Chapter Sixteen
Liam was quiet, and Kayla couldn’t get over the inclination that something was wrong, no matter how much he protested that it wasn’t.
He wasn’t exactly an effusive guy, but he was always relaxed with her. In a way she’d begun to notice was special. Even when he smiled and talked happily with a customer at the farmers’ market, he didn’t . . .
She didn’t know the word for it exactly. It was just, she understood why she’d always seen him as sort of hard and standoffish before she’d gotten to know him. There was a kind of wall he kept up between himself and people even when he was helping them.
But he didn’t have that with her. Or he hadn’t lately, but tonight, it was definitely there. It bothered her and it worried her, but she also didn’t want to nag him constantly. Maybe he needed some space to worry about his father’s surgery alone. She just wished he’d tell her that.
She could ask him, and maybe she would, but . . . she wanted it to come from him. She wanted him to take that step to laying his problems at her feet without her having to pull them out of him.
Would that ever happen?
With that depressing thought making her gut twist, she cleared the table, taking the dishes to the kitchen sink. She took a deep breath and tried to get her head on straight. Liam had a lot on his mind with his father’s surgery tomorrow. She had to cut him some slack.
This new leaf wasn’t just about barging through life and getting whatever she wanted because she’d once hid in the corners and not gone after anything. It was about balance. Love was about balance.
“I hope you know how much I appreciate this,” Liam said, coming up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist.
It was amazing that something as simple as a hug and appreciation could wipe all that worry and confusion away. She smiled over her shoulder at him. “I know.”
“And how do you know that?” he asked, leaning forward enough to rest his chin on her shoulder.
She turned in the circle of his arms, wrapping hers around his neck. “You’ve shown your appreciation in a great many creative ways.” She rubbed one hand across his beard and some of that ache was back. She’d spent an entire dinner pretending there wasn’t this heavy weight on his shoulders, and she didn’t think she could move on to sex knowing it was there. If he begged her off, she’d let him, but maybe what Liam really needed was someone to ask. “What’s bothering you?”
He blew out a breath. “Can’t get anything by you.”
“I hope that always continues. Now, tell me.”
“So bossy.” But his smile quickly died. “I, um, went to . . . visit my mom.”
Kayla did her best not to react unfavorably. Based on what she’d gleaned from Liam, and knowing Mr. Patrick even if only as Gallagher’s handyman, she had a theory that Liam’s mother was the center of a lot of his . . . hangups. But Mr. Patrick was having surgery tomorrow, and Kayla should be kind. “Is she upset about tomorrow?”
“I thought so. I mean, she is. But she’s, um, worried about Aiden.”
Kayla didn’t want to butt in about family stuff. She really didn’t. When it came to Liam misguidedly putting himself last, well, she’d said a few things, but when it came to actual relationships, she didn’t want to start nosing into things that didn’t really have anything to do with her.
But it was hard to bite her tongue. It irked her on every level that there seemed to be an odd kind of favoritism toward Aiden, and though she didn’t have any siblings, she knew what it was like to be overlooked.
Grandmother had always focused everything on Dinah, and Kayla had tried to contort herself into a million little obedient pieces to get noticed, to feel loved. It had never happened.
Liam didn’t do the same thing, but it was for the same reasons, but he didn’t see it. Was it her job to help him see it? Could it be?
“She thinks Aiden is maybe getting into drugs now. She’s afraid he’s going to hurt himself.”
“It sounds like he needs professional help,” Kayla returned as blandly as she could manage.
“He does, and I suggested it, but . . . Aiden’s not particularly apt to take a suggestion. Mom thinks . . . Well, she thinks if we can get him a little more even-keeled he’d listen. She asked for my help.”
This time Kayla really did bite her tongue and she stepped away, no matter how much she knew he’d read into that. Aiden’s issues were so completely not her place, but she didn’t like how everyone seemed to insist Liam could fix Aiden if only Liam tried.
“I know you feel responsible for Aiden, for your family, and I understand that,” she said as carefully as she could. “But you are not a mental health professional, Liam, and if Aiden really is that bad off, that’s what he needs.”
“I know. I know. But, see, he’s got this idea in his head that he’s unhappy because . . .”
Liam looked meaningfully at her and Kayla couldn’t help it. She rolled her eyes. “Because of me?”
“Well, us.”
