Right Where I Want to Be Chapter 40

“My mom was successful. In killing herself, I mean. On the second try, after rehab for sixty days. It clearly didn't help the way it was meant to, but my father filed for divorce while she was in, and then she saw his engagement announcement in the papers when she got out.” He scrubs his hands over his face roughly.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Edward.”

“I found her again. It seemed I had that kind of luck, but I would never have wished that on my sister. This time it was a gun in the mouth.”

I feel the tears as they drip off my chin and onto my hands. I don't know what to say to him; there's nothing that would make it better.

“I’d gone off to college, and she went to rehab while Alice stayed with our aunt and uncle. I came home for Fall break, just a week or so after she called to say she was back. Alice chose to stay where she was instead of changing schools again. I think my mom just couldn't handle the abandonment,” he finishes in a very low, pained voice.

“You can't call it that, Edward. You went to college, like you were entitled to do. Your sister needed a guardian, she didn't abandon her either. Your dad is another story, mind you. He's a horrible person.”

“I've always hated him, and I've feared becoming him. That first night in your club—I’d tried a few in the area, but wasn't really impressed. I don't know exactly what I was looking for, I just know that I found it when I saw you. I think it's Alice you remind me of, not my mom. She’s strong but naïve. I just felt such a need to save you, and money is the only thing I understand.”

I stand and walk to him, sitting in his lap and wrapping my arms around him. He understands far more than money. He understands loss and pain.

“It’s okay, you know, to be vulnerable. It’s okay to miss her and to be sad.”

He strokes my back as I speak, and I feel his shoulder shaking under my cheek. I don't move from my spot, I merely hold him tighter as he cries. It's a wrenching sound, a grown man crying that hard. I wonder if he's held it in for all these years, if he ever grieved for his mother. It takes him a good while to quiet down again, and when he does, I climb off his lap and reheat our coffees. I stand in front of him with mine after setting his down, and he looks up at me with molten emerald eyes.

“I love you, Bella,” he whispers.

I give him a watery smile in return. “I think I can say the same and finally know that it's true.”