I REMEMBER THE FIRST BIG project I completed as a kid. It was my first taste of real pride, and the first time I realized that feeling wasn’t going to come from fighting.
Mr. Passmore had come down with something and we only had the weekend to have the job completed. I worked two days straight, barely turning up to sleep in my own bed, and got the job done without saying anything to Passmore about it. He turned up Monday morning to his equipment loaded on the trailer and his customers satisfied.
Years later he told me that was the moment he decided he wanted his company to go to me when he couldn’t do it anymore. He had three children, a bit older than me, that had no interest in the family business other than to sell it to make a quick buck.
As the last equipment truck pulls from the driveway of the job, I feel a lot like I did that day, only this time it’s all for me.
And the first person I want to call is Lydia.
But instead I just stand and look at the largest building we’ve completed to date. Standing at nearly two-hundred feet with fourteen floors of office space, this building will be around for many years to come.
“I don’t know how, but you made it before the deadline,” the project manager, Lisa, says walking up beside me. “You’re going to be at the ribbon cutting, right?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t miss it.”
She extends her hand to me and I shake it. She extends a hand to Thorn as he walks up on her way out.
He and I share a moment of silence, looking up at our accomplishment. I spent so much time being big brother that it creeps up on me sometimes how proud I am of him. Thorn’s good at not involving his emotions in anything, but he’d be hard pressed to make me believe he isn’t as emotional as I am right now.
“I never had a doubt. Did you?”
“Shit, every day. But now I know we got this.” He slaps me on the back.
“Guess we better go get the little giant, huh?”
He looks at his cell, checking the time.
“Actually, you two are gonna have to go to the gym without me. I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”
The floor of Lydia’s apartment is quiet as I step off and make my way to her door. So caught up in my thoughts, and the relief that this job is complete, that I didn’t call on my way. I knock a couple of times and hear nothing until she’s opening the door.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she replies, moving to the side for me to enter. Her face is void of emotion although her lips carry a smile. I ease past her and make my way into the main room, hands in my pocket and watching her as she closes the door and makes her way back to the couch, picking up Liam, and grabbing the bottle from the coffee table.
“You okay?” I ask, sitting down beside her, reaching for Liam. She hesitates before looking back up at me with worried eyes, but handing him to me anyway.
“It’s been a long day. You’re here a little earlier than usual. How was yours?”
“Yeah, our job is complete. We just moved out our equipment and got everything cleaned up. I want you to come to the ribbon cutting ceremony.”
“You must be thrilled!” she says with joy that disappears as quickly as I see it. I get this uneasy feeling, like something’s not adding up. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make the ceremony, but we’ll play it by ear. When is it?”
“The week of St. Patrick’s Day, I think.” My words come out in a rush, done talking about this and wanting to find out what’s really going on. “Talk to me. What’s going on? Did you get some news at the hospital today?”
She fiddles with the bracelet on her arms, turning it in revolution after revolution. Finally, she looks up at me.
“They’re saying that Madison has made significant progress. Apparently, they are moving her into the next phase of her recovery, and are moving her home for the remainder of her rehabilitation.”
I tilt my head to the side, looking her over and a little confused. I would think that would be cause for celebration or a smile at the very least. But instead, she just looks defeated.
“You seem pretty heartbroken.”
Liam begins to squirm and fuss. Lydia reaches out to take him, holding him to her chest and patting his back softly. She may be scared and a million other different emotions, but she always looks like such a natural.
“I’m heartbroken because I feel like I’ve taken something so precious away from Madi. She’s always wanted babies. Helps me understand why she stayed, or why I think she stayed. But I can’t understand why she didn’t tell me before that night and now that she’s awake and getting better, I feel guilty for still wanting to know why.”
“Probably for the same reasons you can’t consider being with someone like me; judgment, persecution.” I didn’t even stop myself to think how my words will affect her, I just let them fly.
“I don’t see how that’s true or relevant.” She stands, pacing slowly and rocking Liam gently.
“Well, I’m sure she knew you were firm in your opinion of this guy and she found herself in a situation where she wasn’t ready to confide in you because of your opinion. Maybe she loved him, maybe she didn’t. And it’s relevant because of how Aston looked at me and how you had nothing to say. I didn’t bring it up because it didn’t bother me. But I think it did bother you.”
Her pace increases where she walks back and forth between the windows and the coffee table in front of me.
“Madi was aware of my dislike for Damon. She was too good for him and I told her that he’d end up hurting her if she didn’t get away from him. If anything, he probably wouldn’t let her get away. And I didn’t say anything last night because it wasn’t the time or the place, Stone.”
“What does that have to do with her being better than him? Apparently, she didn’t see it that way.”
“And that’s why she’s laying in a hospital bed, and I’m taking care of a baby she’s not around for. A baby whose father is about to face trial for the attempted murder of his mother, yet you question Damon’s level of significance?”
“No, I question why that matters to Madison, or better yet, you. There’s no denying this guy was and is a piece of shit of the lowest order. But what about him, prior to the assault itself, would’ve set him at a lower standard of social class in life? According to you, of course. And by the way, I didn’t want you to say anything to them, I wanted you to say something to me. I don’t know, put my fucking mind at ease, tell me I’m not alone in whatever the fuck this is.” I can’t tell you why we’ve decided to duke this out right here, right now. But we do. She stalls, looking out the window and warring with herself and the words that want to come. We both know this conversation just stopped being about them and became about us.
Her head snaps around and she glares at me.
“What do you want me to say, Stone? That I still feel like anyone capable of destroying someone with their bare hands is not to be trusted? That because of you I can’t trust myself anymore? That I’m angry my guard comes down so easily when I want it to remain?” She steps closer to me and I see the wet streaks down her cheeks that I couldn’t see before. Her pained eyes drill determined into mine. “That I’m scared to death what happened to her is happening to me?”
“I’ve never given you any reason not to trust me. You’re safe with me and you know it.”
“Am I?” she scoffs. “I’m sure in the months leading up to her almost losing her life, Madison thought that about Damon, too.”
In all the times we’ve had this conversation, never in-depth and always dancing around the real answers, I’ve never grasped what was really at the core of Lydia’s issue with the idea of us.
I get it now.
Painfully so.
I get that no matter what I do, I’ll never be the person she can see herself with. I get that until right now, I hadn’t even known that’s what I was hoping for. But it is. Something I didn’t even know I was holding on to was just ripped from my tenuous grasp and I could beg to have it back, but you can’t have something back that you never had in the first place.
I grab my coat from the back of the couch, looking up at her and trying to form words that express how I feel, or at least express my apology for ever making her doubt herself.
“I’m a lot of things I’m not proud of, but I’m not him. That part of my life is over.”
Her brow furrows and her fists clench at her side, but if I know her, it’s because she’s fighting herself, not me.
“Is that why you’re fighting for Joseph Cameron? Because you aren’t like Damon?” Her words cut, but I don’t bleed. I could go into some in-depth conversation with her, explain all the ways I’m not, but there’s only one thing I can think of to say that will get through to her. I walk to the door, turning the knob, but hesitating when I pull it open.
“You and I aren’t as different as you think, Lydia. We both fight for the same reasons.”