Page 31 of Give Me a Reason
One whispered word was enough to break the spell.
The moment shattered around them, the jagged pieces falling at their feet.
He let his arms drop to his sides as he stepped away from her.
Not ready to face her yet, he hung his head low and took another step back.
Every step submerged him deeper into icy waters, and reason returned to him in a crushing wave of bewilderment. What the hell just happened?
He spun on his heels and walked into the living room, switching on the lights. After a hesitant pause, her steps tapped behind him. He slumped into an armchair and waved toward the sofa adjacent to it. When she sat down on the edge of the seat farthest from him, he wiped a hand down his face.
“I have no explanation for what just happened,” he said stiffly. “But it’ll never happen again.”
Her breath left her in a whoosh, but her expression remained placid. “I understand.”
“Do you?” he snapped, anger flaring in his gut.
“Yes.” Her voice broke. “I understand that you will never forgive me. I understand we will never be together again.”
Her words felt like a punch to his gut, and his throat worked to swallow without success. He cleared his throat instead and rasped, “That’s right.”
“Even so, you deserve to know the truth about why I went to Korea.” She rubbed her palms on her jean-clad thighs. “The whole truth.”
Distracted by the movement, it took him a moment to register what she’d said. His eyes shot back to her face. “The whole truth? That your imo thought I was a lowlife who didn’t deserve you? That you let her persuade you to leave me because you agreed with her?”
“Never,” she cried, shaking her head sharply. “Oh, Frederick. Did you really believe that for all these years? God, I wish… It doesn’t matter what I wish. What matters is that it’s not true. I never agreed with her. If anything, I thought you were too good for me. You were too good to be true.”
He turned away from the vulnerability in her eyes. He didn’t know how to feel about what she was saying. She thought I was too good for her? It couldn’t be true. But Anne wasn’t one to spew false flattery for her advantage. Besides, what had she to gain by telling him any of this? By coming here?
“My insecurities made me doubt”—her breath hitched—“our love. I was too afraid to believe that you loved me as much as I loved you. That you would keep loving me.”
“How could you…” He was too furious to continue. How could she have doubted he loved her? His love for her had consumed him. She had been his everything. He shoved his hand roughly through his hair, snapping a few strands. In the end, he could only say, “How could you?”
“I’m sorry.” Her bottom lip trembled, and she bit down on it for a moment before she continued. “I was wrong. But there’s more.”
He glared at her, daring her to continue and praying for her to stop. It hurt. All of this hurt. But she accepted his dare.
“My aunt convinced me to send in an audition tape for a role in a K-drama.” She took a shuddering breath.
“I listened to her, but only because I thought I would never get the role. You see, my… my father had made some bad investments, and we were about to lose our house. Tessa was still in high school, and Juliette was… Well, let’s just say my older sister isn’t the kind of person who would find a real job to support her family. So it fell on me to do something.”
His scowl turned into a frown as he listened. “But you did get the role.”
“Yes.” She looked down at her hands. “I told my aunt I couldn’t accept the role, because I found someone. I told her I was in love with you.”
He scoffed harshly, even though he knew it was true. She had loved him. Just not enough.
Anne flinched but soldiered on. “I told her I loved you and that I wouldn’t leave you.”
“Until you did.” He couldn’t stop the bitterness from creeping into his words. “Tell me this. How did she convince you to leave me?”
“She told me my father would never approve of someone like you.” She cringed as he exhaled through his teeth.
“That my mom, if she’d been alive, wouldn’t have approved of you either.
I told her I didn’t care. But then she said you couldn’t possibly be in love with me.
That a nineteen-year-old boy only had one thing on his mind.
That you were too young to even know what love is. I told her she was wrong.
“But I guess she succeeded in sowing a seed of doubt in me, and my insecurities took root and grew. Even so, I had no intention of leaving you,” she said hoarsely. “I held my ground until my aunt reminded me it was my mom’s dying wish that I keep my family together.
“My mom wanted me to take care of Tessa, who was only twelve when she died. As for my father and Juliette… she said they couldn’t help being who they were, and they needed me.
And that once she was gone, we would only have each other.
She made me promise to take care of our family. She said I was the only one who could.”
Frederick hated them all. Her father, her older sister, her younger sister, and even her dead mother.
Maybe he hated her mother most of all. How could she have placed such a huge burden on her daughter?
Anne had only been fifteen when her mother died.
Didn’t she realize her daughter would take her wish to heart and give her everything to keep her promise?
And she’d been living with that yoke around her neck for over fifteen years. Yes, he hated them all.
“I couldn’t turn my back on my family.” Anne sounded hollowed out, exhausted, and she had every right to be.
“I had no way of making the kind of money I would as an actress in Korea no matter how many jobs I got here. But I needed to make that kind of money to save our family home from foreclosure. It was the only way I could keep my promise to my mom.”
“Then…” He tasted salt at the back of his throat and sniffed sharply, looking away. “Then why wouldn’t you let me come with you?”
“I couldn’t let you throw away your college education when you’d worked so hard to get there.
” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “I was afraid you would start resenting me… stop loving me. But I was more afraid that you wouldn’t be able to come back to the life you deserved by the time you realized you didn’t want me anymore.
