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“I wish you could be Dad’s girlfriend,” Maya blurts without warning. My head jerks toward her, and I’m startled to see she’s on the verge of tears.
Shit.
I reach for a dish towel and dry my hands, scrambling to find the right words. “Your dad already has a girlfriend.”
“But if he didn’t, you could be his girlfriend, right?” Her chocolate eyes shimmer.
I kneel in front of her, taking her hands. “Maya, I adore you, and your dad and I are really good friends, but that’s all.”
“Don’t you think he’s good-looking?”
I smile up at her indignant expression. “He’s very good-looking,” I assure her. “But I don’t have many friends, and sometimes when people break up, there are too many hurt feelings for them to stay friends. I would never risk losing you and your dad. You both mean too much to me.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t break up,” she says hopefully.
I pause. How much do I tell an innocent child?
“I’m not good at relationships, Maya,” I confess. “I have a hard time letting people get close to me, and that creates problems.”
That’s as honest as I can be with a ten-year-old.
She studies me, her eyes serious. “Can we be close? You and me?”
I reach up and tug one of her curls. “Always,” I promise.
“No matter what?”
I nod soberly. “No matter what.”
She pulls her hands free and wraps her arms around my neck, and I hold her as tightly as she’s holding me.
It slices through me without warning, like a knife ripping through my heart, and suddenly I can’t breathe.
This is what I want, more than anything.
I want a house full of love and kids, of dogs the size of miniature ponies and three-legged cats who take offense at said dogs. Pasta dinners with messy faces and chocolate cupcakes and fallen noodles that rapidly disappear into a giant slobbery muzzle. Papers about fleeting beauty and science projects and last-minute bake sales. And a man who loves me, who doesn’t see me as broken, who doesn’t treat me like I’m broken.
Not this house or this man or this family, though I do love them.
No. I want one of my own.
And I don’t merely want a man who doesn’t see or treat me like I’m damaged. I don’t want to be damaged at all.
But I am.
Wishing I wasn’t a train wreck doesn’t change a damn thing. Those bastards destroyed any hope of a happily-ever-after for me.
The painful revelation of wanting something I can never have shatters my evening, and when Tom returns, I go home, feigning a headache, though my head is fine.
It’s my soul that’s in anguish.
MARK
Pain. Searing, godawful pain. My right leg. Both thighs. My chest. Everywhere, just differing levels of pain.
The pressure inside my head hurts the most. It feels like my brain’s going to explode.
Explode.
