10-17-2018, 12:32 PM
She watched, watched him break, watched him lash out and rage and knew all the while that once she would have felt something. Anything. Fear, or hurt for him, an aching in her chest where her heart used to be, anything. Probably once she would’ve been turned on by the violence in his eyes, and now she just...watched.
She should have known he’d fixate on Dov, that once she said his name it would be all he heard. She had no explanations for him, no words that would make her feelings make sense when he was right. He was the one who’d been there her whole life, who had been there for the girls their whole lives. If sense had factored into it, maybe she would have fallen for him instead.
But that wasn’t how it worked.
For the first time, he said out loud what they’d both been thinking since Zoe had opened her eyes for the first time. She was Dov’s. But she was his too, his in every other way. In every way that counted, maybe. Hell, she didn’t even know about Dov, didn’t know there was anyone else in her mom’s life. Because it hadn’t come up. Dizzy had meant to introduce them, if Dov ever wanted. If he was ever ready. But she’d only seen him the once, and so briefly, and she’d been so damn selfish, clinging to the first thing that had made her feel anything at all since the girls had been born.
He was hers. And she was his.
“So he’s the reason you can’t love your daughters?” No, that didn’t sound right, didn’t settle in her chest like truth, but she couldn’t explain it either. She’d broken things between the two of them when she fell for Dov, not...not between her and the girls. That, she didn’t understand, but--
“Maybe you are more like her than we thought.”
Oh. That...that almost hurt. She could feel it sinking in, somewhere deep inside where she could almost reach, could feel the way the words would echo in her head when they could fit again. Even numbed out, she could feel herself reeling a little from the blow. It was one thing to think it herself. Somehow it was another thing entirely to hear the words in his voice, coming from a mouth that had only ever praised her.
One little word, and he thought so little of her. “I would never,” she protested softly at his warning not to take her failure out on the girls. Not to let them see how broken she was. “I might be a shitty mom, but I would never hurt them like that.”
He dealt her another blow saying he could take loving her forever, like she was inflicting some kind of torture on him that he could deal with. But really, she was. How could she protest, when she knew she was killing him slowly just by existing? Their beautiful disaster, she hadn’t forgotten. Couldn’t forget, and couldn’t seem to change it. Had Mom cursed her with the name, or just recognized doom in tiny brown eyes, written in the clash and dissonance of black and white raging across her body, seeing the future in the curves and edges of her pattern?
She just nodded and let him go. What else was there to say?
She should have known he’d fixate on Dov, that once she said his name it would be all he heard. She had no explanations for him, no words that would make her feelings make sense when he was right. He was the one who’d been there her whole life, who had been there for the girls their whole lives. If sense had factored into it, maybe she would have fallen for him instead.
But that wasn’t how it worked.
For the first time, he said out loud what they’d both been thinking since Zoe had opened her eyes for the first time. She was Dov’s. But she was his too, his in every other way. In every way that counted, maybe. Hell, she didn’t even know about Dov, didn’t know there was anyone else in her mom’s life. Because it hadn’t come up. Dizzy had meant to introduce them, if Dov ever wanted. If he was ever ready. But she’d only seen him the once, and so briefly, and she’d been so damn selfish, clinging to the first thing that had made her feel anything at all since the girls had been born.
He was hers. And she was his.
“So he’s the reason you can’t love your daughters?” No, that didn’t sound right, didn’t settle in her chest like truth, but she couldn’t explain it either. She’d broken things between the two of them when she fell for Dov, not...not between her and the girls. That, she didn’t understand, but--
“Maybe you are more like her than we thought.”
Oh. That...that almost hurt. She could feel it sinking in, somewhere deep inside where she could almost reach, could feel the way the words would echo in her head when they could fit again. Even numbed out, she could feel herself reeling a little from the blow. It was one thing to think it herself. Somehow it was another thing entirely to hear the words in his voice, coming from a mouth that had only ever praised her.
One little word, and he thought so little of her. “I would never,” she protested softly at his warning not to take her failure out on the girls. Not to let them see how broken she was. “I might be a shitty mom, but I would never hurt them like that.”
He dealt her another blow saying he could take loving her forever, like she was inflicting some kind of torture on him that he could deal with. But really, she was. How could she protest, when she knew she was killing him slowly just by existing? Their beautiful disaster, she hadn’t forgotten. Couldn’t forget, and couldn’t seem to change it. Had Mom cursed her with the name, or just recognized doom in tiny brown eyes, written in the clash and dissonance of black and white raging across her body, seeing the future in the curves and edges of her pattern?
She just nodded and let him go. What else was there to say?