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“Obviously.”
“Are you expecting me to drink all of them tonight?”
“No. I got six because that’s how the ‘build your own six pack’ thing works at the store. You have to buy six.”
He could see that he’d embarrassed her a little for calling her out on buying special beer for him, so he backed off.
“So let’s hear your weird, awkward recovery story,” he prompted, changing the subject again, followed with another ambitious bite of his taco; the first one was almost history and so were his manners, apparently. “Lay it on me.”
“You really want to hear this?”
“Yes. Now quit stalling.”
“Okay, so … you know I was in therapy for almost two years,” she began. “I spent most of the first year talking with Lauren about everything I never wanted to talk about, then identifying triggers and working to dismantle them. I made a list of things that bothered me and almost every one of them was attributed to Carter.”
“Such as?”
“Such as my needing the lights to be off during sex and being self-conscious about undressing in front of you. Not liking to shower with you, flinching when you came up behind me … stuff like that.”
David barely had time to process any of that before she was speaking again.
“And the fact that I hated having my picture taken is probably because of Carter, too. It’s possible he took pictures of me.”
Seeing his tight expression, Paige quickly told him, “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting that you haven’t had months of therapy to deal with any of this.”
He decided this was the perfect time to slam back half his beer. When he had accomplished that, he said, “Even if I’d had months of therapy, I still think I’d be this angry. It feels like the kind of anger that’ll never go away.”
She gave him an understanding look. “I know how you feel. In the beginning, I had so much anger and there was nowhere to put it, so it just took up all this space inside of me. But, as time went by and I dealt with things, it diminished. What’s never really diminished for me, though, is the grief.”
“Grief?”
Paige nodded. “People that are abused talk about the two different versions of themselves. There’s the person they would’ve been if the abuse hadn’t happened and the person they became because it did happen,” she explained. “The grief you feel is for the loss of the person you were ‘supposed’ to be, because that person is, in effect, dead. Once you realize you’d have been a completely different person, with a completely different life, you mourn.”
“That makes sense,” David said slowly. “I never thought of that.”
“I spent a lot of time imagining what I’d have been like had everything with Carter not happened and what my life would be like. I pictured a parallel universe, where I was normal, you and I were happily married, and we had children.”
David’s chest tightened as he imagined that universe, too.
“But then it occurred to me that there was no guarantee we’d have been together in that parallel universe—I might’ve gone to a different college and we wouldn’t have met or fallen in love. And I didn’t like that possible version of my life without you in it. At all. So I quit thinking about how things could have been and accepted the way things had been. Because, when it came down to it, I decided I wouldn’t have given you up, even if it meant no Carter.”
He stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“I am. You don’t believe me?”
“I just find it hard to believe that you think I’m worth the trade-off.”
She tilted her head. “Would you give up Jacob if it meant no Ashley?”
“No,” he immediately answered.
“No, you wouldn’t, because your reward—Jacob—is worth any pain you experienced with Ashley. Just like my reward—you—was worth any pain I experienced with Carter.”
“But Ashley is no Carter.”
“No, she isn’t. But she didn’t treat you well. She lied to you, invaded your privacy, betrayed your trust, and she also might have gotten pregnant on purpose. She put her needs and wants above yours, fundamentally changing your life and hurting you in the process.”
“I see the comparison you’re trying to make, but it’s still apples to oranges, in my opinion.”
