Fearless In Love
Page 65

“No, Ari.” His heart broke for her. “That’s not true.”
“It is. At least”—she swallowed hard—“it always has been. Which is why instead of talking things through with you like a rational human being, I ran away.” She sucked in another breath, and it shook through her. “I should have been brave and stayed to face you. But I let my past take over again so that I immediately gave up all hope of a better future.”
How could he ever have thought she was too young, too naive? Ari had the wisest soul of anyone he’d ever known. Except maybe Susan. That was the highest compliment.
And he’d let his past take him over too. “Ari—”
She reached for him, finally putting her hand on his arm, the warmth of her touch filling him. “I’m not done yet.”
He shut his mouth.
“I made a mistake in not talking to you about taking off Noah’s training wheels…but I don’t want to be afraid you’ll freak out the next time I let Noah do something I think is perfectly reasonable.”
The next time? Did that mean she could forgive him?
Hope unfurled inside him. “I know how capable you are.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t today.”
“That was a mistake.” One he swore he’d never make again.
“What if I told you I think his water wings should come off too? And what if, the next time he wants to work with you at the stove or you get out your toolbox to fix something around the house, I say you should let him help?”
His gut reaction had always been to say no, and it was hard to bite the word back. “We can talk about all those things, and I promise that I’ll consider your advice without freaking out.” Wanting her to understand, he explained, “I can’t forget how small he was when he came into the world and the nurse put him in my arms.” It had been the best—and most overwhelming—moment of Matt’s life. “I could practically hold him in one hand. I was terrified I’d drop him. I didn’t know the first thing about babies, and when Irene took off because she didn’t know how to take care of a kid, what she forgot was that I didn’t know either. I never wanted to do the wrong thing.”
“I know you don’t,” Ari said. “But what if I push up against another boundary that I don’t know is there? I need to know more, Matt. I need you to let me in. All the way in.”
He stilled. The only sound in the room was the beating of his heart as she waited for him to actually figure out his shit. No one but the Mavericks knew how bad his past was, but Ari wasn’t only in the inner circle.
She was the very heart of it.
“When I was eight, I fell off my bike and broke my arm. My father told me I was a whiner, a weenie. And he refused to take me to the doctor.”
She gasped, as horrified for him as he’d been over her childhood. “How could he do that?”
“He was more afraid of having a sissy son than he was of my arm being broken—and my mother backed him up, like she always did.”
She folded her hand around his, holding him. “I’m so sorry.”
Her touch gave him the courage to tell her things he’d never revealed to another soul, not even Susan. But Ari needed to hear, so she could understand. So she could help him put the past behind him forever. “My father hated that I let other kids bully me.”
She squeezed his hand, her eyes watery with her pain for him, and with her anger. “You don’t let kids bully you. Sometimes you just can’t stop them.”
“He wanted to toughen me up so that I could fight them off. But even after my arm had healed, I still couldn’t do that. I came home with a black eye, and he was pissed.”
You effing weenie. When are you ever going to learn to stick up for yourself? How the hell did I get a son who’s such a puny little weakling?
“He said he’d teach me to defend myself even if it killed us both.” And it did kill something in Matt—not just his spirit, but his ability to trust. He spent years rebuilding himself, working hard to find faith in people again. He thought he had too, until today when he’d taken out all his fears on Ari just like his dad used to do. The only way he could make it up to her was with the whole truth. “He grabbed me by the hair, holding me up on my tiptoes. And he told me to punch him, to get myself loose.” He closed his eyes because he couldn’t get through the rest of his story if he looked at the horror in Ari’s gaze. “I kicked and flailed, screaming at him. But I couldn’t reach him. I didn’t realize I’d started crying until I couldn’t see him anymore through my tears.”
I raised an effing little baby. You good-for-nothing piece of shit.
For a long, long time, he had believed his father—every single word, until this very moment.
“My scalp was screaming by the time he let me go. Without me landing a single punch. And he called me the usual names.” The names were ingrained in his brain.
“Where was your mother this whole time? Didn’t she stop him?” Ari’s grip was tight with her distress.
He opened his eyes to the bleakness of hers. And it was all for him. Sympathy. Empathy. Her fierceness, all the things he’d wanted from the mother whose job it had been to protect him.
“She never stopped him. Not then, not ever. When he stormed out of the house, she handed me some tissues and told me to stop blubbering and clean myself up.”
You’re a mess. What would your friends think of you now?
Ari put a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“She said I’d never grow up to be a man if I was whining all the time.”
A tear trickled down Ari’s cheek. “How could anyone say that to their own child?”
He reached out with the tip of his finger to wipe the tear away. “How could a mother turn to drugs instead of looking out for her kid?”
He’d never felt the bond of their childhoods as intensely as he did now. They’d both been abandoned. And somehow they’d found each other.
“When my mother was dying,” he went on, “she said she was happy they’d made me who I was, that if they hadn’t told me to buck up against the bullies at school, I would still be a worthless sissy.”
Ari’s nostrils flared with indignation. “You made yourself.”
That was his Ari—always standing up for everyone else. And he prayed she’d be his again. His fearless warrior woman.