Page 27 of What He Always Knew

Like that it was helping.

The first session had been the most difficult, my head hung between my shoulders as I wrung my hands together and confessed what a horrid husband I’d been to my wife since we lost our children.

It felt a little like the one and only time my father had dragged me to church with him, when I’d sat outside the confessional as he told the man inside it all of his transgressions. He’d been tasked with a handful of Hail Mary’s to absolve his sins, but I knew there was nothing I could do to ever make peace with mine. I only wanted to try — not for me, but for Charlie.

I wanted to be the man she deserved, though I’d never be the one who deserved her, in return.

Patrick had sent me away with homework after every session. Sometimes it was to write about a memory, something from my childhood, and other times it was answering a list of questions I’d never even thought to ask myself. One of them that stuck with me long after I’d let the pen drop on the page I wrote on was, “What do you love about your wife, and what do you think she loves about you?”

Answering the first half of that question was like adding one plus one together. Loving Charlie was effortless — it always had been.

Since the moment I met her, I knew she was unlike any other girl I’d known before her. The way her cheeks tinged when I held her hand, the way she smiled fully only to bite her lower lip like she wished she could take part of that smile back, like she was showing all her cards at once, the way her soft eyes searched mine every time she asked me a question, like she was hearing the answer I gave and also the one I didn’t at the same time — it was all part of what made Charlie the one and only girl I ever let inside my head.

Because I trusted her to see me, the real me, and not run away.

Those small truths were what had drawn me into Charlie, what had made me want her, but it was what I found after months of spending time with her that made me love her.

It was how intelligent she was, how she was always reading and learning, talking to others like they were more of a lesson than anything she could find in a classroom. It was how she cried for stray dogs and cheered for couples getting engaged at the park we used to walk in together, even when she had no idea who they were. It was how she held me the night I told her what happened with my father, and instead of saying she was sorry, she told me she was thankful to him.

Because everything that had happened in my life, whether good or bad, had somehow led me to her.

Then, she told me she loved me, and I knew my life would never be the same again.

My reasons for loving Charlie were endless, and each sentence I wrote about her brought me back to the fact that I couldnotlose her. But in order to keep her, I knew I had to dig deep, into a part of myself I never wanted to touch, or see, or letbeseen. That’s what I was doing with Patrick — even when it hurt.

The second part of that night’s homework had been impossible to answer.

I knew Charlie loved me. That was perhaps what I loved most about her, thewayshe loved me. The way she saw me, cared for me, understood me. But to answer the question ofwhyshe loved me, of what she loved about me — it was impossible.

Because I didn’t understand it. I never had.

I didn’t see anything inside me worth loving. I was an unwanted child, both by my mother who was killed and my father who killed her — even by my grandparents who were stuck with me after the murder. They cared for me, they loved me enough to put me in hockey and get me thinking about college, but even still, I knew I was something they never asked for. I was a burden.

I’d tried to love Charlie right.

Since the moment I realized I loved her and she loved me in return, I vowed to be everything she needed in life — and that was well before our wedding day. But I’d failed her, and for that reason, I couldn’t think of a single reason why she should love me.

But maybe, just maybe, I could change that.

“Are you hungry?” I asked when we were a little over an hour into our drive.

Charlie shook her head, gaze still fixed out the window. I wondered what she was thinking.

“I’m okay.”

I frowned. “Are you sure? We haven’t eaten dinner yet, and there’s a stop coming up that STRIPES!”

The word flew out of my mouth before I could stop it, and Charlie jumped a little before looking over at me with wide eyes.

“What?”

It had been habit, calling out the object marker sign as we passed by it. The yellow and black stripes slanted at an angle toward the road, indicating an obstruction, and I drove slightly to the left to avoid a small breakage in the road just before a bridge. Charlie still stared at me, and evenIwas surprised I’d called it, but I realized it may be the perfect opportunity to break through to her.

“You heard me,” I said, feigning confidence. I adjusted my hold on the wheel and turned to her with a wry smile. “Stripes. Whatcha taking off, first?”

Charlie’s mouth popped open, a mixture of emotions crossing over her features as she processed. She went from shocked, to confused, to marginally amused, and back to disbelief again.

“You’re kidding, right?” she said, leaning up in her seat.