WE SPENT THE evening at Jude’s place after getting back from Moama. We were so fatigued from the long drive and drama that had taken place on the side of the highway, that we shared a frozen pizza then fell asleep cuddled up in front of the television. Jude woke me a little before midnight and we both trudged into the bedroom, stripping off our clothes and falling into bed, a tangle of limbs. There were some sweet kisses, but ultimately our heads fell asleep as soon as they hit the pillow.

“No.” The word burst from Jude’s mouth at about 3:00 a.m. jolting me from my sleep. I was surprised he was even able to dream after the exhaustion of the day before, but I supposed his troubles were also more prominent in his mind. During the rest of the drive home, I’d made it abundantly clear that I needed him to let me in sooner rather than later. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—abide secrets between us.

I’d already been through a relationship where secrets had caused us to waste so much precious time. Because of that, I didn’t have the patience I once did. I wanted reasons. I wanted conversations that tore our hearts wide open to show the colour of the blood that ran through us. And I wanted it now. I wanted it before my heart could get any further involved. I wanted it before my son grew any more attached. Because Jude wasn’t just dating me—he was dating us both. I couldn’t afford to be selfish where my son’s heart was concerned. I needed to be brave enough to force the issue, regardless of the consequences. If Jude’s secrets were too big to overcome, I needed to know sooner rather than later. No matter how much I liked him.

“Shit.” Jude sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, his head in his hands, breathing hard.

“Tell me what you dream about,” I whispered in the night, my voice cutting through the quiet of the room.

He turned with a start, as if he’d forgotten I was there. It seemed to take an age for him to respond. He was frozen in place, looking at me through the dark, his expression unreadable. Then he lay back down, exhaling slowly, and I knew he wasn’t going to fight me. He wanted this relationship as much as I did. I had no clear idea why he’d chosen me. But I knew I meant the world to him; that much was obvious in his actions.

“They’re different every time. But they’re also the same. I’ll be having a normal dream, something about my life—work, walking down the street, being with you. But then I see him moving in the shadows. I see the glint in his hand.”

“Your father?”

He shook his head. “My brother.”

“Rigby? What is he doing? Is he holding a knife?”

His head was shaking and I could see the glint of sweat on his brow. The night was warm but his skin was cool. “Scissors. He’s holding scissors. And I can’t stop him. I can never stop him.”

“What did he do?”

Sitting up, he ran his hands over his face, his back to me as he hunched forward, his elbows on his knees. “I lied to you, Sarah.”

My throat constricted. “About?”

“When we first started dating, I told you my father stayed in England.”

“The story about your stepmother bringing you here was a lie?”

He nodded. “Some of it is true. The circumstances are. But my father came here too. She’s Australian and was hoping that moving him here, away from his old life would help him with his drinking. But it only got worse. The violence got harder to manage. Rigby and I would do anything to stay out of his way.”

Sitting up, I slid across the bed and slipped my hands around his waist, my head resting on his back. “What happened, Jude?”

“The moment I turned eighteen he told me to move out. So, I got a job and I left for uni. And as guilty as I felt for leaving Rigby behind, I also felt this immense sense of relief to be outside that man’s reach. I had freedom and I ran with it. I convinced myself Rigby would be fine. He was fifteen and spent a lot of time with friends. He’d learned how to avoid our father’s aggression the same way I had, and over the years, his aggression had been solely focused on me. He never touched my sister, Marissa. I repeated these things to myself until that nagging voice of doubt settled, I even managed to convince myself he would be better with me gone; that I was the sole source of his anger. It was stupid and it was selfish. But I needed to believe that. Of course, I was wrong. Very, very wrong.”

My breathing stilled. I waited for what came next.

“I was gone for almost two years. The only times I went back home was on special occasions when Cherie insisted the whole family was together. Rigby was in the midst of his rebellious years. He was angry with me when I left, and he refused to speak to me when I returned. He’d sit and scowl and poor Cherie would be doing her best to keep the conversations going. My father, being the sociopath that he was, would talk to me as if nothing untoward had ever passed between us. It was always an uncomfortable experience, except of course for Marissa. She was like a little doll and so full of life. Big brown eyes and long wavy hair that she hadn’t cut save for a trim since the day she was born. By the time she was five she could sit on it. She was the only person Rigby would smile at, and the only person who ever had any fun at family gatherings.” He blew some air out of his nose then smiled. “She loved her hair.”

“What happened to her?” I whispered, feeling sick to my stomach. Hearing him tell it felt like a nightmare to my ears and a million different scenarios ran through my mind, all of them ending with a terrified little girl—or worse.

“He cut it off.”

“Your brother?”

“No. My father.” I didn’t understand.

“Why?”

“To punish her. I don’t even know what she did to set him off. She just called me one night, hysterical, crying about her hair and Rigby. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but I knew I had to get over there, that something terrible had happened. I tried to get a hold of Cherie, tried to call Rigby directly. But I didn’t get an answer from either of them. I was scared shitless on the way over, kicking myself the whole time because deep down I knew he’d hurt them. I knew he wouldn’t stop. I knew I should have done something, reported him, perhaps taken them with me. But no one would believe me; he was so damn nice in front of everyone else…” He paused, his breathing ragged. I wasn’t sure if he was going to go on.