She laughed. Meanly. She shouldn’t have, she knew it, but this was so utterly ridiculous. “So you have something he doesn’t, and he does drugs and hurts himself? I don’t think so, Liam. That sounds like a very convenient excuse.”
“Maybe it is, Kay. I get that. It’s not like I don’t get that he’s fixated on something that has nothing to do with him for all the wrong reasons, but he’s going to keep being that way until we can get him some help.”
Liam looked so sad, and it poked at her that she wasn’t being more sympathetic. He wanted to help the people he loved, and was that really so awful? “What can I do?”
He took a deep breath, because clearly Liam had some plan and he wanted her help, and maybe if she helped . . . Well, she had nothing against Aiden. She didn’t think he was a very good brother, but maybe he did need help, and if she could do that . . . Well, it would make Liam happy, and wasn’t that what she really wanted?
“If Aiden thinks we’re not together, it might calm him down enough for us to convince him to seek some professional help. Just for a little while. We’d stay apart, but we can still talk. It’d just be like . . . a long-distance relationship. For a little while. Until we can convince him to get some help.”
It was a blow. Kayla had always known words could hurt, could knock you back a few paces, but this . . . She had to blink at the sudden stinging in her eyes, swallow at the nauseating roll of her stomach. “You want to pretend like we broke up, and basically act like we broke up. Actually be apart.” She didn’t bother to keep the hurt out of her voice. This hurt.
“Just for a little bit.” He stepped toward her but she moved away and shook her head and he stopped.
“How long?” she demanded.
“What? I don’t . . .”
“A week? A month? A year?”
“It wouldn’t be a year.”
She shook her head, hugging herself tighter. “But maybe a few months?”
“I can’t predict . . . I know it seems harsh, but if he’s really threatening to hurt himself... My dad is having surgery tomorrow. And if it doesn’t work . . . My family is barely holding on right now, okay? I need to do what I can.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?”
He blinked, whether surprised by the sharpness of her tone or surprised he didn’t have a good answer for that, she didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t care.
“Of course I believe that,” he said, his voice rough and baffled. “Look, maybe you don’t understand because you don’t have a close-knit family, but—”
“Close-knit my ass, Liam. You have a family who treats you like dirt, and news flash, no amount of fixing things is going to change that.” It was harsh, and too much, but she was just so angry and hurt and...
How could he think this was okay? How could he think it was his duty to fix a jackass who blamed his own brother’s happiness for his problems?
She’d spent her life reining in her temper and trying to keep people from seeing her hurt, but she was done with that. She wasn’t going to be the sacrifice Liam made for his family, even if that meant she had to walk away.
* * *
Liam was frozen. Kayla’s words hurt, but in a way he couldn’t have predicted. Like some kind of truth cutting its way down to his very soul.
Except it was bullshit. Of course his family cared, and they didn’t treat him like dirt. She was witnessing an extreme case, but it hadn’t always been like this, and it wouldn’t always be.
If they got Aiden help things would be different. He had to believe that. “I’m not explaining this right, clearly.”
“Or you could consider the possibility that you’re just wrong.”
She was standing there, her eyes shiny with tears, and he knew she didn’t understand, because if she understood, she wouldn’t be hurt like this. And that was on him, her hurt. He’d messed this up, but he could fix it. He just had to find the right combination of words and he could fix it.
“Okay, how about this?” She swallowed, still hugging herself so tight. He should be the one hugging her. But she wouldn’t let him. “Take a second to imagine years down the road. Let’s say we got married. Maybe even had kids.”
Every word she said felt like a dagger. This even more so than what had come before because it was all too easy to picture. A future with Kayla. A family of his own. Something he’d never spent much time thinking about.
He didn’t think about the future. There always seemed to be so many problems in the here and now to fix, he never thought about what might come next.
“Then let’s say, suddenly Aiden decides your life is better and he’s going to harm himself because of it. I’m supposed to believe you’d stick around that time when you’re not sticking around this time?”
“Don’t insult me like that. I would never . . .” Why was she talking about a future when they had to get through the present first?
“But now is different because . . . Why, exactly? You said you loved me. So why should I think anything would change? He’ll always come first.”
“There’s no hierarchy, Kay. You don’t seem to understand how grave this situation is.”
