Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Oh God. The plants from the Kims’ garden. The ones she’d nourished and cared for after they’d left.
Not her children. A representation of the only stability she’d ever known. Before it, too, went away.
Just like everything and everyone that had ever meant anything to her. Whether they’d earned it or not.
I couldn’t breathe.
Haven Torres had been hurt and abandoned by the people who were supposed to care for and protect her. All her life. But instead of lashing out at others, she’d sought to be a protector, a rescuer. She’d remained good and loving despite all that she’d endured.
Unlike me, who’d turned my pain in the opposite direction.
I knew what it was like to lose someone a part of you wished you could hate. I had turned that hate outward. But Haven had found a way to love around it. And it was honorable and brave and beautiful. But I knew better than anyone that it was still there, inside, that ball of complex emotion that festered and hurt.
And so she’d run.
She’d cared for others, even to her own detriment. And she’d given every last ounce she had to give until she couldn’t do it anymore. And even then, her loving spirit demanded that she rescue something, and so she’d rescued plants.
She was a goddamn miracle.
How could I demand more? If I truly cared for her, and I did—God, I did—then I could not ask for more than she was willing to give. If I cared for her, I could not manipulate or plot or try to control the way I’d always done.
That was my fallback. Always. Manipulate. Position myself. And when I took a moment to consider this, I knew why. It was familiar and it made me feel artificially powerful because I was doing something to attempt to lessen my hurt. My feelings of being less than. Second best.
Grasp. Hold. Attain for myself what no one else would give me because I wasn’t worth the effort.
And it’d brought nothing but unhappiness. Loneliness. Even when a crowd of people surrounded me.
I shut my eyes, pain winding through me at the mere idea of just…letting go.
For her.
The way I’d done with Archer and that amendment but harder. Infinitely harder.
The lessons just kept on coming, didn’t they?
Life testing whether I’d truly gotten it.
Archer’s words came back to me. She made me braver and stronger. Because of her, I wanted to be the best version of myself. And that, I think, is what love does, if it’s really love.
The best version of myself wouldn’t try to force Haven to choose me. The best version of myself would let her keep her fear because, for now at least, she needed it. It was helping her survive, and only she got to decide when to let it go.
Bree had given Archer the time he needed to overcome his fear once upon a time. And I’d give Haven hers. Despite that it killed me.
I wouldn’t plot. Not with Archer, and not with her. Not with anyone. I’d made my case. I’d bared my heart and it was all I could do. All I should do. I laced my fingers, clenching my joined hands, because I’d thought it earlier, and I thought it now: old habits died hard.
My eyes remained fixed on the kid in front of me. He carried things too. And he was all she had. Whatever his reasons, he’d turned his pain outward.
I was no better, and probably worse.
“Go to bed, Easton,” I said, my voice thick. “You’re probably going to have a hangover in the morning.”
“Yeah.” He ran his hand through his hair again and pulled himself to his feet. He stumbled toward the doorway, stopping and turning his head back toward me. “Good night, Chief Hale.”
“Good night.”
I sat there for a few more minutes, letting the suffering wash through me, over me. And then I stood, making my way to my room and packing hastily. I left the key on the dresser and then I exited, looking down the hall at Haven’s closed door, longing to go to her but resisting.
I walked quietly down the stairs, stopping only to write a brief note to Betty before I left.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Haven
My eyes cracked open, light seeping through the edges of the blinds. I was surprised I’d slept at all. I had been sure sleep would be virtually impossible, that I’d stare at the ceiling, the picture of Travis’s face front and center in my mind, the way he’d looked so broken as I’d turned and walked away.
My rib cage felt hollow, empty. I sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
Have you considered that you really have no feelings for Gage and that’s why he’s safe?
I sighed, my shoulders sagging.
Have you considered that you’re using him to keep me emotionally at arm’s length?