonville, and had a difficult time there. ”

“What did you do there?”

“I worked at an auto parts store. It wasn’t a great fit.

Men were always trying to get close to me, and I didn’t like that.

I quit shortly after I started. I moved to Sherwood and started working at a diner, so that’s what set me up on that path.

I decided to move to a smaller town to pay lower rent.

Ended up in Winston, then in Sisters about six months later.

I started doing school online, I started working at Daisy’s.

I’d managed to keep anyone from getting to know me too well.

I was just starting to change that when Chris showed up in Sisters. ”

“I have a hard time imagining that you were mean to anyone,” he says.

“I was. Especially in high school. I was. You said that you lost it after I left, but I didn’t fare much better.

I ran away from home once, but my mom made me too afraid to keep doing that.

Because the first time I got dragged back, her boyfriend hit me and then made it very clear that if I kept behaving like that, my mom wouldn’t protect me if he decided to do…

other things to me. And when men say things like that, I pay attention. ”

“Your mom is a monster,” Dallas says, looking at me with hard, blue eyes.

“I mean, I definitely could’ve made things easier for myself.”

“No,” he says, his voice uncompromising. “She’s a monster. Because not only did she fail to protect you, she used that failure to manipulate you later. She kept men around who were more than willing to hurt you, whether it was doing her bidding or not. You deserved better.”

“Thanks. I agree. It doesn’t change anything.”

I feel guilty about that the minute the words exit my mouth.

I’m showing him a little of my sharper side.

The ways that I’ve kept people distant from me, but I know he means well, it’s just that if I had a nickel for every time someone heard my story and said that things should’ve been different, I could’ve financed my college education by now.

Wishing that things were different, knowing that they should’ve been, doesn’t change anything.

I suppose it’s not fair. Because people freaking out when they hear what happened to me annoys me too.

People ignoring it. But then also the hyper-empathy, like they might cry hearing about my past irritates me too, and maybe the problem is me.

As far as being able to have friends, as far as being able to connect with anyone.

Maybe it’s still me.

“I know it doesn’t change anything,” he says, his voice low. “But you need to know it. Really know it. You need to feel like you deserved better.”

“Why. So, I can make it better? Like it’s my responsibility to fix all the bullshit?”

“No,” he says, reaching out and grabbing me by the chin.

All the breath rushes from my body. I can’t move.

I can’t think. I can’t do anything but stare into his blue eyes, warring with a feeling in my chest that’s too big for me to breathe past. A feeling that I wish I wasn’t having.

A feeling that I want to alchemize into anger, but I can’t.

Because he smells so good, and he’s just so beautiful.

And quite apart from anything else, he’s Dallas Dodge.

The one man who’s ever meant anything to me .

“It’s not because I think that you’re responsible for fixing anything.

It’s because I’m afraid that somewhere inside yourself, maybe you think you deserve it.

And when you tell me things like… How you weren’t nice to people, when you frame it that way, I worry that maybe you blame yourself for where you are.

You shouldn’t. I say it, because what I want you to know is how egregious it is.

We both deserved better. But God, you deserved so much more than what you got. ”

I take a deep breath and move away from him, swallowing hard, turning away.

Trying to minimize the feeling that’s making me shake.

“I appreciate that. I know that. There’s just no point going over any of it, okay?

There’s nothing I can do about it. It happened.

And I’m not excusing my behavior. Yeah. I’m traumatized.

A lot of people are traumatized. But I think it’s taken way too long for me to figure out what to do with that trauma.

I think it’s taken me way too long to try and figure out how to connect with people.

” What I don’t tell him is that I still can’t bear to be touched.

Even his mom hugging me earlier today bothered me.

I didn’t want to say it, I didn’t want to react, because I know the problem is me. But I feel like I’m frozen in time, stuck with all this baggage that I can’t do anything about.

I can feel as bad about it, or as angry about it as I want, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m the one who has to live with the consequences of all of this, and so I’m the one who has to just… Get over it.

But it’s a lot harder to do than it should be. That makes me angry. Because I wish–I really wish–that I could just make it go away. But it’s always there.

I turn away from him. It’s safer than standing there like that.

I don’t know which of us needs the safety.

Me or him. I don’t usually feel unpredictable.

I’m very boring, and very self-protective, but right now I feel shaky.

Right now, I feel like an unknown even to myself, and that has me frightened.

Terrified of what I might do to implode this gift that I’ve been given.

This new network, this new family with Dallas. With Gold Valley.

As we get into the truck and head back toward his house, I remind myself of exactly who he is. Who I am. And why it’s so important that I never forget.