“What happened, Jude?” Not knowing was killing me. I was terrified of what he was going to say, but at the same time, I needed to hear it.

“It was a blood bath. I walked in and Marissa threw herself at me. She had blood on her clothes and smudged over her face. Her hair had been cut off in clumps close to her skull and I thought the blood was hers. Then I looked past her and there was blood all over the floor.”

“Oh God.”

“When I asked her what happened, she said one word. She said ‘Rigby’. He was fiercely protective of her. Turned out he’d been doing for her what I did for him—getting in the middle to save her from the beatings. But, he’d been out with friends and when he got home, Cherie had been called into work and he walked in on our father wielding the scissors. So he did what he always did, he got in between them to protect Marissa.”

Please tell me he’s OK. I couldn’t speak.

“I found Rigby in the bathroom. He was sitting on the lid of the toilet rocking back and forth. He was covered in blood. The first thing he said was, ‘We need to get rid of the body.’ That’s when I saw our father.”

My mouth was open wide, my eyes bugging out of my head. He killed him?

“He was in the bathtub, wrapped in a shower curtain, a pair of scissors still shoved in his chest. Rigby started rambling about getting a saw and hiding the pieces. I was so overwhelmed that I pushed him out the way and lost the contents of my stomach. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had hated my father, but in a very complicated way, I loved him too, despite everything. I didn’t wish him dead.”

“Oh my God, Jude.” What could I say? I was shocked.

Twisting to face me, he met my eyes, his expression harrowed. “My brother killed my father, Sarah. Stabbed him. Twenty-eight times. I left and things got so bad that he threw his life away to make it stop.”

“You can’t feel responsible, surely?” Even as I said the words, I knew he felt responsible. He’d been his brother’s protector for years, so of course he felt responsible.

“Of course I do. My little brother is serving time in Long Bay Correctional Complex. He is ten years into a fifteen-year sentence. He’s been there since he was eighteen, locked up with the scum of the earth, all because I ran away the moment I had the chance. I didn’t take them with me, didn’t do anything to protect them. I could have forced someone to see my father for what he was, convinced my stepmother, the police, anyone. But I didn’t. I tucked my tail between my legs and ran. I left them in that hell and I will never forgive myself.”

“Oh Jude, how can you think that’s your fault? You aren’t responsible for anything another person does. I’m sure even your brother doesn’t blame you.”

“But he does. He blames me because I wasn’t there to stop him. He blames me because I called the police instead of helping him hide the body. He blames me because since that night, my sister still has night terrors. He blames me. And I can’t really fault him, because I know he’s right. If I hadn’t left. Or if I had found a way to make things right, none of it would have happened.”

“And your father would still be drinking and abusing people.”

“Maybe he’d have drank himself to death by now, at least that part of my lie would have been true.”

“Where was your stepmother while the abuse was going on?”

“Working. She was a nurse and while she knew about the drinking, she swears she had no idea about the abuse. He hid it well.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Not really. But I believe that she believes it. And I don’t hate her for it. She was messed up over it all too. In her own way, she was just trying to provide for us all and now she’s just trying to keep us all together.”

“Do you still see your brother?”

He nodded. “That’s where we were on Christmas Day. We sat in a room full of depressing people and waited for seven hours just to spend twenty minutes with him. He didn’t say a single word to me the whole time.”

My chest felt crushed, my stomach felt twisted, my heart bruised. How a man as peaceful and caring as Jude came from such a violent past—survived—I had no idea. The guilt and regret he carried must have felt like an unscaleable wall. But none of it was his fault.

I pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Jude. I’m sorry for how badly your life was turned upside down because your mother got sick. I’m sorry your father ruined a beautiful song, and I’m sorry your brother felt so trapped that he felt the need to end things so violently. And I’m sorry your sister is scared, and I’m sorry your stepmum didn’t steal you all away like she did in your story. I’m so incredibly sorry about everything that has happened to you. But none of it, not a single moment of it is your fault. You can’t go through the rest of your life blaming yourself and regretting actions you were probably too afraid to take.”

“Do you blame yourself for your role in Tyler’s death, even though you knew it was coming anyway?”

I sat back suddenly, the verbal bullet hitting hard. Tears sprang to my eyes as the memory of that night came flooding back to me. A tear streaked its way down my cheek and my stomach twisted tighter. “You know exactly how guilty I feel for what I did. How dare you use that information against me.”

“I'm not using it against you, Sarah. I'm using it so you understand where I’m coming from. It doesn't matter if you could realistically do something to change an outcome, because it's the ‘what ifs’ that kill you. It’s the ‘what ifs’ that cause the nightmares.”

Releasing my breath, I let his words sink in. I understood completely. Knowing that Tyler was going to die didn’t alleviate the guilt I felt for my part in helping him end things. Every time I heard of a new drug trial to treat MS I wondered if maybe he’d held on, maybe he would have survived long enough and one of those drugs would have helped him. The ‘what ifs’ would always haunt me.

