Ugly Love(71)
Author: Colleen Hoover

Something happens. Something inside me. It’s as if his words have created an avalanche out of the glacier surrounding my heart. I feel chunks of hardened ice break off and fall next to all the other pieces that have detached since the moment I met Tate.

I step off the elevator and walk over to the empty chair next to Cap. He doesn’t even acknowledge my presence with eye contact. He’s staring across the lobby toward the exit.

“You just let her go,” he says, not even attempting to hide the disappointment in his voice.

I don’t respond.

He pushes on the arms of his chair with his hands, repositioning himself. “Some people … they grow wiser as they grow older. Unfortunately, most people just grow older.” He turns to face me. “You’re one of the ones just been growing older, because you are as stupid as you were the day you were born.”

Cap knows me well enough to know this is what had to happen. He’s known me all my life; having worked maintenance on my father’s apartment buildings since before I was born. Before that, he worked for my grandfather doing the same thing. This pretty much guarantees he knows more about me and my family than even I do. “It had to happen, Cap,” I say, excusing the fact that I let the only girl who has been able to reach me in more than six years just walk away.

“Had to happen, huh?” he grumbles.

As long as I’ve known him and as many nights as I’ve spent down here talking to him, he’s never once given me an opinion about the decisions I’ve made for myself. He knows the life I chose after Rachel. He spouts off tidbits of wisdom here and there but never his opinion. He’s listened to me vent about the situation with Tate for months, and he always sits quietly, patiently hearing me out, never giving me advice. That’s what I like about him.

I feel that’s all about to change.

“Before you give me a lecture, Cap,” I say, interrupting him before he has the chance to continue. “You know she’s better off.” I turn and face him. “You know she is.”

Cap chuckles, nodding his head. “That’s for damn sure.”

I look at him disbelievingly. Did he just agree with me?

“Are you saying I made the right choice?”

He’s quiet for a second before blowing out a quick breath. His expression contorts as if his thoughts aren’t something he necessarily wants to share. He relaxes into his chair and folds his arms loosely over his chest. “I told myself to never get involved in your problems, boy, because in order for a man to give advice, he’d better know what the hell he’s talkin’ about. And Lord knows in all my eighty years, I ain’t never been through nothing like what you went through. I don’t know the first thing about what that was like or what that did to you. Just thinking ’bout that night makes my gut hurt, so I know you feel it in your gut, too. And your heart. And your bones. And your soul.”

I close my eyes, wishing I could close my ears instead. I don’t want to hear this.

“None of the people in your life knows what it feels like to be you. Not me. Not your father. Not those friends of yours. Not even Tate. There’s only one person who feels what you feel. Only one person who hurts like you hurt. Only one other parent to that baby boy who misses him the same way you do.”

My eyes are closed tightly now, and I’m doing all I can to respect his end of the conversation, but it’s taking all I have not to get up and walk away. He has no right bringing Rachel into this conversation.

“Miles,” he says quietly. There’s determination in his voice, like he needs me to take him seriously. I always do. “You believe you took away that girl’s chance at happiness, and until you confront that past, you won’t ever move forward. You’re gonna be reliving that day every single day until the day you die, unless you go see for your own eyes that she’s okay. Then maybe you’ll see that it’s okay for you to be happy, too.”

I lean forward and run my hands over my face, then rest my elbows on my knees and look down. I watch as a single tear falls from my eye and drops to the floor beneath my feet. “And what happens if she’s not okay?” I whisper.

Cap leans forward and clasps his hands between his knees. I turn and look at him, seeing tears in his eyes for the first time in the twenty-four years I’ve known him. “Then I guess nothing changes. You can keep on feeling like you don’t deserve a life for ruining hers. You can keep on avoiding everything that might make you feel again.” He leans in toward me and lowers his voice. “I know the thought of confronting your past terrifies you. It terrifies every man. But sometimes we don’t do it for ourselves. We do it for the people we love more than ourselves.”

Chapter thirty-seven

RACHEL

“Brad!” I yell. “Someone’s at the door!” I grab a dish towel and dry my hands.

“Got it,” he says, passing through the kitchen. I take a quick inventory of the kitchen to make sure there isn’t anything my mother can insult. Counters are clean. Floors are clean.

Bring it on, Mom.

“Wait here,” Brad says to whoever is at the door.

Wait here?

Brad wouldn’t say that to my mother.

“Rachel,” Brad says from the kitchen entryway. I turn around to face him, and I immediately tense. The look on his face is one I rarely ever see. It’s reserved for preparation. When he’s about to tell me something I don’t want to hear or something he’s afraid will hurt me. My immediate thoughts fall to my mother, and I’m gripped with worry.

“Brad,” I whisper. “What is it?” I’m holding the counter next to me. The familiar fear washes over me that used to live and breathe inside me, but now it’s something that only grips me on occasion.

Like right now, when my husband is too afraid to tell me something he’s not sure I want to hear. “Someone’s here to see you,” he says.

I don’t know of anyone who could make Brad as concerned as he is right now. “Who?”