I convinced myself that leaving you—that ending things between us—was the best way I could love you. ”
“You wrecked me when you left me.” The words tore out of him, broke him open. Anne’s face crumpled, and she turned away from him. “No, you don’t get to look away. Look at me. ”
When she complied, he almost looked away from the heartbreak in her eyes.
But he took a shuddering breath and continued.
“You wrecked me. It took years of therapy for me to patch myself back together. To build a life for myself. But the scars never faded. I was never the same. I will never be the same. So believe me when I say leaving me was not the best way you could have loved me.”
“I didn’t know.” She held his eyes even though her whole body trembled, struggling to hold back tears. “Maybe I didn’t want to know. I wanted to believe I did the right thing.”
“You were wrong,” he rasped, his voice ravaged.
“I was wrong,” she said in a broken whisper.
“It wasn’t your decision to make.” He fisted his hands to stop them from shaking. “You had no right to break my heart to protect me. That wasn’t you loving me the best way you could. That was you protecting your own heart over mine.”
“I know.” More tears followed and rained steadily down her face. “I’m so sorry. But I need you to know… I didn’t give a damn about what my aunt thought of you. I knew she had it all wrong. I left and hurt you, but I never betrayed you in that way. I always believed in you.”
Frederick dug the heel of his hand into his chest, the ache unbearable. None of this should matter. It was all ancient history. Then why was his throat tight with unshed tears? Why did every muscle in his body want to give out with relief?
“My aunt’s prejudices are her own problem.” Anne’s face darkened with anger, but she let it go with an exhale. “Please don’t let it hurt you anymore, Frederick.”
He dragged the back of his hand across his eyes. “None of this matters anymore.”
“It does to me.” She wiped her cheeks with her hands, but her voice was strong and steady. “I’m not here to win you back. I’m here because you deserve to hear this. I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you.”
Frederick gave her a curt nod and glanced away.
I’m not here to win you back. If she knew she’d made a mistake—if she truly believed she’d been wrong—then why wasn’t she trying to win him back?
He shook away the treacherous thought. He was being an immature child.
Did he want her to try just so he could refuse her?
Because he would refuse her, wouldn’t he?
Anne got to her feet. While tears still stained her cheeks, she stood taller, as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. He was glad for her. Even though he couldn’t take away her other burdens, he was grateful that listening to her had helped her breathe easier.
He rose from his seat, feeling lighter himself. He needed time to process everything she had told him, but the old hurt and bitterness buried inside him stung a little less already.
“I won’t apologize for barging into your home on Christmas.” She held her chin up high. “But thank you for not kicking me out, and for giving me a chance to tell you the whole truth.”
He shrugged, then stretched his arm toward the hallway. “I’m kicking you out now.”
“As you should.” She smiled a little at that, making his heart beat unevenly, and walked toward the front door.
“I’m glad you told me.” He spoke to her back, following her from behind. Her shoulders tensed, but she didn’t stop walking. She didn’t turn around. He wouldn’t have been able to continue if she had. “I’m glad you came.”
Frederick reached around her and opened the door for her, his chest brushing against her shoulder. A shiver racked his body, and it felt as though Anne leaned back against him. But before he could be sure, she stepped onto the front porch. Her shoulders rose and fell before she turned to him.
She didn’t speak for a long moment, her gaze tracing the lines of his face with aching tenderness. He gripped the door handle hard to stop himself from pulling her into his arms again, because he was afraid she would let him.
“Merry Christmas, Frederick.”
“Merry Christmas, Anne,” he said, his voice low and husky. Her eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings as a blush stole into her cheeks. She looked so lovely that he gave his head a sharp shake. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Her lips spread into a slow, toe-curling smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes.
“Are you sure?” He grinned back at her like a fool, not caring that he wasn’t in on the joke. He wouldn’t mind being the punch line if she kept smiling like that.
“No.” She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, her teeth tugging on her bottom lip. God, he hoped he didn’t groan out loud. With a shy laugh, she said, “It’s nothing. Good night, Frederick.”
“Good night.”
Frederick stared down the street, long after she’d driven away without revealing her secret. He frowned. What brought that radiant smile to her lips? After everything he learned tonight, this was what was going to keep him up.
Everything I learned tonight… It was too much to process right now.
His heart felt as raw as an open wound, but Anne’s revelation—she’d left him believing it was the best way to love him—covered it in healing warmth.
It didn’t change the fact that she was wrong to leave him.
It was a senseless waste of the best thing that had ever happened to him… happened to them .
But she never thought he didn’t deserve her. That was good enough for him… for now. He had time to unpack the rest, slowly and carefully. Especially his tangled feelings for Anne.
Then it finally hit him.
“Anne.” He savored her name as it vibrated in his throat, pushed off his tongue, and took flight past his parted lips.
For the first time since she’d left him ten years ago, he’d called her by her name. That was why she’d blushed and smiled like a flower blossoming beneath the sun. And it made no sense, but it felt as though he’d somehow made her more real by voicing her name.
That Christmas night, Frederick fell asleep with a smile on his lips, having reclaimed a part of Anne.