“It still doesn’t make it your fault, Jude.”

“I know that. Logically, I know. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’ll blame myself forever because I know in my heart that my brother is right. I could have stopped it, could have saved them. But I chose to walk away instead. It’s what I always do. I’m a coward.”

I held his hand. “You’re not a coward, Jude. You’re good and you’re kind and you carry a lot of hurt inside you. Just because something makes you feel scared and powerless doesn’t make you a coward. It takes a lot of strength to accept things you can’t change. The fact that you were available the moment your sister called means that you didn’t just turn your back on them. She knew she could call you for help and you were there when they needed you. And your brother…he’s not angry with you, Jude. He’s angry at the situation and you’re simply the target. You were in an impossible position and you did the best you could. You have to make peace with your demons, just like I have to make peace with mine.”

We spent the final day of 2016 in Jude’s apartment locked in deep conversation. We’d gotten to a point in our dissection of Jude’s past that all his torn cards were placed on the table for us to inspect. He’d spent most of his adult life walking away from situations when things got too hard. He rarely fought for what he wanted, adopting instead, the persona of a pacifist to explain what he thought was a lack of backbone. It ruined his first marriage, a woman he was madly in love with, but who he never shared his past pain with. He was afraid the truth would drive her away, but instead, it was the quiet that sent her packing. Jude didn’t fight then either. He handed over everything they’d shared and started his life again having a string of relationships that were increasingly less involved. Eventually he settled for a sometimes relationship with a woman he used to work with. They used each other for physical satisfaction but did nothing outside of that. Then he met me.

“What was it about me that changed your mind about relationships?” We were still lying in his bed, having barely moved all day.

“You were sad that day we met. When you took me into your kitchen to fix my broken nose, I think I sensed your grief. In some way I guess I thought that if I could fix you, I could fix myself. Which was stupid, because we can’t fix people. We can only understand them and hope they want to fix themselves. I didn’t necessarily intend to start a relationship, but I was drawn to you. And now I find myself here, telling you everything there is to know about me and hoping what’s left of me is enough.”

“Why wouldn’t you be enough?”

“I may never be the love of your life, Sarah. I knew that from the start. But sometimes we don’t get our happily ever after with the person who was number one on our list. Sometimes they die, sometimes the stars simply don’t align to allow it, other times, we have it, then mess it up like I did. But we can still have something. It’ll be different, but it’ll be something great, something lasting, because we’ve learnt from our mistakes and grown as human beings. I think that together, we could be happy. If, of course, I’m enough for you.”

The picture Jude painted of himself was quite dark, pigmented with little colour. If you were to hang it in the entry of your home, it would be confronting to those who gazed upon it because it appeared bloody, raw and tortured. At the edges, though, there was light. The colours of the sunrise creeping in, providing hope that a new painting could form and attach itself to that one, creating a more colourful view of the man he could be.

I didn’t think of Jude as a coward. To me, he’d been nothing but stoic strength and support. I’d leaned on him. I’d used him to pull myself from my own cloud of suffering. He was clever. He was insightful. He made me laugh. He held me when I cried. He was the best man I knew. It was true that we’d both had great loves before we found each other. My first choice in love had been Tyler, and his had obviously been Anastasia, but that didn’t mean what we had wasn’t special in its own right. It was simply different.

I placed my hand on his chest. “You’re enough Jude. You’re more than enough. But I don’t want you to feel that what we have is a consolation prize. I think what we have is very special, and I don’t want to discolour it with a feeling of second best.”

He placed his hand over mine, winding our fingers together. “Second best?” He shook his head. “Never. But it is a second chance, one that I really want to get right this time. I honestly couldn’t think of a single person I’d rather be with right now, or in the future. I want you in my life, Sarah. I want both you and Ty to share my life with me.”

“I think I want that too,” I whispered. Then he smiled and lifted my hand to his lips, kissing just above my knuckles. “Enchanté,” I whispered, my mouth tilting up at the corners. It was possibly not the best time to make a joke, but it felt good to lighten the mood a little.

He laughed then placed his hands either side of my face and pulled my mouth to his, the weight of the intense conversation falling from our bones as his mouth moved with mine.

“How have I gone all my life not knowing you?” he asked, his voice a soft rumble as our foreheads touched. “You know exactly what to say to me, exactly what I need.”

“You said it yourself earlier; we weren’t ready. We both needed to fall in love with other people, get our hearts broken, then become these new versions of the people we used to be. Whatever this is that’s happening between us, it might not be some crazy all-consuming love, but it is something—it’s different, it’s wonderful. And it’s definitely enough.” More than enough.

A party nearby started shouting, their cheering voices seeping through the walls. It was almost midnight. We were ringing in a new year.

Yells and a distant popping of fireworks let us know that 2017 had arrived and we smiled.

“Happy new year,” Jude whispered against my mouth.

“Happy new year.”

We kissed as was custom, adding our own passion, losing ourselves in the hopeful moment. We’d spent the last day shedding the scales of our past. Now, we were lying beside each other in shiny new skin, our future looking so much brighter than before. We were ready. Ready to face it together.