“No, Liam. I do. I don’t expect it to be easy, and I know life isn’t fair. But I know, I know, at some point you have to choose. Because you can’t keep fixing everyone. Especially when they very purposefully don’t want you to fix them. He wants to punish you. He wants to manipulate you, because he can.”
“He’s my brother.” It was the only thing Liam could think to say. How did you walk away from helping your own family? It wasn’t like he was suggesting they actually break up. He wasn’t choosing Aiden over her. He was just . . . rearranging things until they could maneuver Aiden into some help.
Was that really so much to ask?
“He’s his own fucked-up person,” Kayla replied, and a tear slipped over her cheek, practically killing him where he stood. “You can’t make him not that, and trust me—because been there, done that—your mom won’t magically love you more if you do what she wants.”
She kept saying shit like that and he didn’t know how to argue with it. But he had to find a way because she was wrong. She didn’t see it the way he did. How could she?
“This isn’t some warped crusade to get my mother’s love or approval. I have that. I’m sorry you don’t, but we’re not the same.”
She laughed, that same nasty laugh from earlier. Nothing sweet or soothing as her laugh normally was.
“Okay, we’re not the same. Then I guess you’ve never done something in the hopes it would get noticed or earn you a pat on the back or a good job. You’ve never gotten so used to doing what they want you to do, you don’t even know what you want to do.”
“I know what I want to do,” he ground out.
“Fix everything?”
She said it so condescendingly, and it grated. He’d never been anything but honest and straightforward with her. He’d never hidden those fixer impulses. He wasn’t suddenly showing his true colors. He’d been this all along.
“This isn’t exactly what I expected from my girlfriend the night before my father’s surgery.”
“Well, it’s not really what I expected either since we aren’t talking about your father. We’re talking about your brother.”
“It all connects, Kayla. It’s my family.”
She inhaled deeply, and some of that harshness on her face left, but he didn’t like what was left any better. It was all soft hurt and more tears.
“I get it. I do. You don’t want to think we’re alike, but I understand this, Liam. You don’t want to admit what they’re doing to you because it feels good to help. You feel valuable.” She stepped forward and touched him for the first time since this conversation had gone horribly wrong. She looked up at him imploringly. “I value you, and I don’t expect you to fix me in return. I love you, and that means I want you to be happy—it makes me happy. Yeah, maybe Aiden needs some help. Maybe he’s not in the best place, but if you losing is the only thing that makes him even receptive to getting help, that isn’t love and it isn’t family, not one worth sacrificing for.”
“I think that’s easy for you to say.” He didn’t know why those words came out. He knew she was trying to help. He knew she didn’t mean her words to cause this river of pain to flow through him. But everything she said felt too close to right.
But if she was right, who the hell was he? What kind of life was he living. She just didn’t understand.
Her hand dropped from his chest and she stepped away, crossing her arms over her chest. Her expression was hard again, furious. And that poked at his own fury he was desperately trying to leash.
“Easy, huh?”
“Yeah, I think it’s pretty damn easy to judge my family’s treatment of me when you just ran away from yours instead of standing up to them or trying to understand them. Maybe I should be worried about future Kayla. Maybe when you’re unhappy, when you’re feeling like you’re decoration, of your own damn doing, you’ll run away.”
She inhaled sharply and there was a moment of clear, unfiltered pain on her face. She didn’t even bother to hide it. She didn’t look away. She didn’t straighten her shoulders. She stared right at him looking wrecked.
“Well, I’m glad I see what you really think of me.”
“We’re both angry and saying things we don’t—”
“I meant every word I said, so don’t bother to try and fix this too, Liam. You made your choice, and it’s time for me to make mine. I’d like you to leave.”
He took a step toward her, apologies on his lips. He didn’t want to leave. This had gotten completely out of hand, and if she let him . . . If she gave him some time he could make sense of this. He could fix this.
“Now,” she said firmly, stalking toward the door. “I have nothing left to say to you.” She wrenched it open and pointed.
He took a deep breath, trying to calm the panic beating through him. The panic wouldn’t help. He needed to be calm and rational and he’d work this out. “I’ll go because you’ve told me to, but I don’t consider this over.”
She lifted her chin and looked him right in the eye as he stepped into the hallway. “Well, I do. And congratulations. Aiden got exactly what he wanted.” She slammed the door in his face before he could respond to that.
Not that he could. He had no words. He didn’t understand any of this. All he felt was numb.
And very, very alone.