Free Breaking by Claire Kent Page A

while. He draped an arm around her shoulders to pull her against
him, wanting her to know that he wasn’t going to withdraw anymore, although he
couldn’t think of a way to broach the subject.
    “So I’ve been
thinking,” Lori said at last.
    “About what?”
    “About what
happened. Is it all right for us to talk about it now?”
    “Yeah.”
    “This is what I
think happened. You just tell me if I’m wrong.”
    “Okay.” He was foolishly
relieved that she was going to articulate it first, since he couldn’t seem to
make his mind work at all.
    “It hurt you. A
lot. What happened to your dad, I mean. And it reminded you of who you used to
be. And then you tried to pretend that part of yourself didn’t exist. You tried
to act normally, but it wasn’t you completely—so it all ended up kind
of…twisted. Or something like that.”
    “Yeah,” he
admitted. “That’s pretty close.”
    “I really do
understand why it was so hard and twisted for you. But I don’t understand why
you thought you had to hide it from me. From me .”
    Her words weren’t
intended as a reproach, but there was a trace of hurt evident in her tone, and
it was like a blade to his chest.
    “I’m so sorry,
baby.” He tightened his arm around her. “There’s no good excuse. No rational
reason. I just…” It was so hard to admit, even now.
    “You just
what?”
    “I just didn’t
want you to see me so…so broken.”
    She put her
coffee down and reached out to hug him, burying her face in his chest. The move
threatened his coffee too, so he set down the mug so he could hold her.
    “I’ve got
things so good now,” he murmured against her hair. “I have everything I could ever
want. I shouldn’t be broken anymore.”
    She was crying
again—in tight, almost silent sobs. He had no idea what to say so he just
hugged her until she drew back.
     “I think
everyone is broken. In some way. It’s just part of being human. I mean, look at
me.”
    He frowned.
“What about you?”
    “I was starting
to get all insecure again because you were pulling away. I thought maybe you
didn’t want me anymore. So I started making up stories about how you were
feeling guilty about your feelings changing and that’s why you were working all
day and then having sex the way you were.”
    “ What ?”
     She squirmed.
“I know it’s silly.”
    “It’s
ludicrous! How could you possibly think I would ever fall out of love with
you?”
    “I didn’t
really. It was just that old insecurity showing its head—telling me that a man
as incredible as you could never be in love with plain old me forever.”
    He was almost
choking on his outrage. “Don’t you ever think anything so ridiculous again.
You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, and you’re the only one I ever will. You
understand, don’t you, that the world turns for me only because you’re in it.”
    She was tearing
up, but she blinked the emotion away. “Yeah. Me too. I mean, you’re the only
man I’ve ever loved.”
    “Good.”
    “Also the only
man I’ve ever had sex with.”
    “Good.”
    She slanted him
an almost teasing look. “There’s some kind of double standard going on here.”
    “Guilty.”
    She broke down
into half-giggles, half-sobs and threw herself onto his chest again.
    After a minute,
she recovered enough to continue from before. “Anyway, all that is kind of the point.
I think I’ve grown a lot, but I’m still that insecure little girl
sometimes—even if there’s no good reason for it. That’s what I meant before. Everyone
is kind of broken, so there’s not much sense in pretending you’re not with
someone who loves you.”
    “I know that.”
He swallowed hard and hoped she would understand. “I was…I was just wrong.”
    “Please don’t
hide from me again.”
    “I won’t.”
    Evidently, that
was enough for the time being. She reclined against the pillow again, nestling
against him. And Ander realized that he actually felt better. Not great.