Page 69 of Worth the Fall
“I know thatnow.” He craned his neck to one side, and it cracked. “But for years, I blamed myself for her dying.”
“Why?” I wondered.
Thomas was so logical all the time that blaming himself for something like that seemed out of character. But wasn’t that what love was like? All full of feelings and emotions while logic skipped out the back window.
“I felt like I should have seen it. That there must have been signs that I missed somehow. Like when she was overly tired, but we assumed it was the pregnancy. Or the headaches she always seemed to have. I just think when you love someone, you should know instinctively that they’re not okay. I should have known.” He swallowed hard, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing with the action.
His words were like knives. They hurt to absorb.
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself. And it’s unrealistic to assume that you’d know those kinds of things about another person. Being in love doesn’t suddenly turn you into a doctor.”
I wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but the topic wasn’t even remotely funny.
“I know. But my point is that I blamed myself for something out of my control. The same way that you do. You’re not responsible for how another person acts.”
He delivered his assumption about my guilt and blame so matter-of-factly that I felt cornered by it. A part of me wanted to claw my way out of the house, run far away, and never look back.
“They aren’t the same thing. Your situation is so much”—I searched for the appropriate word—“heavier than mine.”
He didn’t look at all convinced, but I could tell that he was about to placate me anyway. “Okay, sure. But the blame, that internal feeling, it’s the same. Regardless of the situation.”
So logical.
This man was filled with it. I watched as he shifted on the couch, removing the ice and putting it on the floor. It probably wasn’t even cold anymore.
“Can I ask you something?” His blue eyes were no longer stormy.
“I don’t think it would stop you if I said no.” I let out a little laugh.
“It wouldn’t.” He grinned in response, and I felt my shoulders relax, the instinct to flee dissipating. “Do you regret getting married?”
It was a question I hadn’t even asked myself yet, but the answer came to me so quickly that I didn’t even second-guess it. “No, I don’t regret it. I just wish that I hadn’t been so naive about it.”
“Why do you think you were naive? I’m not judging. I’m sincerely asking.”
I took my time formulating my thoughts so that they made sense. Or at least they did to me. “First of all, it’s a surreal thing when a guy says that he wants to marry you. All of your insecurities kind of go flying right out the window. Here’s this man, and he’s declaring that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you. Flaws and all. He knows all of your ugly parts, and he’s telling you that they’re okay. That you’re still lovable, even when you think you’re more imperfect than anything else.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever said any of those thoughts out loud before—at least not to anyone other than myself. Thomas looked a little awestruck, and I couldn’t believe that I’d admitted all of that to him. He stayed quiet, his blue eyes watching me, as if waiting for me to tell him more, so I did.
“I think I feel naive because it’s obvious that I romanticized the situation instead of seeing it clearly, you know? I figured that Eli would grow up, and once he did, certain things about him would change,” I answered, feeling foolish. “But people don’t change.”
I watched him swallow hard as he shifted his legs again.
“Not typically, but they can grow up. I don’t think it was naive of you to assume that he would at some point.”
“It feels that way. Like I knew exactly who I was getting when I married him, and then I suddenly expected someone totally different.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” he said, as if he knew my situation better than I did.
“Okay, fine. It might not have beensuddenly. But at some point, when I started having more success at work, I wanted him to want that, too, you know? I expected him to want the same things that I did. But he just wanted everything to stay the same. He liked his life how it was. He was comfortable.”
Thomas shook his head. “That’s not on you, Brooklyn. You weren’t naive. You matured. You evolved. The right man won’t sit there and watch you outgrow him. He’ll grow right along with you or at least try his best to.”
“He didn’t try at all,” I said, hoping he believed me.
“It sounds like he didn’t. Could you imagine staying with the wrong person for the rest of your life just because you’d made a vow to do it?”
My stomach curled and twisted. “No. That’s why I had to leave,” I said. “If I didn’t choose myself, I knew that no one ever would.”